Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

People from around the world are traveling to Israel to learn from its innovation and economic success.

Israel's President Shimon Peres recently told a visiting Australian delegation that included Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten, that part of the secret to Israel's economic success was that Israel had to use its brainpower to carve out a living, "We had nothing and that was our luck," Peres said. Peres also told the group that he wanted Israel to become "the Silicon Valley of the Middle East."

Israel is the first country to formally legislate a ban against underweight models. The legislation also bans use of models who 'look underweight', and creators of ads must disclose whether they used Photoshop or graphics programs to manipulate images to make the models look slimmer.

Following my previous blog post about the hypocrisy of media freedom under the Palestinian Authority (PA), new reports reveal that an independent Palestinian television station is facing legal charges over an investigation into corruption allegations at a Palestinian university, after claims that a son of a senior PA official was accepted into the university despite having failed to meet the academic requirements arose. The station in question is Wattan TV, a not-for-profit station founded in 1996 by civil society organisations. According to its mission statement, it "advocates democracy, peace, justice and political pluralism" and "promotes human rights and a transparent government accountable to the Palestinian people". Despite the station's claim that it has evidence to support the allegations, it was sued for one million dollars, and it is feared that its executives could face prison sentences. Imposing crippling legal sanctions on a television station for investigating corruption allegations seem like yet another blow to the 'democracy watchdog'.

Egyptian presidential hopefuls Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh held a televised debate on Thursday, but when it came to Israel, the candidates had little to argue about.

Both pledged to review the 1979 peace treaty Egypt had signed with Israel, while trying to outdo each other's antagonism towards Israel: Abol Fotouh termed Israel an enemy, while Moussa called it an adversary.

The candidate's caustic views were mirrored in a poll released on Tuesday, which revealed growing anti-Israel and anti-Western sentiment in the country. As Egypt continues to develop a new Constitution and readies for presidential elections on May 23 (with a likely runoff on June 16), the debate as well as the poll raise new concerns over Egypt's direction.

The Australian Budget was announced on May 8, and in order to bring the budget into surplus the Government decided to delay its promise to raise foreign aid spending to 0.5 per cent of gross national income (GNI) by 2015/16, pushing this goal back until 2016-2017.

This blog post looks at highlights from the foreign aid budget, and also considers the case for improving the effectiveness of Australian aid in the Palestinian Territories.

The Australian's John Lyons (5/5) reported on an Israeli law passed during the Second Intifada in 2003 designed to prevent terrorists exploiting family reunion laws to enter Israel.

This has meant Israeli Arab Taiseer Khatib's wife, Lana, who is from Jenin on the West Bank, can only stay in Israel on a temporary residency visa, something Khatib denounces as "beyond apartheid".

The newspaper offensively headlined the piece Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid implying this was a statement of fact rather than Taiseer Khatib's opinion. The online edition has since rectified this error.

This Update follows up on Ahron Shapiro's blog post yesterday on Israeli PM Netanyahu's shock move on Tuesday night to cancel planned elections and instead form a National Unity government with Opposition Leader Shaul Mofaz.

First up to provide a general perspective on the move is Israeli political scientist Prof. Gerald Steinberg, who argues that the broad political base Netanyahu has created for himself provides a platform to deal with a series of major challenges facing Israel. He stresses the immediate trigger for the move was the court-ordered need to re-write the "Tal Law", dealing with deferral of military service for Israel's Ultra-Orthodox minority - which seemed insoluble within the confines of the existing coalition.

Prof. Shlomo Avineri... has just written a fascinating little piece about how, in 1976, he used a 1854 quote from Karl Marx to counter a Soviet-led effort at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to condemn and expel Israel for the alleged crime of "Judaising" Jerusalem - a claim which is still raised frequently today...

But there is another point in this quote from Marx which Avineri does not call attention to - and it relates to the treatment of Jews in Arab lands...

