By Larry Stillman

I’d like to argue the moral case for supporting a selective boycott of products from the Occupied West Bank. I take the view that it is illegally held territory in which its prior and current non-Jewish inhabitants (Palestinians, whatever their citizenship) live under a form of military rule and control system which completely privileges Jewish settlers and Israeli businesses and abuses human rights.

There are a number of ways to approach the problem of the occupation and the denial of the right of self-determination from a moral point of view.

This first is a universal human rights approach, reflected in UN principles and international law which is opposed to such things as military occupation or land seizures, of the denial of affective legal remedies against oppression, and second, from the position within the Jewish tradition.

Second, the Jewish social justice view can be summarized as the principle of Tikkun Olam derived from the Mishnah, which is the struggle to repair or install righteousness in the world, as well inspirational mottos like “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof” (Justice, Justice you shall persue”, Devarim 16:20). This also relates to the concept of ethical mitzvot, for both religious and non-religious Jews alike; obligations to make the world a better place, including challenging authority, which traditional Judaism appears reluctant to do. Unfortunately, this tradition barely exists in Australia, with attempts to stomp out dissent on issues relating to Israel going back many decades.

In the US, where I lived for many years, there is a tradition of speaking out and being pro-active for the greater good by rabbis and ordinary people alike, because sometimes, speaking out, even in a symbolic way brings about change. Here are some examples of people (sorry, all middle-aged men) who have supported dissent, including boycotts:

• Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, has written for many years about the need to combine a inclusive spiritual dimension into both everyday life and social justice from an inclusive approach. His first major book, Surplus Powerlessness (1986), had a strong influence on my own thinking about contemporary forms of social justice at that time.
• Rabbi Samuel Korff of the Boston Beit Din developed halachic rulings to support boycotts to support the rights of underpaid farm workers in the 1960s and 1970s.  He was also responsible for the denunciation of Jewish slumlords in Boston.
• Rabbi Joshua Heschel, who is revered by many Christians and Jews in the US his activity in the Civil Rights movement in the US, was close to Martin Luther King, and he supported the boycott movement of segregated facilities in the South, along with many other Jews. He also opposed the war in Vietnam.
• More recently, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center, has supported the establishment of a Mosque at ‘Ground Zero’ in New York, and he has also taken a strong stand on Israeli politics.  Waskow has been active in the Reconstructionist movement for decades.
• Saul Alinksy, who came from an Orthodox background, developed powerful and highly influential organizing techniques including non-violent grass-roots community action and boycotts.
• Other American Jews have been active in many other causes including the labour movement and anti-racism movement.

Returning to the current excoriation of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society for suggesting the most modest form of boycott—against products from the West Bank. I suggest that people in AJDS who are supporting a limited boycott are coming out of the moral position and tradition I have outlined and are no one’s stooges, nor exploitable by extremists.

AJDS has been dumped in with the ‘deligitimizers’ by the so-called official leadership even though AJDS has indicated its disagreement with many elements of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign and the positions it takes within the Green Line. Thus, those who have seen the countless of posts by me in Facebook of late know that I have been vigilant in attacking anti-Israel extremists, whose views are Judeophobic, and AJDS on its website and elsewhere, has clearly distanced itself from extreme positions.

I do not endorse a BDS position that crudely blocks economic, social and cultural exchange between Israel and the rest of the world.  Tactically, the BDS is engaging in erroneous tactics, creating a gulf with the Jewish community. The position that AJDS supports is a far cry from some of the rhetoric and actions taken (not always with the nicest of motives) by the BDS Movement, including a number other Jewish organizations that support a full boycott.  I hope that supporters of BDS ask us why we have taken our position, and I will argue the case. To claim that the moral position we take threatens Israel, or that it delegitimizes the country or that we are mates with crass anti-Semites is an insult to the intelligence of thinking people who care about the future of Israel.

Furthermore, the tactic of Jewish community ‘leaders’ that claim that proponents of boycotts are no more than ‘delegitimizers’ is in fact a way of turning attention away from the Occupation—that is, what is causing the problem in the first case: the Occupation itself and Israel’s consistent behaviour of playing for time at the expense of others’ liberty.

I care deeply about the future security of Israel, but I know that its future cannot be linked to a continuation of 43 of its 60 years as an occupier and thief of another’s birthright.  Saying that putting a ‘Made in Israel’ label on something from the West Bank is morally wrong and asserting that we should not buy such products is the right thing to do.

Larry Stillman is a member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society Executive, but is expressing his own and not anyone else’s opinion.

Since writing an article supporting the new Zionist Left, I’ve been asked what I believe about Israel and other matters. I’m not sure if the question that has come from numerous people is an accusation or an expression of interest, but I suspect it has something to do with a culture of delegitimisation that has spread from attacks against Israel to attacks against liberal Zionists. The problem is that I can’t easily answer the question about what I believe because my beliefs aren’t dogmas that can be reduced to a catechism. I have likes and dislikes that aid me in navigating my actions but like most people, my principles, attachments and ideas are part of my interior, familiar signposts that signal how to cross from one thought to another. But the question has set me thinking, and apart from my obvious attachments to family, fun and friendship, I’ve come up with the following short list of seminal ideas that make me recognisable to myself.

