Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

ABC Radio "Triple J"'s Sophie McNeill is probably quite proud of a half hour "special" aired on the "Hack" program she hosts dedicated to a recent visit she made to Gaza (May 2). But she really shouldn't be.

Much of the attention regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects have been focused on "hard" policy issues. Yet over-emphasising "hard" policy questions means that crucial precursors for both making peace and for the long term sustainability of any peace agreement end up being overlooked.

One such crucial aspect is the willingness of each side's general public to view the other side as a legitimate entity, and to engage in interaction with it by peaceful means. This is a key element in building stable and lasting peace. such a change in perceptions starts with education.

Education in the Palestinian territories has long been a major source of concern for analysts and commentators, who emphasised the dangers of ‘teaching hate,' and thus perpetuating the conflict. Nowhere is this ‘teaching hate' trend more troubling than in Gaza.

Western governments will be closely observing the Iranian election process in the leading up to the Presidential poll on June 14 in the hopes that the outcome may encourage a change that will allow a diplomatic resolution to the impasse over Iran's nuclear program - though of course, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is actually the key decisionmaker and is unaffected by the poll. The contest - which looked likely to be dominated by conservative Khamanei loyalists - was on May 11 rocked by the last minute entry of two candidates; former President Rafsanjani, and a top aide to current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad named Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The next drama will be the decision of a clerical body called the Guardianship Council about which of the candidates are allowed to run - it has reportedly already ruled that all of the 30 registered female candidates are disqualified by virtue of their gender - and is expected to issue a ruling shortly, though there will likely be a further round of appeals.

Israeli industry has received another vote of confidence, this time from near-legendary American business mogul and philanthropist Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett recently completed the acquisition of the last 20% of the Israeli company Iscar (IMC) for US$2 billion - twice the value of the shares offered during the first stage of the transaction in 2006.

This Update deals with a worrying trend some distinguished scholars are beginning to to identify in the aftermath of the so-called "Arab Spring" - the decline of unified Arab nation-states in the Middle East.

West Bank crossings and checkpoints exist to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist attacks and they have been highly successful in doing so.  However, in recent years as security conditions have improved, Israel has greatly eased security restrictions in the West Bank, removing most checkpoints and streamlining procedures at both the remaining checkpoints and border crossings.

The Israel Defence Force has posted an information page "Reality check: The truth behind crossings in Judea and Samaria", which further explains what checkpoints and crossings are, why they exist, and especially, how they work - including the process for West Bank residents to obtain a permit to enter Israel.

Today's Update deals with the aftermath of a candid interview recently "allegedly" given to the New York Times by Salam Fayyad - the Palestinian Authority PM who resigned last month but is still in office in an interim role - and especially what it says about the problematic state and policies of the Palestinian leadership. The nature of this problem is partly highlighted by the word "allegedly" in the previous sentence, because Fayyad is now denying having given the interview at all, calling the whole story a " forgery that carries political dimensions with the goal of causing damage and fomenting strife."

A pair of apparent Israeli cruise missile strikes on Syrian military targets this month brought with it near-unanimous public criticism from the regime of Bashar Assad, Syrian rebels and opposition groups, and Arab and Islamist countries in the region (although scattered Syrian opposition voices were quietly observed supporting the move).

While both Israeli and Syrian officials were reluctant to discuss details, it appears that, like a previous strike on January 30, these strikes were intended to enforce a red line Israel had laid out to Syria against the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah - reportedly in this case the highly-accurate Fatah-110 missile, which could pinpoint targets over most of Israel.

In a bizarre move, the hardcopy edition of the Daily Telegraph failed to run any coverage before or after a BDS protest on April 30 at the University of NSW against a planned Max Brenner outlet set to open on campus in June.

However, in the paper's "They Said It" section (May 1) which highlights quotes of the day, this appeared:

"‘These brigades have committed war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and are involved in Israel's continual ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Students and staff of conscience demand that the Max Brenner be shut down! We don't want companies that endorse the apartheid state of Israel and it's apartheid practices.' A Facebook page set up by UNSW students opposes a campus chocolate shop."

AIJAC welcomes the Australian Government's decision to honour Raoul Wallenberg as Australia's first honorary citizen at a Canberra ceremony on Monday. The tribute not only pays respect to Wallenberg's heroic legacy of moral courage but it also makes a tremendous statement about Australian values.

AIJAC policy analyst Or Avi-Guy talks with Sky News' Stan Grant about Israel's apparent air strikes in Syria.

This Update features two important articles on the state of play regarding the Iranian nuclear standoff - one looking at the effectiveness of current sanctions and another examining Iran's calculations, and especially what considerations might lead Teheran to stage a nuclear breakout. It also contains an important article on the growing and increasingly controversial role being played by the small country of Qatar in various Middle East conflicts and issues.