Palestinian refugees and the claims made of "right of return" for them have long been a major issue within the debate over a 'just solution' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The claimed "right of return'" is still seen as a core obstacle to overcome in any future peace negotiations. Yet the refugees question is even more complex. Palestinian refugees actually represent the smaller of the two refugees groups created by the regional conflict between the Arab countries and Israel - the larger group being Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries.

The voices of these Jewish refugees, sadly, have hardly ever been heard or are generally too quickly dismissed. Listening to these voices could potentially shed light and new perspectives not only on the refugees question, but also on the nature and history of the regional context of the conflict. It might even promote reconciliation.

Greek elections were held on May 6, and the main parties saw their support plunge in favour of extreme parties on the left and right, leaving no party with a clear majority to govern.

As a previous AIJAC post anticipated, the far-right Greek party Golden Dawn, often described as ‘Neo-Nazi', gained representation in parliament for the first time in Greek history, winning approximately 7 percent of the country's popular vote. Golden Dawn will apparently have 21 parliament seats out of 300.

The election of French Socialist party leader Francois Hollande to his country's presidency on Sunday - a victory over Nicolas Sarkozy which had been expected following his strong showing in the first round of voting on April 22 - is certain to impact French foreign policy regarding Iran, as well as Israel.

Sarkozy had been seen as one of Europe's most strident opponents to Iran's nuclear program. According to Hollande's advisers, as well as many analysts, France is unlikely to continue in its role as a spearhead for European action on Iran under its new government.

The latest edition of the Weekend Australian has provoked outrage over an offensive and unprofessional headline used to accompany an article by its Middle East correspondent John Lyons that failed to include some vital facts, resulting in some very questionable journalism.

This year marks forty years since the ‘Munich Massacre' - when during the 1972 Munich Olympics, Palestinian terrorists disguised as athletes attacked the dormitory housing the Israeli delegation and took Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostages.  By the end of the ordeal, the terrorists had killed eleven Israelis and a German police officer.

For the past four decades, families of the victims have repeatedly sought to persuade the International Olympic Committee to incorporate a minute of silence during the opening ceremonies of the games to commemorate the Munich Massacre.  This year the IOC has again rejected their request.

Two polls released last week provide new insights into the views of the Middle East's Arab population, with some very interesting findings.

In the first poll, Arab youth in the Middle East said their own economic future was a far greater priority in their lives than the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Meanwhile, a second poll found Muslim support for al-Qaeda, while low compared to a few years ago, has stabilized even after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

This Update contains two valuable pieces on the candidates for the highly important Egyptian Presidential  election (Barry Rubin had an excellent analysis of just how important here), as well as one of the many interesting pieces being written about the legacy of Benzion Netanyahu, the father of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, who died last week age 102.

The UN Human Rights Council has long had a well-deserved image problem - due in no small part to the fact numerous egregious human rights offenders are regularly elected to serve on it, where they block effective scrutiny of themselves and their non-democratic allies. The latest episode in this sorry history is the unopposed bid by Venezuela for a seat on the 47 nation Council, despite the fact that Venezuela has a very poor record on human rights.

Israel was abuzz this week with news that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had decided to set a date for early elections. While the official announcement is still days away, government sources reported the likely date of elections to be September 4...

Netanyahu, who is on pace to be Israel's longest serving Prime Minister since Ben Gurion and has benefited from a dearth of political challengers during his term, is seen by poll-watchers as having little to fear from early elections. Latest polling figures show that if the elections were held today, Netanyahu would be a shoo-in, with 48 percent of Israelis preferring Netanyahu stay on as prime minister...

With Netanyahu's re-election bid deemed likely, the more immediate question being asked is what impact, if any, the decision to hold early elections will have on Israel's strategy vis-à-vis Iran.

Today's Update looks at the options for dealing with the ongoing violence in Syria in the wake of the apparent failure of the ceasefire put forward by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as part of his plan to settle the conflict and halt the killing (with at least 23 people killed on Tuesday).

First up is a good report on the aftermath of the Annan plan, consisting of numerous quotes from knowledgeable on all sides , written by Neil McFarquhar of the New York Times. He finds there is general agreement that the plan has failed, but little sense of what might come next from various quarters, and still very little appetite for any serious intervention from Western policymakers - few of whom, it seems clear, ever expected the plan to succeed in the first place.