I start with humanism; to me, the word flows from the religious idea that we are all, each of us in our diversity, created in the divine image. All the rest is commentary, which includes a belief in democracy as the best political system to safeguard human dignity, and thinking twice and then several more times before we press the trigger and breach the human rights of an individual, a collective, or a people. The Talmudic verse that best captures this ideal is the one that regards the redemption or destruction of a single human life as a world created or destroyed. Each of us, in our singularity, is infinite, yet we so easily fall into the temptations of dehumanisation for the sake of self-affirmation.  Of late I have been trying to extend these feelings towards all creatures by limiting what I eat. This has been influenced by the ethical eating demanded of me through kashrut, the sudden death of my dog, and an encounter in Rwanda with a gorilla.

Holocaust memory; it’s a strange notion to include but it’s not out of choice. Born to Holocaust survivor parents, our generations have been witnesses to the antithesis of creation – a world of cremation where the human ideal, as embodied in the Jew, was ground to dust and ash. The moral legacies of the Holocaust command me (in the biblical sense) to uphold the very principles that were transgressed in Auschwitz. This means not being silent, standing up, speaking out.  It also means defending Jewish life when it is threatened. My questions about the Holocaust – about perpetrators, bystanders and victims; about ideologies of race and supremacy, totalitarianism and demagoguery, power and powerlessness, refugees and indifference, tolerance and exclusion, guilt and forgiveness, virtue and evil – extend to everything that has happened and not happened in the world after Auschwitz. Never Again can and has been manipulated as a slogan to justify Jewish racism and violence; for me, it evokes the activation of the principles of humanism which summons us to speak out on transgressions of human dignity and threats to life wherever and whenever.

Jewish life: I’m for chucking the fiddler off the roof and replacing sentimentality and ancestral worship with meaningful, deep Judaism. I respect pluralism and the thin or non-existent connections of Jews to their Judaism because in this age our identities are a matter of choice. The reward for being Jewish is being Jewish; there is no punishment for refusing to stand at Sinai. I revere and fear religion. Every religion is born in violence – a covenant of blood – while simultaneously empowering us to transcend and mend this world that is metaphorically and truly broken. When we surrender ourselves to a religion, we do not relinquish our free will and the difficulty of choosing between right and wrong. I believe in an interpretation of religion that affirms rather than diminishes or extinguishes the human dignity of men and women, and of peoples of other faiths or of no faith.

In my religious practice I seek sanctity, the holiness of the everyday things that we create through religious rituals of time and space, human deeds, and our mythical and real journeys. Sanctity is the opposite of sanctimony – it requires humility rather than moral certainty or claims to absolute truth. I love Jewish ritual, the Jewish Sabbath, the Jewish way. I appreciate the sanctity that all religious systems create – the kindling of light and scent, of food devoured in ritualistic ways, of sharing our offerings with family and friends, and building community through prayer and song.  The parts of scripture that most inspire me are the prophetic ideals of justice, peace and chesed (givingness), even as I know that reality will always leave these out of our grasp. I try to adhere to the extra word that distinguishes between love of peace and justice, and the relentless pursuit of it; as in, ‘Justice, justice shalt thou pursue’, and ‘Love peace and pursue it’. I also like the word, ‘Thou’ – its grandness, and Martin Buber’s philosophy of I and Thou, which speaks of the connectedness of all things animate and inanimate – us to our environment.

And Zionism; the legitimacy, morality, justness, enduring nature of Jewish national self-determination as expressed in Israel; not just as an idea, but as a place of vitality and creativity, division and dissent, ancient and renewed, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, majority and minority. I have always been a Zionist, and cannot escape its narrative and personal connections to the re-creation of Jewish life out of the ashes of the Holocaust. I have spent more than three separate years living in Israel, contemplated Aliyah, given birth there with my wife to our firstborn and encouraged each of our children to experience multiple programs in Israel so that they can become enchanted enough with the Zionist dream to develop a mature relationship with the responsibilities of power and sovereignty. I fear for Israel’s future, the consequences of a nuclear Iran run by an apocalyptic madman, the effects of the growing radicalisation of Israel’s enemies. I despise the orchestrated campaign that has turned the Jewish state into a pariah, thereby recasting elements of the nineteenth century Jewish Question into a contemporary Israel Question.

Yet it also follows from my principles that I don’t like the kind of Zionism that is narcissistic, that refuses to see the multiple narratives and complexity of the conflict, that does not accept responsibility for the consequences of Jewish statehood on its victims, that makes excuses for the occupation and minimises its devastating effects, that worships land over people, that generates a cult of the state and of the military, that treats humans as demographic ammunition, that believes peace is impossible simply because we say it is, that thinks that a Palestinian state is a generous concession rather than a moral obligation, that positions Jews as eternal victims of antisemitism while fuelling Islamophobia, that expects a partnership with the Diaspora but infantilises its supporters, that thinks a patriot can’t see through a lie, that measures loyalty by conformity and confuses love with complicity, that does not fight against the conditions that breed war and violence and then tells us we had no choice, that resorts to military daring in place of political daring, that has replaced the credo of Never Again with the pessimism of Never.

I believe, finally, that we must align our beliefs with our deeds as best we can; that is why I have dedicated my life to Jewish education; why I love the challenge of challenging a student, or travelling with them to landscapes of conflict and memory; why I have founded an Orthodox, feminist synagogue, a journal of critical Jewish thought, and a Jewish organisation dedicated to universalist social action; it is why I have consistently refuted in my writings those who demonise Zionism and treat Israel as a pariah amongst the nations, and why I will continue to speak out against the brutality of the forty year occupation and the moral imperative of ending it now; and why I believe that in the name of living up to our inner truths we must be prepared to surrender, if necessary, our scalp for the sake of preserving our mind and what it drives us to think, say, and do.

