Editorial, May 27, 2011
Breach of trust
IT seems ironic that US President Barack Obama impressed upon the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington DC on Sunday how the US would continue to demand Hamas adhere to all existing agreements, when his own Administration is having trouble living up to that standard.
In April 2004, in an exchange of letters with then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, then-US President George W Bush provided Israel with hard-fought written guarantees that served as a foundation for US policy on two crucial issues for the future of the Jewish State: the extent of expected Israeli withdrawals on the West Bank and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
On these issues, the letter could not have been clearer. After invoking United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 242 and 338, which cite the need for an Israeli withdrawal from an unspecified amount of territory captured during the 1967 Six-Day War to “secure borders”, the letter set US expectations regarding a final settlement agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to the letter, which was ratified by US Congress, those expectations ruled out a complete return to the 1967 lines, adding that new borders would be subject to “mutually agreed changes” to lines reflecting demographic realities, on top of the land required to achieve secure borders.
On the matter of Palestinian refugees, the letter was equally clear: “A solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.”
In Jerusalem, Bush’s letter was celebrated as a monumental achievement.
Yet, in Obama’s Middle East policy speech last Thursday, the current President effectively buried the Bush letter without so much as an explanation.
Under Obama’s new policies, the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel is negotiable. UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 are forgotten, and further border changes referenced by Bush have been replaced by “swaps” requiring equal land from Israel proper.
The US President, of course, is entitled to arbitrarily change his predecessor’s policies. However, such moves are not without consequences. A price will be paid in the form of increasing mistrust from Israelis, while other US allies should also take note.
A real slight
The journalists at The AJN would be hard pressed to go a week without getting wind of an anti-Semitic incident. Often these are perceived slights that are impossible to investigate – mistreatment, snide comments or a comment made on talkback radio by an ignoramus. Sometimes, though, the accusations are something else, they become a sign of a society in trouble.
One such incident crossed The AJN news desk a couple of weeks ago. Notification of an altercation at the University of Melbourne rang alarm bells, but The AJN held off its reporting until details became clearer.
This week, we discovered that a group of louts – most probably not even Melbourne University students – gate-crashed an authorised Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut.
The celebration was not a political rally: The AJN has confirmed no advocacy was being done and there were no provocative posters or pamphlets. It was a group of Zionist students wearing their love for Israel on their sleeves, an activity that should not have raised an eyebrow in a free and democratic university environment.
Unfortunately though, local troublemakers seem to be getting more and more enthusiastic in their hatred for Israel, and on this occasion things turned violent.
In Melbourne, on the grounds of a university, violence against an official university-aligned group is completely and utterly unacceptable. What makes it even worse is that the university has a strong policy of prohibiting clubs from joining the student union if they have an agenda that vilifies others. This probably explains why the groups behind the violence – Students for Palestine and the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth – shy away from joining the student union. They are afraid their malicious agenda would be exposed.
To its credit, AUJS seems to have handled this incident in a mature way, seeking advice from communal leaders, legal representatives and eventually making an official statement to police.
Let us now hope the police and university leadership play ball to protect the legitimate rights and freedoms we should all enjoy as Australians. The Jewish community needs to continue to work closely with authorities to nip this sort of activity in the bud, for our own protection.