Editorial, December 10, 2010

IF it has been said once this week, it has been said a thousand times, Australians know what Israel has gone through with the bushfires.

It would be misleading to put the Carmel fires on the same scale as the most recent Black Saturday fires across Victoria. The casualties, destruction caused and time taken to get them under control are all widely different.

However, in a country that a century ago had few forested areas, even the loss of  trees is devastating, never mind the loss of at least 42 lives and an estimated 100 buildings.

Unsurprisingly, our Jewish community has rallied around Israel at this time. There are three major fundraising appeals underway and both Sydney and Melbourne are gathering in solidarity to learn more and offer help.

Hearteningly, the Australian Government offered a remarkable level of assistance and support to Israel – a country with which it has had a shaky relationship in 2010. On Friday, as the impact of Israel’s fires was just beginning to be understood around the world, Foreign Minister

Kevin Rudd took time out of a meeting he was attending in Bahrain to issue a heartfelt statement.

In that statement, he acknowledged the impact of the natural disaster, both on Israel and on the local Jewish community, and offered to help.

This offer was discussed in detail on Sunday, when Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke with her Israeli counterpart Binyamin Netanyahu. During that conversation, she said she would assemble a group of Australian bushfire experts to send to Israel, as well as chemical fire retardant. Luckily, by the time the group could be dispatched from the other side of the world, the worst of the fires was over.

Hopefully, when Rudd visits Israel next week, he will include in his discussions with Israel’s top brass an offer to provide local knowledge to the Jewish State so that if this happens again, the results are nowhere near as ­catastrophic.

As many Israeli commentators are now asking, how and why was this fire allowed to take hold and cause the devastation it did?

Australia, with its expertise in bushfires, could have a significant role to play in providing those answers and preventing another one.

WHEN Qatar was announced last week as the host of the 2022 World Cup, the disappointment we felt as Australians was palpable. As Australian Jews, however, that sense of sadness was tinged with another emotion – one of concern. What would happen, we wondered, if Israel qualified for the finals? Would the Arab country allow a team from the Jewish State to play on their turf?

Our fears were quickly allayed, though, when that very question was put to the chief executive of the Qatar bid . Responding to the query, he insisted that all nations participating in the tournament would be welcome in the Gulf state.

That was the good news. The bad news that emerged this week was that even though an Arab country was happy to host Israel in the tournament, if The Greens in New South Wales had their way, Australia would refuse to compete.

That the sympathies of the party lie with the Palestinians is no secret, likewise that individual Greens are openly hostile to Israel. However, as of this month, that antipathy to the Jewish State has been enshrined as official policy.

According to The Greens NSW, it is no longer enough merely to criticise Israel – all trade ties must be cut, relations between academic institutions must be severed and cultural and sporting events involving Israelis must be boycotted. Their vision: Israeli goods – that’s all Israeli goods, not just those from the settlements – removed from supermarket shelves; no more Israeli film festivals or visits from Israeli dance troupes; Israeli tennis  players banned from Australia; and a cessation of any cooperation on mutually beneficial medical, technological and agricultural research. All with a view to ending what is dubbed “the colonisation of Palestinian territory … the imprisonment of 1.5 million people and Israel’s institution of a system of apartheid”.

Conveniently, there’s no mention of the sustained terror campaign waged against Israeli citizens, the refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist or the virulent anti-Semitism preached from Palestinian pulpits, broadcast on Palestinian television and taught in Palestinian schools.

For the moment, at least, the proposal has only been taken up by the NSW party. Whether the federal party will follow suit remains to be seen. But it’s a wake-up call to those who shrugged off the issue of The Greens’ attitude to Israel in this year’s elections, and it’s a salutary warning to those who may consider voting for the party when New South Wales goes to the polls next year.