Mark Baker is Director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation and Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Monash University.

In July, Coteret, an Israeli news site, reported that Australian young people were taken on a tour of central Hebron by Birthright/Talglit, a program that has brought hundreds of thousands of young Jews to Israel.  The video featured interviews with some of the participants and an Orthodox, American organiser.   The tour was run by Chabad, who have a long history in Hebron, in conjunction with Israel Express and the Zionist Federation of Australia.

The video, which is still available on Coteret even though it was removed from it’s original source at WeJew.com, probably when it twigged that the visit was controversial, is particularly scary because of the naïveté of the young people – who think they are in Israel. The interviewer and organiser share a pumped up view of eternal rights in Hebron, despite the reality of extraordinary injustice to others to achieve this. I’d love my son to go on ‘Birthright’, but not on such propaganda tours that dehumanize Palestinians.

That ‘downtown’ Hebron, around the Tomb and Mosque of the Patriarchs or the old Casbah is a flashpoint, is an understatement.  Of course, Hebron has a sorry history in modern times, going back to the massacres of 1929, but this is no excuse for current behaviour by ‘settlers’. The Goldstein massacre in 1994 only intensified the tensions between the communities. The Israeli army has to maintain a very large presence to secure the safe passage and complete dominance of a few hundred settlers who make life hell for the Palestinian residents and have no compunction in taking over homes.  Economically, the locals have suffered enormously. Acts of vandalism and violence by settlers including their children are well-documented. Checkpoint abuses are frequent and monitored by organizations such as Mahsom Watch.

The tour was conducted in clear breach of  ‘Birthright’ policy.  Their website has the following stipulation: ” Our tours do not travel to or through areas of the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem, other than the Jewish Quarter of the Old City (changes are possible when permitted by the security authorities).”   It’s pretty scary that these tours are being hijacked for pumping kids full of the most extreme form of  ‘birthright’ Zionism. Alignment with current Israeli politics of repression or an absolutist view of religious history are not a very good example of respect for the rights of other people.

It also appears that Birthright kids have done other exciting things like visit an outpost overlooking Gaza and use it as a ‘photo opportunity’.  How nice. Nothing like an Arab refugee encampment in the background. Of course, technically, such visits are within Israel, but it gives the impression that Birthright is about short-term brainwashing of young people with the hope that they become strong converts and unquestioning supporters of Israel.

Palestinians are real people whose rights are trampled on, and an example that has hit the headlines has been the   destruction of a  ‘unrecognized’  shantytown of  very poor Bedouin in the northern Negev.  High school volunteers took part in this destruction.   A hard line is being undertaken towards such settlements to make way for JNF forests and later on, Israeli housing  ( some call this ‘greenwashing’ of Palestinian presence). One Israeli critics calls such actions ethnic cleansing and forced urbanization .  I find that kind of language painful to use, but it appears accurate.

It needs to be remembered that the Australian JNF has a special association with the Negev as well, and supports community development for the Bedouin, though the effects of such community development are disputed.  Whatever the case, we are vicariously linked with what goes on.  Of course, I am not associating Taglit-Birthright or the Australian JNF with such extremism, but they are all part of a disturbing pattern that can be no longer ignored as Israel embarks on an all-out campaign to ‘explain’ itself.  Such things can’t be easily explained away.  We should stand up for the underdog in Israel.

My opinion of the presence of young Australians in Hebron and others having photo ops over a community in a state of siege, or the presence of Israeli kids in the destruction of a village may make you very angry because I take the view such acts they are antithetical to human rights by Israel and in the Occupied Territories.

Of course, vehement anti-Zionists argue that these activities and attitudes are inherent in  Zionism.  I actually think that Zionism is far more heterogeneous but it is undeniable that something is fundamentally wrong in the examples I have cited.

Where do we go from here?  If the solution is ultimately to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people, then what should Birthright be doing to promote peace making and the fulfilment of a peaceful and democratic dream for all communities?  There are many other organizations in Israel (and even on the West Bank) which could both provide impressionable young people with exposure to identity the meaning of  human rights and democracy for both communities.

The dual identity of being both Australian and Jewish can present a conflict of loyalties when it comes to elections. Do I vote as an Aussie first, or as a Jew? Is there a conflict? Can I be selfish and vote for the party offering me personally the best deal? These are questions of philosophy, of identity and of personal values. But let’s face it; politics today in Australia is about people, not parties. On most issues there is little ostensible difference in the positions held by most Australians, and hence politicians as they desperately scramble towards the centre. Both the major parties and the Greens scramble to find competent and capable people willing to subject themselves to the merciless spotlight of political life, people whom the parties’ members feel can make a real difference.

In this, all sensible political parties are the same.  Whilst Labor has more convoluted and controversial selection processes, with affirmative action, factions and a central committee parachuting in some candidates, at heart federal elections, driven by passionate volunteers in each electorate, are a series of local contests played out to the tune of national media campaigns.

This is because governing a country is about more than campaign promises and pledged spending. All the spending promises by both sides combined amount to only a few percent of the total budget for the Federal Government. Elections are really about deciding who you want to have running the country when the unexpected happens. Just as no-one in politics predicted the global financial crisis, the Asian currency crisis, the Bali bombings or September 11, no political plan, like in war, survives first contact with the changing reality of the world we live in and the needs of our country.