The ANZAC Day memorial ceremony at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem saw an unusually high turnout last week. The respectful, yet modest, annual commemoration traditionally gathers, and caters to, mostly official Australian and New-Zealand representatives and diplomats from their Embassies, expatriates and the occasional tourist from "Down Under".

Earlier this week, AIJAC reported the vile anti-Jewish hate-speech that appeared on the Facebok event page for an anti-Israel rally opposing the opening of a Max Brenner outlet at the University of NSW...

Consequently, the dynamic on the page was transformed ... it seems that the page has been overrun by semi-literate keyboard warriors with axes to grind...

Contrary to recent headlines, the Arab League as a collective body did not substantially "sweeten" its 2002 Peace Initiative (API) for Israel on Monday.

Nonetheless, there is some reason to see this diplomatic movement, while relatively minor, as a small, positive step.

While many Gazans struggle with poverty like many people across the Middle East, one may be surprised to find that there is another side to Gaza's economy - a booming property development industry supported by the smuggling trade that is estimated to have made a thousand millionaires in the last five years. In fact, property prices for luxury villas and apartments in elite Gaza areas like El Remal are reportedly on par with London and New York. 

This certainly came as a surprise to television presenter Seyi Rhodes, who filmed the documentary "Unreported World: Gaza's property ladder" which aired on the UK's Channel 4 on April 26.

On Fairfax's "Daily Life" site (April 23) Ruby Hamad, who has previously penned some ill-informed and one-sided pieces on Israel, presented a sober account of the escalating restrictions imposed by Hamas on Gazans.

Unfortunately her explanation for Gaza's economic difficulties was entirely predictable...

On Monday, AIJAC reported on the first two days of vicious anti-Jewish hate-speech on the Facebook page for an anti-Israel rally held this afternoon at the University of New South Wales ('UNSW') to protest the opening of a Max Brenner chocolate shop...

Thankfully, the event saw little identifiable antisemitism -- although those present were likely 'on their best behaviour' due to the significant media presence. Nevertheless, the real story remains the Facebook page. Below is a continuation of yesterday's account...

Transcending sentiment and pragmatic impulses was Thatcher's hard-nosed perception that the qualities of the Jewish community coincided precisely with her own aspirational vision for Britain: self-help and hard work, ambition and endeavour, enterprise, personal responsibility and social justice.

It was horrible to watch, on an ordinary Sydney bus, on an ordinary day.

A male, chronologically an adult, delivered a racist tirade directed at two other passengers.
A young woman who recorded the incident on her phone told media that the targets of the abuse had done nothing which would have prompted such behaviour. The only trigger for the invective was, it seems, the fact that the victims were of "Korean appearance".

As shocking as the racism itself was the apparent non-response of most of the people on the bus.

The death of convicted Palestinian terrorist Maysara Abu-Hamdiya from throat cancer in an Israeli jail on April 2 amid Palestinian accusations that he did not receive adequate treatment prompted rocket fire from Gaza and violent demonstrations in the West Bank.

Coverage of these clashes unfortunately followed a familiar pattern of focussing primarily on Palestinian claims against Israel and on Israeli actions against Palestinians.

Did you know that "the Israel-Palestine conflict" is "the central factor in Islam-West relations"? Not one of a number of factors, not an element of a larger, multi-faceted engagement, but "the" central factor?

Readers of the latest volume in Australia's "Islamic Studies Series" are presented with this "fact" as an attempt to justify a thin book on "Making Australian Foreign Policy in Israel-Palestine" being published as part of its catalogue.

Student activism in NSW seems to be taking a dark turn.

For those who follow this blog, it would not be especially surprising to hear that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel ('BDS') movement is steeped in antisemitism. ...

In recent days, students at the University of New South Wales ('UNSW') have seen perhaps the most publicly explicit example of this phenomenon to rear its ugly head on Australian shores. A bizarre collective of Muslim students, students from the extreme left, prominent Muslim community leader Rebecca Kay, and "Jihad Sheila" Raisah Douglas, have come together...

During his visit to Israel in March, US President Barack Obama arranged a dramatic telephone call on March 22 between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Erdogan. Netanyahu spoke of Israel's "regret for certain operational errors" in the commando assault on the Mavi Marmara. Compensation, he said, would be paid to each of the nine families of the victims killed on the flotilla. The two leaders ostensibly undertook to put their acrimonious three-year-old dispute behind them and normalise relations.

Experts agree that the Israeli economy, while suffering no major illness, is nonetheless in need of some bitter preventive treatment if it is to avoid serious ailments down the road. At the heart of the situation that Finance Minister Yair Lapid inherited yawns a 4.2%-of-GDP budget deficit, the result of unplanned defence spending in the face of the Iranian threat, as well as expanded social spending following street protests back in 2011.