Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

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 qu

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 over

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 predicta

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

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 Wa

Ahead of PM Julia Gillard's cabinet reshuffle Michael Danby's name was touted in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald (March 25) as a potential foreign affairs parliamentary secretary (in the end he got the gig for the Arts instead). Danby of course has excellent foreign policy credentials...Unfortuna

Many well-meaning pundits and politicians seem to base their whole approach to the Middle East peace process on a single "fact" - namely, that if a two-state solution is not reached soon then "Arabs living under Israeli control" will outnumber Jews, thus either destroying Israel's democratic charact

In Australia and elsewhere, proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ('BDS') campaign against Israel consistently claim that the campaign is about human rights and has no racial element. ... Yet time and again, leading BDS figures are exposed for supporting various neo-Nazi and/or Islamis

When Australia's federal government decided to abstain and not oppose a UN vote to upgrade Palestinian representation, Foreign Minister Bob Carr justified the move explaining how "a good friend will share with his friend reservations about that friend's behaviour". It would be interesting to know i

Maybe it's the fact that Hamas' outgoing leader Khaled Meshal and Fairfax's Paul McGeough both have a penchant for beards, or that they are both persona non grata in Israel but their bromance spilled over into three separate articles in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald on March 2 and 3.

What is an academic and cultural boycott of Israel intended to achieve? The purported reason for launching a universal boycott of Israeli academics is their country's alleged breaches of international law. Supposedly, the smarting academics will help turn around Israeli policy... Of course, those Is

Israel's attack on a Syrian weapons convoy generated considerable interest on ABC Radio. Radio National's "Breakfast" (1/2) spoke to Ehud Yaari via telephone in Israel. Yaari told Fran Kelly that Israel attacked a convoy carrying weapons that would give Hezbollah capabilities such as the "Yakhont c

Racism is not always as obvious as some would like to believe. There is generally a 'perfectly rational explanation' for each isolated racist incident. The underlying prejudice only becomes apparent when looked at in a broader context. One such case is policy adopted by the Centre for Peace and Con

In a story for the Age/Canberra Times/Sydney Morning Herald (21/1) on Israeli Arab voters Ruth Pollard spoke to the controversial anti-Zionist Israeli MK Haneen Zoabi - an interview best described as softer than cashmere.

In the Sun-Herald (30/12), Paul McGeough penned a long article devoted to offensively comparing pro-Israel voices concerned over President Barack Obama's possible nomination of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as his next Defence-Secretary to those Americans who defend their right to own guns i

The head of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Jake Lynch, has received a number of high-profile condemnations over his recent decision to refuse to work with Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon. This decision, made i

On 6 December 1938, an extraordinary event took place in Melbourne. William Cooper, an Indigenous Australian in his late 70s, led a delegation to the German Consulate in Melbourne, to deliver a petition formulated after he heard and read reports of "Kristallnacht" and other anti-Jewish manifestatio

This Update contains two pieces from leading intellectuals dealing with the rise of "new" forms of antisemitism - forms where anti-Zionism is mixed with antisemitic beliefs and tropes - with a special focus on Europe. In addition, it includes a piece re-considering conventional wisdo

Often, in the aftermath of antisemitic attacks on Jewish communities, hateful and apologetic claims are somtimes made that the victim was in fact the instigator of hatred and provoked the attackers. However, there are cases that undermine this premise - at times it seems that amazingly there can be

A group supported by a cross-section of Australia's anti-Israel movement has been revealed to be pedalling overt antisemitic propaganda. On 1 October, Jewish Agency for Israel employee Avi Mayer stumbled across an alarming tweet by the Free Gaza Movement ('FGM'), the principal organisers of the inf