This leads us to then to the core contrast between the two parties. The last term has seen a government that has simply, by any measure, done a bad job. Rudd and Gillard have borrowed an unprecedented amount of money to fund a series of programs. This is not of itself a problem. However, the poor cost-benefit return and the bungles seen in home insulation, green loans, the national broadband network, childcare, laptops for students, Fuel Watch (remember that one), Grocery Watch, school halls, healthcare, tax reform, foreign policy and every other major area of policy operation demonstrates that the people put forward by the ALP to run the country simply haven’t been competent to manage general affairs, much less ‘revolutionise’ the country. If Gillard and Rudd were CEOs, the shareholders would have long since shown them the door. As Australians in general, there is no value for us in rewarding incompetence, rather than installing managers of real capability. By contrast, the Coalition showed real ability to manage the country and grow the economy.

As Jews, however, we also have other interests. As we are diverse people, whose opinions are more innumerable than the stars, I won’t attempt to argue, as some have, that the values of any one party are a complete embrace of all that our community holds dear. However, amongst Australian Jews, there is at least a general consensus on support for Israel, the importance of quality education in accordance with our Jewish and/or religious values, childcare and, increasingly, how we look after our elderly, ‘Kibud Horim.’ On all of these issues, any sensible comparison shows Labor falling well behind. The expulsion of an Israeli diplomat served to legitimise the demonization of Israel for taking necessary actions in self-defence. Coming from the Australian government, this has been taken as a dramatic victory for the other side and has been embraced by such ‘leading lights’ as Antony Loewenstein. Coupled with the marring of the proud record of voting with Israel in the UN, Labor has shown a willingness to let Israel fall by the wayside in pursuit of other interests, allegedly a seat for Rudd on the Security Council.

On education and childcare, Labor has shown that it is not just a question of poor service delivery, but values. Gillard showed herself to be an incompetent education minister, who has only grudgingly agreed not to slash funding for private schools, at least for another two years. Even then, in real terms under Labor, private school students will face annual decreases in funding. On the question of childcare, Labor’s broken promise to build childcare centres has created critical shortages in places like Caulfield, Bondi, St Kilda and Rose Bay, particularly in infant care. The Liberal policy of both indexing childcare benefits and paying rebates weekly to families will make a real difference, especially to young families. On aged care and the elderly, the ‘Labor Rat’ has already shown us Gillard’s priorities.

We, as Australians and as Jews, can and should evaluate how good governments are based on their performance, not their promises. Government, at heart, must have policy that meets our needs and the capacity to deliver it effectively. The last three years, compared to the decade before that, highlight why, in terms of both capable people and compatible values, Jews and Australians should vote for the Liberal Party.

The opinions in this article are those only of the writer. The writer is not an official spokesman for the Liberal Party.

This article is part of a series Galus Australis is running for the 2010 Australian federal election whereby we publish articles by supporters of  various political parties.  Please contact us if you are interested in contributing.

The Rabbis of the Talmud teach us there are 70 faces to the Torah. Is it possible that one of them is green? Many Jews in Australia believe in the progressive ideas put forward by the Greens, but don’t vote for them as there is a perception that Greens policies are too radical and anti-Israel, or that they are a single issue party. After the 21^st of August, the Greens will most likely hold the balance of power in the Senate, giving them the ability to amend each piece of legislation approved by the House. In the absence of any compelling vision for Australia coming from the two biggest parties, we decided to research several of the Green’s policy positions that may be of interest to members of the Jewish Community, in order to help us decide whether Greens really are ‘good for the Jews.’

Asylum Seekers: One does not need to be Jewish to realise that the policy of the last two governments towards asylum seekers has been more cruel than humane, but it does help. Our experience of being strangers in strange lands, of crossing borders illegally to save our lives, make many in the community resonate with the plight of refugees who seek the safety and security of Australia.

The Labor Party shamefully decided to suspend asylum applications from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in April, despite evidence that these are still very unsafe countries for Hazara Afghans and Sri Lankan Tamils, who constitute the majority of the people who seek asylum in this great country. Labor’s policy will not reduce the number of boats in the long run. Furthermore, having our detention centres filled to capacity due to the non-processing of these applicants in their hour of need should not be one of the goals of our society.

The Liberal Party’s policy is even worse. They advocate the return of Temporary Protection Visas that leave refugees in limbo for years, as well as sending people to remote islands like Nauru (who are not signatories to the UN Refugee convention) where there is no interaction with the local community. They also want the Navy to turn around boats at sea. I guess they forgot what happened to the Struma, Exodus and SIEV X.

The Greens’ policy on this issue calls for the end of mandatory detention and offshore processing immediately. They also call for increasing the number of places for off-shore refugees and humanitarian entrants and the housing of asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa in publicly owned and managed open reception centres.  In addition to this saving taxpayers an enormous sum of money (it costs $1,830 per detainee per day to keep someone on Christmas Island, compared to $238 per detainee per day in Villawood, Sydney), the Greens advocate these polices because they believe that the presence in Australia of people of many cultural backgrounds greatly enriches our society. They also believe that Australian society, culture, and the economy has benefited, and will continue to benefit, from immigration of people from around the world.

