Media Releases

Referring to the Australian Greens party’s policy change regarding the Middle East adopted on Sunday, June 4, AIJAC National Chairman Mark Leibler said, “The enormous gap between reality and the Greens Party Middle East policies must raise questions about other Greens’ positions and will severely dent their credibility in the eyes of informed observers.”

AIJAC Executive Director Dr. Colin Rubenstein added, “The Greens kept silent about the merits of Israel’s last government – its most diverse ever – and their cynical attempt to exploit concern with the democratically elected Israeli government is part of their bullying attitude to the world’s only Jewish-majority state. The Middle East policies adopted by the Greens, quite simply, bring that party into disrepute.”

AIJAC Director of Community and International Affairs Jeremy Jones further stated that, “The Greens Party decision reflects ignorance and arrogance. The rejection of the Gold Standard definition of Antisemitism, the IHRA Working Definition, exposes the Greens as having contempt for Jewish Australians and strips away any veneer that they are in any way a genuinely anti-racist party. Further, the Greens Party’s new Middle East policy does nothing to promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis and should be irrelevant to Australian foreign policy development, but it potentially will contribute to facilitating more antisemitism in Australia.”

 
For additional information, contact AIJAC on (03)-9681-6660.