In Her Criticism of Daniel Pipes, Patton Continues to Miss the Point
April 13, 2018 | Colin Rubenstein
I am pleased that, in her latest article replying to me, Chloe Patton has been prepared to engage more substantively with what Daniel Pipes had to say while visiting Australia…
Hamas always happy to expend Gaza lives as part of its deadly theatre
April 5, 2018 | Colin Rubenstein
Last weekend’s Gaza violence in which 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces was not what it might have seemed. It certainly was not the peaceful protest, or the massacre of innocent civilians, that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and their supporters claim.
Australia should fund Palestinian welfare, but not “pay to slay”
April 3, 2018 | Sharyn Mittelman
A key obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is the institutionalised incitement to anti-Israel violence by the Palestinian Authority (PA)… Perhaps the worst aspect of this incitement, however, is the PA’s “martyr” compensation scheme, which incentivises terrorism by providing lifetime monthly stipends to convicted terrorists and to the families of slain terrorists.
As relations with North Korea thaw, Iran poses a bigger threat
March 15, 2018 | Colin Rubenstein
Comments made by US President Donald Trump about the sacking of his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted the fact that while the threat to world peace posed by North Korea has dominated the headlines in recent months, Trump is determinedly focused at least as much on another rogue state, which probably poses an even greater threat in the longer term – Iran.
It’s time Australia recognised Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organisation
March 1, 2018 | Colin Rubenstein
THERE is a group that was described by a senior US security official 15 years ago as the “A-Team of terrorists” and has only gone from strength to strength in the years since then. This group perpetrates violent acts against civilians, calls for mass murder and, by its own admission, doesn’t differentiate between its political and military arms.
Yet Australians are effectively free to fly this group’s flag, fill its coffers and offer it material support, even as its operatives undertake terrorist activities in our region.
History’s real lessons on Iran
February 22, 2018 | Tzvi Fleischer
Several recent articles have called on President Donald Trump to change the Iran policy of the United States based on ‘past lessons’ and Persian history. If we follow these writers to a logical conclusion, then they appear to accept that Iran must be appeased and accommodated, not confronted or contained, in its drive for regional hegemony, support for terrorism and pursuit of non-conventional weapons.
AIJAC writes to the Polish Ambassador concerning Poland’s controversial Holocaust Bill
February 6, 2018
AIJAC has written two separate letters to the Polish Ambassador regarding Poland’s controversial proposed new law regarding statements about the Holocaust.
Outrage obscures facts on Trump’s Jerusalem stance
December 20, 2017 | Allon Lee
What a lot of hoo-ha has greeted US President Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem – the city which has been Israel’s capital since 1949.
After Islamic State’s defeat, we can’t abandon Syria to Russia and Iran
December 18, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
The so-called Islamic State is on the verge of defeat in both Syria and Iraq. With the sun about to set on this murderous organisation in both countries, the Americans and the Russians, both with boots on the ground, are engaged in complex and delicate multi-sided negotiations to redraw the map of Syria.
Recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is a welcome, symbolic move
December 17, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
Imagine if no other country was prepared to accept that Canberra is our capital, to keep happy a neighbour with more international support, and a habit of issuing violent threats. Instead, they all site their embassies in Melbourne, and maintain that is the capital.
That, in a nutshell, was Israel’s situation, until Donald Trump officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital…
Danby vs the ABC
November 18, 2017 | Allon Lee
You’d think that, with its $1 billion budget, the ABC could handle a little criticism. Not so, as Melbourne Ports ALP MP Michael Danby recently discovered.
In late September, Danby had the temerity to use his electoral allowance to run two advertisements in the Australian Jewish News questioning the reporting priorities of ABC Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill.
The real legacy of the controversial Balfour Declaration
November 11, 2017 | Gareth Narunsky
Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the famous letter in which the British government declared that “it viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”…
Unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding about the declaration and the context in which it was issued.