Finally, the Greens are the only party whose policy statement in this issue avoids using misleading words to such as ‘border protection,’ ‘illegal immigrant’ ‘queue jumpers’ or Abbott’s ‘peaceful invaders.’ The Greens state unequivocally that “Asylum seekers and refugees are no more of a threat to our borders or to our society than anyone else and must be treated with compassion and dignity.”

Israel:

Despite the fact that the position of the Australian government on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is unlikely to have significant ramifications on the lives of people there, many Jews feel strongly that they want their government to hold views in line with their own on this issue. The myths spread about the Greens that they support the BDS campaign or seek to delegitimise Israel are not true. As progressive Zionists, we have looked closely at the Greens’ policies and have found them to be almost identical to the dovish pro-Israel lobby group J-Street.

For example, both J Street and the Greens recognise Israel’s right to exist and the need for a two state solution. Both J Street and the Greens recognise that attacks on Israeli civilians are wrong and inexcusable, and see settlements as standing in the way of achieving peace. While the Greens’ approach is perhaps equivalent to left wing Israeli political parties, it must be kept in mind that the Greens are not an Israeli political party. Their primary goal is influencing Australian policies.

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems Zionist Jews often have with human rights organisations’ approaches to Israel is not so much the content itself but their apparent fixation on Israel to the detriment of other legitimate causes. Put simply, Jews feel that they are unfairly being singled out. The Greens cannot be accused of doing this. They have a record for speaking out against atrocities committed (human and otherwise) worldwide. In fact, in its page of policy on international relations,  the Greens present a viewpoint on Iraq, East Timor, West Papua, in addition to Israel. Indeed, on Bob Brown’s website, the side bar mentions Tibet but not Israel. This means that by voting for the Greens, your vote would not go to a party which is obsessed with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but rather it would go to raising awareness of and tackling important international human rights issues that are not addressed by the other major parties.

Sustainable Economy:

Judaism has always held strong the idea of striving to build an economy that respects the Earth and operates within physical ecological limits. Indeed, the Torah mandates that the land should lay fallow every seventh year (Exodus 23:10-11) and that fruit trees may not be cut down to be used to lay siege (Deuteronomy 20:19). Judaism also supports the idea that the community should take care of those in need and holds dear the practice of tzedakah. Both the Greens and Judaism find these two principles of supporting fellow man and the Earth to be inseparable.

The Greens believe that the Australian economy must embrace ecological sustainability and incorporate these principles into all levels of planning, infrastructure and government. They also believe that environmental practices are economically sustainable and argue that their policies on carbon taxation will save Australia $2 billion. These values are coupled with the idea that the rights of workers should be upheld. This includes fair and equitable remuneration for labour regardless of gender, ethnicity or marital status. That is, a strong, fair and accessible industrial relations system. Through these policies and measures, the Greens truly support the kind of sustainable economy that Jews can be proud of. In the words of Isaiah, “Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17)

Climate Change:

In 2007, Kevin Rudd commissioned Ross Garnaut to examine the impacts of Climate change on the Australian economy. Garnaut’s climate change review panel recommended that Australia push internationally for carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations of 450 ppm, which would commit Australia to reductions of 25% on 2000 levels by 2020, and 90% by 2050. More recent climate science shows that much deeper cuts are needed to avoid catastrophic climate disruption. Most importantly, the Garnaut Review concluded that acting on the climate crisis early was better for the Australian economy than delaying action.

The Labor government’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) aimed to reduce emissions by  5%, well short of the recommended target. The Greens did not support the ETS because it would have given $24 billion to the biggest polluters with any emissions reductions being done off shore through the sale of dubious offsets. Whilst there are those who argue that something would have been better than nothing, passing the ETS would have meant Australia would not seriously be investing in proven technologies that can reduce climate change now. Rather, it would have meant transferring to foreign countries the economic prosperity, the technological breakthroughs, and the export opportunities derived from tackling climate change.  Furthermore, there would have been no domestic reduction in carbon emissions.

In regards to the Liberal Party’s policy on climate change, one need look no further than Tony Abbott who said in 2009, “The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” At least Abbott believes the world isn’t flat.

The Greens’ target on climate change is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as is feasible and by no later than 2050 with a minimum of 40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2020. They plan to do this through making sure future energy needs are met by using sustainable, renewable energy sources. This will result in the creation of thousands of new green jobs in business and manufacturing.

Conclusion:

We now return to answer the question posed earlier, whether the Greens are ‘good for the Jews.’ Through their policies directed to the environment and climate change, we see that the Greens uphold the Biblical notions of valuing the Earth and respecting that which sustains us. Through their policies on asylum seekers and their stance on non-violent resolution of the crisis in the Middle East, they place a high value on humanity and respect for the Biblical refrain of “loving the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:19). Most importantly, the Greens ask both the voters and the government to care and be involved, fulfilling the ethics of our fathers when they say “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”

Ittay Flescher is a Jewish Educator in Melbourne and Arielle  Perlowis a student at Monash University. Neither of them are affiliated in any way to the Australian Greens Party.

This article is part of a series Galus Australis is running for the election.  We plan to publish articles by supporters of the other major political parties.  Please contact us if you are interested in contributing.

Source: RaceForIran.com

By Leah Bloch

Counter terrorism and Middle East expert Avi Jorisch ran several interesting sessions at Limmud Oz recently. In one, he showed us footage from the Hezbollah operated TV channel Al-Manar. At first glance, Al-Manar looks like any other TV network. It has news programs with international correspondents, talk shows, soap operas, family shows, and even music videos. All this lends to Al-Manar a deceptive appearance of professionalism and authority. However, Jorisch presented evidence that the channel’s programming is strategic and insidious. It glorifies taking up arms against Israel and the United States and propagates Hezbollah’s political and terrorist agenda, particularly the destruction of Israel.

