Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

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,

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

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan on March 1 offensively equated Zionism to racism and fascism at the "Fifth Alliance of Civilizations Forum" in Vienna. During the forum, Erdoğan reportedly stated: "Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarde

Australia's biggest oil and gas firm, Woodside Petroleum has announced it is buying a 30 percent share, valued up to $2.5 billion, in Israel's Leviathan natural gas field. Israel, a nation once thought to be devoid of natural resources in recent years has found vast amounts of natural gas deep unde

As Islamist parties and groups gain power in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in the aftermath of the upheavals in the Middle East, and with growing chaos and uncertainty in neighbouring Syria, Turkey has been seen by many analysts as a model for balancing political Islam and democracy. Bu

This Update focuses on analysis of the growing tension between Turkey and Syria, in the wake of a series of confrontational incidents, including Turkish shelling of Syrian territory in response to a Syrian shell which struck Turkey, an earlier incident involving Syrian fire on a Turk

The Pew Research Centre's Global Attitudes Project has just released the results of surveys it conducted throughout the Middle East in the wake of the "Arab Spring." The surveys reveal some interesting insights about attitudes in the Middle East in the wake of the recent uprisings, including how Mid

Bülent Yıldırım, President of the Turkish aid organisation Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), which sponsored the ill-fated and controversial "Mavi Marmara" flotilla to Gaza in 2010, is under investigation in Turkey for allegedly providing financial support to al-Qaeda.

This Update leads with two important pieces discussing the claims and counter-claims being made as part of the Iranian nuclear talks. First up, Iran scholar and recent visitor to Australia Emanuele Ottolenghi offers a good de-bunking of the constant Iranian refrain that their righ

Boycotting and isolating Israel culturally, economically, and politically has long been one of the goals of many of Israel’s neighbours in the Middle East, and more recently, of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It is revealing, then, that growing numbers of people througho

While many in the international media have recently "coronated" Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as "King" of Israel following his formation of a national unity government, surely the use of the term, with its non-democratic connotations, would be more apropos when referring to Turkey'

Also today: Egyptian authorities create an anti-American conspiracy while they respect the human rights of terrorists but not refugees.

Also today: a bizarre Egyptian consipracy, some Nazi Marines, terrorist diet tips, and a British MP with questionable ties.

An AFP report yesterday indicated that, as predicted, Hamas and Fatah are dragging their feet on actually implementing the latest reconciliation deal. This suggests that the current deal will go the way of the three previous deals: all have been introduced to much fanfare and then quietly lapsed as

A news story which received little coverage in Australian media surrounds the tragic news that Turkey committed a massacre that killed 35 civilians in an air strike into Iraq near a Kurdish village along the Turkish border on 28 December 2011. Turkey has admitted that the attack was an error. Turke

Today's Update looks at Syria, Iran and Turkey against the backdrop of the veto by China and Russia of sanctions by the UN Security Council against the Assad regime in Damascus for its ongoing violent crackdown against anti-government protesters. The resolution was supported by nine members but, sig

The year was 1958 and Israel had noticed that Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser's agitation across the Middle East was disagreeable to many of his non-Arab neighbours. Israel therefore emerged with what came to be known as the "Periphery Strategy", which focused on Ethiopia, Iran and Turkey and eve

It is hard to remain unmoved by acts of blatant cynicism. Not those small, nasty gestures of crass stupidity that seek to advance a particular vested interest, but grand acts of faux-statecraft that leave the observer unsure whether to laugh or cry. Last month's antics of Turkey's Islamist Prime Min

It has become increasingly clear that, sadly, the Arab upheavals that swept the Middle East this year are not resulting in a democratic "Arab Spring". Rather an "Islamist awakening" seems to be occurring alongside a resurgence of extreme Arab nationalism. The middle class crowds demanding "freedom"

There is little doubt that the phenomenon of WikiLeaks has lost the excitement and positive glow it once sparked among journalists, pundits and activists. Infighting in the organisation, the lack of anything terribly surprising in most of the more recent releases of information and the loss of novel