It is often fascinating to hear true stories from people about how their once fierce hatred for the State of Israel came to be questioned for one reason or another - such as a trip to Israel, a book/research or a meeting with an Israeli - leading them re-evaluate their preconceived ideas.

A common theme among these personal accounts is that prior to their individual journey that led them to learn more about Israel, they had not been exposed to positive information about Israel or Jews, and felt a sense of betrayal when they learnt the ‘truth' about Israel. Often their newly formed pro-Israel perspectives were not welcome in their home communities, and yet they are dedicated to speaking out in support of Israel.

As World Press Freedom Day approaches on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) looks to be headed in the other direction.

The PA has come under widening criticism of late for its worsening record on press freedom (as reported in a recent blog post by Or Avi-Guy). Part of that story centres on a number of Palestinians arrested after making critical comments about the PA or its leaders on Facebook. Now reports say the PA is also blocking off access to critical news websites.

According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, Palestinian internet providers have been instructed to block access to news web sites critical of Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The conviction of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once powerful warlord, was a landmark ruling by an international tribunal - the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It was the first guilty verdict for a head of state in the history of UN war crimes courts.

Taylor's verdict could ostensibly be a warning for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir, who are both accused of committing atrocities.

In what was was considered another sign of the rapidly deteriorating ties between Israel and Egypt, a visit to Jerusalem by Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa -- accompanying Jordanian officials -- caused outrage in Egypt's new Islamist-dominated Parliament last week. The Parliament demanded Gomaa's resignation for behaviour that risked "normalising" relations with Israel.

Despite Gomaa's statements that the visit was unofficial and that it took place under the supervision of the Jordanian authorities, the visit angered those opposed to normalizing relations with Israel.

Parliament Speaker Saad al-Katatny read out...

A new controversy has broken out regarding women's rights in Egypt. It all started when al- Arabiya reported that the National Council for Women (NCW) appealed to the Egyptian parliament, requesting that two highly controversial laws, both affecting women's status, not be approved. According to the report, the first law would lower the minimum age of marriage to 14; the other would allow a husband to engage in intercourse with his wife's corps a few hours after her death. Al- Arabiya's original report was based on an article by Egyptian columnist Amro Abdul Samea in the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, and has since been picked up by many other media outlets. The web went into a frenzy over the shocking possibility that, if the 'farewell intercourse law' were approved, Egyptian men would be granted a legal right to have sex with their dead wives up to 6 hours after their death (not surprisingly, the implication that Egyptian women would be granted the same right in regards to their dead husbands was of little comfort).

Give him credit for his candour. In an extensive interview with the Forward published on April 19, Mousa Abu Marzook, Deputy Director of Hamas' political bureau and the group's second-highest-ranking official, told the Jewish newspaper that Hamas would not respect a peace treaty with Israel signed by the Palestinian Authority, even if the agreement was endorsed by a referendum of all Palestinians, as Hamas has always demanded.

Moreover, Abu Marzook vowed that Hamas would never recognise Israel. The most Hamas would consider would be a ceasefire agreement, he said.

Last night, ABC Lateline featured an interview by Emma Alberici of former New Republic editor Peter Beinart. Beinart has been a figure of much controversy lately due to his new book The Crisis of Zionism -- an extension of his 2009 essay 'The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment' in the New York Review of Books -- in which he makes the case that the Jewish community in America is taking an incorrect line on Israel and provides his own perspective on how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict ought to be addressed.

The book provoked a litany of responses from across the political spectrum, with almost every senior figure in the American foreign policy world deriding or distancing themselves from his contribution. As a result, there is a very substantial body of work from which to draw in order to evaluate every point that he makes. In general, most experts agree that Beinart is largely well-intentioned and does genuinely want the best for Israel, however he is at the same time hopelessly naive and heavily encumbered by a lack of serious research on the topic. His views are those of...