Examples shown by Jorisch included a TV-drama which graphically portrayed Jews slitting the throat of a Christian child to make Passover matzah, and a cartoon celebrating suicide bombers, accompanied by an anthem about the glory and honour of taking up arms against the Zionist entity. A montage of violent anti- Israel/ anti-Western images included a scene of ten year olds in army fatigues doing training exercises – the call to take up arms starts young.

Jorisch and others have campaigned for Al-Manar to be removed from twelve pay-TV networks worldwide; it remains on two international networks, and is on air in Australia at the time of writing.

The footage made me pessimistic about the chances for achieving peace, when from early childhood generations of viewers are raised on such racist and inflammatory propaganda

In another session, Jorisch outlined what he considered to be a critical strategy for undermining Iran’s terrorist activities. A great deal of the money Iran spends on terrorism is moved through the international banking system. International banking relies on a system of “corresponding” banks. To move money from your bank in Australia to a bank account in another country requires your bank to have an agreement with a bank in that country, whereby the foreign bank agrees to act as an agent for your bank in that country.

If your bank did not have a corresponding agent in that country, it would not have the ability to move money to that country.

Jorisch argues that putting pressure on our banks to refuse to have any corresponding relationships with Iranian banks will be the most successful way of isolating Iran internationally and reducing Iran’s means of sponsoring proxy terrorist organizations outside Iran, such as Hizbollah.

Iranian Bank Sepah was designated by the US Treasury in January 2007 for providing financial services to Iran’s missile industry. All transactions involving a designated entity are prohibited in the US, and any assets the designees may have under US jurisdiction are frozen. Bank Sepah was subsequently designated by the United Nations in March 2007.

On 16 June 2010, the US Treasury designated Post Bank of Iran for providing financial services to, and acting on behalf of, Bank Sepah. For more detail, readers can see this statement by the US Department of Treasury, published on the Iran Watch website.

Jorisch believes that disabling Iranian banks’ ability to move money internationally will be the most effective sanction on Iran, as well as directly impacting on Iran’s ability to fund terrorism.

While in Australia for Limmud Oz, he commented on ANZ’s announcement that they would seek to remove their listing as a corresponding bank for Bank Sapah. Although ANZ stated that they ceased their relationship with Bank Sapah in 2007, they still remain in Bank Sapah’s list of corresponding banks.

In an article in The Australian, Jorisch has questioned why the ANZ was conducting business with Bank Sepah in the first place, “given Bank Sepah was involved in illicit activity well before 2007.”

Jorisch encourages people to learn more about this issue, and pressure their own banks to cut relationships with Iranian banks in order to isolate Iran. He also encourages people to put pressure on the two pay-TV networks that still air Al-Manar. Jorisch believes that this kind of grassroots activity is critical to effecting change as born out by his own activism on both issues.

Leah Bloch is a member of the Jewish Community in Melbourne who attended Avi Jorisch’s sessions at Limmud Oz Melbourne in June 2010.

Sunset in Nahariya. Image source: viewfromgalilee.blogspot.com

By Paul Brown

It is just a month short of a year since Galus Australis published ‘It’s Aliyah all over Again.’ We left Terra Australis one month after that. So how have we found our Aliyah experience thus far?

Israel is not the same country we visited just over 40 years ago, nor is it the country to which we first made aliyah 30 years ago. It is no longer a land of pioneers. It remains a land of immigrants, but these hail from North Africa, Ethiopia, and Russia, much more than from Europe or North America. While the Eurozone languishes, while North America dismantles its leadership role in the world, and while Russia again seeks to abrogate it, Israel unexpectedly finds itself as a very stable democracy. To be sure there is poverty, but no one starves. To be sure, there are enemies. To be sure, there are ever-newer versions of Israeli chutzpah. But there is also brotherhood and forgiveness.

When I first set up my clinic in Jerusalem in 1980, American style medicine was on the way in. But by the mid-1990s, medicine in Israel had become free for all via the four private health funds.  A massive influx of Russian physicians carried the system into the 21^st century. Israeli digital-electronic know-how ensured that the system was served by a computerised infrastructure that would be the envy of most modern countries. The shortfall of doctors is being met by building a fifth medical school ~ in Zefat ~ and a sixth will be needed to meet demographic requirements.

Sadly, psychiatry (my own specialty) is languishing. It is perhaps the most cost-intensive of all the medical specialities, and the health funds have been reluctant to absorb the costs of transfer from the public to the private sector. Thus mental health remains an orphan. Large stand-alone mental hospitals, a thing of the past in most of the developed world, persist here. The funds have not been made available to ensure an efficient or effective shift. If the government were to be true to their word, and were to order the transfer by fiat, then the funds would cut services by at least one half.

That said, many wonderful things are happening in the field of mental health, and some of these wonderful things are the very things that we are enjoying during our re-absorption into Israel. We had always wanted to give more, and to infuse our giving with Yiddishkeit. Two opportunities immediately presented themselves, and half a year on, we are having a ball.

