Amnesty’s Israel ‘apartheid’ report sets back Palestinians’ struggle
February 9, 2022 | Colin Rubenstein
Unfortunately, this Palestinian “success” with Amnesty will not only likely damage the standing of a once widely respected human rights NGO, but set back, rather than advance, hopes for Palestinians to achieve their legitimate aspirations.
‘Apartheid’ accusation against Israel puts NGOs on road to irrelevance
February 7, 2022 | Ahron Shapiro
The apartheid smear against Israel is absurd, but it’s important to recognise how beating the apartheid drum cynically serves the political ends of the NGOs and the boycotters, like two sides of the same coin.
Israel boycott bandwagon fails to see functioning democracy
January 13, 2022 | Jamie Hyams
It’s no surprise to see Greg Barns back on the Boycott Israel bandwagon, making false and easily disprovable claims of Israel being an Apartheid state to justify his support for the insidious Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Sydney Festival.
Misguided representation of Israeli-Palestinian relations has no place in our society
January 7, 2022 | Colin Rubenstein
The Australian campaign to shut doors to Naharin, rather than embrace a potential ally for Palestinian rights, says far more about the blinding, destructive obsessive animosity guiding the BDS campaign than about Israel’s alleged failings towards Palestinians. It is a deeply offensive obsession which has no place amidst the celebration of artistic creativity and diversity that the Sydney Festival represents. Patrons of the arts deserve better than the bullies of BDS.
Israel victimised by broken UN System
December 28, 2021 | Colin Rubenstein
There have never been better reasons to hope that a democratic movement for change can, over time, help the UN overcome its self-defeating Israel obsession. Doing so would allow the world body an opportunity to revise its priorities and reform its structures so that it can genuinely help serve the causes of international peace, cooperation, and welfare…
An untruth about the IHRA antisemitism definition
December 9, 2021 | Tzvi Fleischer
If you read someone claiming that “seven of the 11 examples” in the IHRA definition are about criticism of Israel, you should immediately recognise that the person making that claim either has not read it or else is being deliberately disingenuous.
The Afghanistan retreat: We may soon be recalling why we went there in the first place.
December 8, 2021 | Tzvi Fleischer
The Afghanistan retreat will be viewed in Israel as a serious and significant strategic setback that is likely to make the Jewish state less secure. Nonetheless, there is some hope that with the prudent policies and a bit of luck, at least some of the strategic lemons coming out of Afghanistan may be turned into lemonade in the form of an acceleration, consolidation and expansion of a burgeoning Israel-Sunni Arab regional security alliance.
A Plan B on Iranian nukes is now a necessity
December 8, 2021 | Colin Rubenstein
Canberra should take advantage of the opportunity created by its new trilateral AUKUS security partnership to urge the US, UK and others negotiating with Iran to urgently develop a strong backup plan to the Vienna talks – which are likely to fail, and cannot resolve the Iranian nuclear danger even if a return to the obsolete JCPOA is achieved.
The Taliban are losing the fight against Islamic State
December 6, 2021 | Oved Lobel
On paper, the Taliban have every advantage against IS-K; in practice, there’s no evidence that their take-no-prisoners campaign has affected IS-K to any great extent.
Tehran’s Russian Connection
December 3, 2021 | Oved Lobel
Often dubbed the “resistance axis,” the IRGC is no ordinary national army but the vanguard of a multinational Islamic revolution—a supranational monolith whose nerve center is located in Iran… Occasional pragmatic feats notwithstanding, the Islamic Republic has never moderated its long-term ambition to substitute a broad theocracy for the existing regional (indeed global) political order.
