Pro-Israel lobby: helping or hindering policy making?
July 19, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
TONY JONES: Well, to discuss the role of the pro-Israel lobby and its degree of influence and whether it exists here in the same way as the US, we’re joined now by Ted Lapkin, director of policy analysis at the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He’s in our Melbourne studio. And with me in Sydney is the author of My Israel Question, Antony Loewenstein.
Stemming the tide Israel fights terrorism on two fronts
July 19, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
IN the world of Middle Eastern politics, natural coincidences are few and far between. And it’s not happenstance that Iran is staring down the barrel of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear weapons program when all hell breaks loose in Gaza and Lebanon.
Iran, Syria wage war by proxy
July 17, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
Israel is facing a two-front war, now that the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has joined the confrontation. Hezbollah’s action was probably undertaken at the behest of Iran, which runs it as an adjunct of its own security forces.
Innocent suffer most
July 17, 2006 | Bren Carlill
THEY’RE going through a routine I know so well. Life in a concrete bomb shelter isn’t pleasant, but with Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israeli towns and villages it’s a necessity of life.
Reconcile or count the cost
July 17, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
‘WAR never solves anything” is a much-loved slogan of the peace movement. And excepting the fact that Nazism and fascism perished at the sharp end of a bayonet, perhaps the peaceniks have a point.
Guantanamo ruling no victory for Hicks
July 3, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
You could almost hear the popping of champagne corks in those upscale urban precincts where contempt for America is an article of faith. At first glance, the Bush administration seems to have received its judicial comeuppance from the Supreme Court of the United States.
Morally right to kill threats
June 23, 2006 | Bren Carlill
THE Arab-Israeli conflict rolls on, confusing as ever. Earlier this month Australian newspapers reported an impending reconciliation referendum for the Palestinian population. But after a family was killed last week on a Gaza beach, apparently by a Hamas mine (though Israel was blamed), the terrorist organisation cancelled a 15-month unilateral ceasefire and resumed attacks against Israel.
A war we dare not lose
June 10, 2006 | Chris Kenny
IN what we call the War on Terrorism, we should all empathise with the Israelis or, to be conspicuously even-handed, the Israelis and the Palestinians. These are the people at the epicentre of the global struggle of our time.
Hamas is new name for old desire to eliminate Israel
May 3, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
While open elections are a necessary component of democracy, they are not its be-all and end-all. Political liberty also requires freedom of speech and religious persuasion, equal rights for women and the guarantee that minority groups will enjoy the same legal privileges as the majority.
Cancer of the suicide bomber
April 26, 2006 | Bren Carlill
THOSE of us who have lost loved ones to cancer tend to grimace a little more empathetically when we hear of someone falling victim to the disease.
Brewing calamity
April 24, 2006 | Ted Lapkin
“The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.” Sound familiar? But these are not the genocidal rantings of crisis-present uttered by Iran’s Jew-hater in chief, President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.
Israel seen as an asset
April 19, 2006 | Colin Rubenstein
IN his opinion piece on this page yesterday, Antony Loewenstein complains that an “Israeli lobby” in the US and Australia relentlessly campaigns to stifle pro-Palestinian voices through “intimidation and slander” (“Don’t let any lobby shut down debate”).