In Nahariya, where we currently live, (we shortly move a few miles out of town to Kfar Veradim) we contribute to a club for street kids, children from Russian immigrant families.  We meet informally with the young people, and we provide counselling supervision for their madrichim.’ (supervisors)  Also, one day a week, we visit a local prison. There we run a counselling group for violent offenders, under the aegis of the ‘Agaf Ha-Dati’ (the religious branch of the prison service).  Our approach is a combination of the more conventional ‘bottom-up’, psychological therapy, and a (for us) a novel ‘top-down’ more spiritual therapy. We open each session with a Divrei Torah, on the Torah approach to such key themes as anger, trust and authenticity. There are plenty of opportunities for jokes and for Hasidic tales. Quite unexpected for us, especially since this is one of the few voluntary activities in the prison, the group participants have been more than willing to bare their souls. And so too have we, in a truly uplifting experience for all.

To pay the bills we are setting up a private practice in the centre of Nahariya. Such private practice is rare north of Haifa, and yet, the local people seem to be ready for it. Naturally, our constituency is different, both demographically and clinically, from Melbourne. Stress, and particularly war trauma, is a baseline-given in everyone that attends our clinic, and the experience of living under siege conditions in Israel must equally be taken into account when treating even the most serious psychopathology. We are learning how to do this. Life is, as ever, full of surprises, and we are enjoying every moment of it.

Dr Paul Brown is a psychiatrist who had been living in Melbourne for two decades, prior to making Aliyah for the second time.

The great thing about Facebook is that you learn that you are only two degrees of separation from people for whom The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are not a fabrication, but a textbook.

On the very first day of Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership, I happened to catch a rather intriguing thread on my Facebook feed. It included a conversation between two Palestinians, one of whom is a Facebook friend of a Facebook friend.  Part of the conversation was in Romanised Arabic, and the essence of it was that Julia Gillard was not to be trusted, and that her displacement of Rudd as PM was the work of the Jews.

That’s right.  The Elders of Zion were not happy with Kevin Rudd, so they simply had him replaced with Julia Gillard, who would now do their bidding.

I must admit that I found this conspiracy theory more amusing than alarming.  It is well known that in the Arab Middle East, conspiracies about Jews are rampant, and The Protocols are essentially considered a history book by a significant minority.  In some ways it was reassuring to know that Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t always throw material at the user that is consistent with their worldview.

However, there was nothing amusing about the front page of The Age today.  The headline blared out Gillard accused of soft line on Tel Aviv.  You’d think that the editors of The Age would be aware that the Israeli government is based in Jerusalem, and not Tel Aviv – that alone is an appalling error in a front-page headline.

It seems Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, is “employed as a real estate salesman by the founder of the Australia Israel Forum, Melbourne property developer Albert Dadon.”  Just to be clear, he’s not employed by the Australia Israel Forum, he’s employed by the founder of that entity, to sell real estate as part of a completely different entity.

The Age trots out former career diplomat Ross Burns, who has long since been sharing his antipathy for Israel with anyone who will listen (essentially Fairfax and the public broadcasters).  Burns’ central thesis is that Gillard’s partner’s boss will be influencing (or perhaps controlling) Australia’s foreign policy.

So let me get this right: Gillard’s partner is employed to sell real estate. Nothing against being a real estate salesman (my own day job as a consumer researcher is no more important), but it’s a long way from being Prime Minister.  Nevertheless, in order to have her partner ‘get in good with the boss’ down at the real estate agency, Gillard will allow her partner’s boss to determine Australia’s foreign policy?  Hmmm.

As implausible as this sounds, we better check if any other federal parliamentarians have partners employed by, well I don’t know, Century 21 or L.J.Hooker.  Who knows what conspiracies might be uncovered!



Australia by indigenous language group

By Ghil’ad Zuckermann

‘I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.’

- John Adams, 1735–1826, second president of the United States

‘Language is power; let us have ours’, wrote Aboriginal politician Aden Ridgeway perspicaciously on 26 November 2009 in the Sydney Morning Herald. But most Australian revival efforts have been unsuccessful because they were not supported by a sound theoretical understanding of how successful language revival works. Decisions about the appropriate target for language maintenance programmes are too often driven by structural linguistics, where the supposed ideal is inter-generational transmission of the language with all its original structural complexity retained.

But as Israeli (a.k.a. Modern Hebrew) demonstrates, some language components are more revivable than others. Words and verbal conjugations, for example, are easier to reclaim than intonation, discourse, associations and connotations. Australian revivalists and Aboriginal leaders should be encouraged to be realistic rather than puristic, and not to chastise English loanwords and pronunciation, for example, within the emergent language.

But why should attempts to revive Aboriginal languages such as Kaurna (spoken in Adelaide) be supported in the first place? Reversing language shift is of great social benefit. Here are two of the reasons. Firstly – and in my view most importantly – a deontological reason (a principle): Aboriginal tongues deserve to be revived for historical and humanistic justice, inter alia addressing inequality. We hear again and again ‘native title rights’ but where is the ‘native tongue title rights’? Is land more important than language and cultural lens? And in case land and language are one entity, then why only claim land without reclaiming language?

Secondly, a utilitarian reason: Revival of sleeping Aboriginal languages can result in personal, educational and economic empowerment, sense of pride and higher self-esteem of people who have lost their heritage and purpose in life.

Although they too encountered hostility and animosity, the Hebrew revivalists had several advantages compared with Australian revivalists. For example: (1) Documentation: extensive – consider, for example, the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah. Jews have been exposed to literary Hebrew throughout the generations, e.g. when praying in the synagogue.

(2) Prestige: Hebrew was considered a prestigious language (as opposed to Yiddish, for instance).

(3) Uniqueness: Jews from all over the globe only had Hebrew in common (Aramaic was not as prominent), whereas there are dozens of ‘sleeping’ Aboriginal languages and it would be hard to choose only one unifying tongue, unless one resorts to Aboriginal English. The revival of a single language is much more manageable that that of numerous tongues in varying states of disrepair.

(4) National self-determination: revived Hebrew was aimed to be the language of an envisioned state.

(5) Lack of ownership: Unlike in the case of Aboriginal languages, anybody has the right to speak Hebrew without getting permission from the Jews.

(6) Easy borrowing: Loanwords and foreign words are not considered theft. In fact, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda loved borrowing from Arabic, Aramaic and other Semitic languages.

(7) Lack of place restriction: Hebrew could be and was revived all over the globe – consider Haim Leib Hazan’s coinage mishkafáim ‘glasses’ in 1890 in Grodno.

Applying precious conclusions from Hebrew will closely assist Australian revivalists in being more efficient, urging them not to waste time and resources on Sisyphean efforts to resuscitate linguistic components that are unlikely to be revivable. While the results of such endeavors have considerable value as a research enterprise, one can also consider them in terms of a cost-benefit analysis: Language revitalization contributes to social reconciliation, cultural tourism, capacity building, and improved community health for Indigenous peoples.

The process may be more important here than the actual goal. In the process of language revival, many Aboriginal people will experience a marked increase in well-being and optimism. The benefits to the wider community and to Australian society are immense. Stop, revive, survive!

Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, D.Phil. (Oxford), Ph.D. (Cambridge), M.A. (summa cum laude) (Tel Aviv), is Associate Professor and Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Fellow in Linguistics at The University of Queensland, Brisbane. His most recent revolutionary book ‘Israeli – A Beautiful Language’ was published by Am Oved (Tel Aviv) and became a bestseller. His website is www.zuckermann.org .

Prof. Zuckermann will lecture in Adelaide on Wednesday 9 June at 19:30 – at Hines Hall, Adelaide Hebrew Congregation, 13 Flemington Street, Glenside SA 5065; as well as at Limmud Oz Melbourne at Monash Caulfield on Sunday 13 June at 13:15 and on Monday 14 June at 12:00.

When one thinks of a "flotilla" in Australia, this is more what comes to mind

By Keren Tuch

Oh the irony, that so many Israelis dream of nothing else but to live in utopic Australia, whilst others, myself included, consider living in a war torn country where peace is a seemingly deluded dream.  Australia is a beautiful, peaceful country of which I am certainly privileged to be a citizen and will be proudly supporting the Socceroos in a couple of week’s time.

Yet I find this place so idyllic it can often be…well, boring.  To put it simply, one can live the dream here – beach, education, job, beach, money, security, beach.  But what often prompts me to look abroad is when my mind turns numb from reading front page newspaper articles about the misconduct of football players.  Or when the conversation at the work lunch table turns to discussing an article from a woman’s magazine on 39 ways to lose calories from an Easter egg.  Or when talk show hosts have nothing better to do but lambast the provision of new cycle ways in Sydney. Or when engaging in a discussion on refugees and asylum seekers, everyone has an opinion, yet most educated people have not had any contact with a single person from the “hordes” that are flooding our shores.   Sometimes life seems to be a succession of chai lattes – fun and enjoyable yet devoid of any substance.

But this week it would appear that Australians care about more than just Celine Dion falling pregnant at age 42. It appeared that we do care about the humanitarian plight of individuals in the Middle East.

As the drama of the flotilla unfolded, I was hooked to the cyber world, reading article after article, commentaries, opinion pieces and live video footage until it made me sick.  Sick from the hysteria and the hostile reactions it invoked worldwide.  Sick from the strategic blunder the Israeli military made.  Sick from ignorant citizens unwilling to hear how Israel could possibly have a legitimate excuse to use their firearms in self-defence.  In the cyber world, there was no escaping this mess.

At lunch at my work place, I was expecting a remark of some sort about the flotilla that has dominated the news this week.  Perhaps even a discussion where I was patiently waiting for an opportunity to hear what my colleagues had to say.  I had the link to the video footage on hand ready to disseminate if there was a hint of curiosity.   But that conversation never came to fruition.  Neither did it initiate with my non-Jewish housemate who knows my long-standing connection to Israel.  In fact, when an educated colleague saw me reading an article about the flotilla, I thought it was a good time for an open dialogue.  I received a blank stare followed by a shameful shake of the head when I asked ‘you know about the whole debacle that has erupted in the Middle East….’  Apparently not.  I had made the assumption that because it consumed much of my thoughts, everyone else cared.

It occurred to me that perhaps a lot of people at my work hadn’t heard about it.  It is quite plausible that they react no differently to the flotilla than they do to the weekly deaths of Pakistanis and Iraqis by suicide bombers, or the death of protestors in Thailand.  For every person who vehemently commented online, I wonder how many people just couldn’t give a damn, or don’t even know?

To my astonishment, this sobering thought calmed my fraught nerves from the heavy news of the week.  Although I was prepared to discuss the flotilla at work, it’s times like this that I’m truly appreciative of the light-hearted lunch conversations and the self-indulgent attitude of the average Australian to distract me from the brutal reality that exists beyond our borders.