Letters (July 24, 2009)

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Letters published in the AJN print edition of July 24, 2009

Why hasn’t Livni joined the Coalition?

ONE could be forgiven for thinking that Tzipi Livni hasn’t joined the coalition on account of her political principles. She sees herself as the post-modern voice of Israeli political enlightenment, sidelining religious Jews in her pursuit of a secular, liberal, Jewish state. In fact, she hasn’t joined the coalition because she hasn’t been invited, again. Binyamin Netanyahu only asked her once: when he had no choice. Now, the Livni problem is the last thing on his mind.

He, like many post-modern, unenlightened pragmatists, sees her as a political extremist, fundamentally wedded to accommodation with the Arabs. But that is not her main problem. Unlike Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, Livni still hasn’t woken up -— some say that she will never wake up -— to the fact that the Palestinians do not represent a true body politic. They are an agglomerate of warring, tribal factions whose archaic rationale does not permit political negotiation with Jews. Livni believes that she occupies — or could occupy — the same political, negotiating space as the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has no illusions. It is extremely unlikely that he will offer her another political olive branch.

Dr Paul Brown
St Kilda East, Vic

Palestinian obligations?

JUDY Bamberger (AJN 17/07) states her interpretation of Israeli obligations, but mentions nothing about obligations of Palestinians.

The land that came under Israeli control was not a state, but rather an area that was 22 per cent of the land designated as a Jewish homeland by the League of Nations. The land is disputed and according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, borders are to be determined via negotiations.

“Settlements” are on a mere 1.2 per cent of Judea and Samaria, and no-one has the right to tell Israel what to do on disputed land until peace treaties are signed. Palestinian claims do not establish ownership, the more so as they have never negotiated in good faith, nor kept any of their undertakings.

Even 242 was a contravention of international norms: defeated aggressor states pay a penalty. In addition to trying to bully Israel to retreat to the 1948 armistice lines (contravening 242), the international community is inviting an attack on itself when it condones the penalty-free aggression of some states.

Israel must stand up to the international community and declare that Palestinian interpretations of undertakings not previously honoured are not a basis for new demands.

Bamberger’s damning of Israel as racist, colonising, etc. is fact defying. When Egyptian border guards shoot Darfurians while Israel gives them asylum, or when it takes in not fully Jewish Ethiopians, it is not being racist. When Israelis develop and live on disputed lands, instead of exploiting its “natives” or resources to benefit the “mother” country, they are not colonisers.

As a Jew I believe that everyone — Jews included — deserves the justice that their actions have earned them. And the self-interest of nations has no place in the search for justice.

Paul Winter
Chatswood, NSW

Message for Obama

AMERICA’S President Barack Obama tells Israel’s PM Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze all‚Ä® settlement construction.‚Ä®‚Ä® On July 19, the US told Israel “it must halt an East Jerusalem‚Ä® construction project in accordance with the Obama Administration’s‚Ä® demands for a complete freeze on settlement building”. (Ha’aretz).

This East Jerusalem project is funded by an American -— Irving ‚Ä®Moskowitz -— who fed US$70 million to US$80 million into the‚Ä® settlement enterprise by 2002 through tax-deductible‚Ä® “charities”, conveniently circumventing government oversight.

If Obama is serious about Israel freezing settlement activity, then ‚Ä®Obama must ensure that Americans cease all financial transactions ‚Ä®that benefit settlers. If this doesn’t happen voluntarily, then ‚Ä®embargoing the funds of Moskowitz and his ilk is an appropriate ‚Ä®next step. Making it illegal for Americans to support settlers would demonstrate that Obama is serious about the settlement freeze.

As a Jewish-American, I’m appalled and disgusted by Moskowitz’s ‚Ä®actions, and his hubris. ‚Ä®‚Ä®Mr President: It’s time to close the loopholes and shut the tap ‚Ä®flooding unaccounted-for tens-of-millions of dollars to the rogue ‚Ä®settlers who bring shame to Jews everywhere, and spit in the face of ‚Ä®American policy and the American presidency.

Judy Bamberger
O’Connor, ACT

Eliminating ‘Jewish paranoia’

IT was nice to see that different ethnic and religious communities united peacefully against all forms of racism and discrimination at the Harmony Walk. Members of the Jewish and Islamic communities peacefully stood side-by-side waiting for the directions from the organisers.

The new police commissioner and senior officers mingled with the crowd and proudly introduced junior officers of different ethnic background. The only problem is that some officers on the beat still have discriminatory attitude against ethic groups and they easily write off complains from the Jewish community about anti-Semitism as “Jewish paranoia”.

It appears that the new police commissioner already identified a few issues within the force that should be changed and certainly eliminating comments like “Jewish paranoia” should be added to the list.

Gabor Ujvari
Caulfield, Vic

Torah perspective

THE ingenuous irony of letter writer Michael Barnett’s confessing his inability to “tolerate” the Torah’s proscription of homosexual relations while accusing me of “intolerance” will not be lost on your readership (AJN 17/7).

No doubt Mr Barnett would like the columns of The AJN to be closed off to the expression of all views that do not accord with his own “tolerant” ones. For the record, expression of a Torah perspective, even an uncompromising one, does not constitute by any definition “spewing hatred”.

Anti-rabbi rants and personal invective such as those emanating from Mr Barnett would, however, appear to rank pretty high on the sin’at chinam (baseless hatred) scale.

Rabbi Chaim Ingram
Bondi Junction, NSW

Lessons of history

IN “Britain restricts arms sales to Israel” (AJN 17/07) it was reported that Britain has imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel over the Gaza war, refusing to supply replacement parts for navy gunships used in the “offensive”. “Offensive”?

Israel defends itself against repeated rocket attacks from Gaza, an area which it evacuated in 2005, and this is described as an “offensive” and as a reason to deny Israel arms? Israel is to be subject to an arms embargo for standing up to Hamas, an Islamo-fascist terrorist organisation that is dedicated to its destruction? Did Britain learn nothing from the total and abject failure of its attempts to “appease” fascism in the 1930s?

In June 1936 Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Abyssinia, made a speech to the League of Nations lamenting the Italian fascist invasion of his country and the failure of the rest of the world to help his people in their courageous but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stand up to the fascists. He stated: “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.”

In a similar vein, the famous Spanish Republican hero Dolores Ibarruri “La Pasionaria” told the world a few months later, when her country was being attacked by “Nationalist” fascist insurgents led by General Franco and supported by the military forces of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, “It is Spain today, but it will be your turn tomorrow.”

The world stood by and allowed Abyssinia to fall to the fascists, the western democracies through their craven “non-intervention” policy — an effective arms embargo on the elected Republican government of Spain -— allowed Franco’s fascists and their Nazi and Italian fascist supporters to impose fascism on Spain. Did we learn nothing from the total and abject failure of “appeasement” in the 1930s?

Israel is the front line of democracy against Islamo-fascism and deserves our unstinting and total support. To impose arms embargoes, boycotts or any other impositions on Israel is a craven surrender to the forces of Islam-fascism and history teaches us that such “appeasements” will surely embolden them to further excesses.

Dr Bill Anderson
Surrey Hills, Vic

Another walk?

THE apparent viciously “set-up” bashings recently taking place against ordinary young people all over ‚Ä®Melbourne and elsewhere, with multiple youths involved against one or two, may be a reaction either by or against some perceived cultural-group animosity. The Indian students certainly think so.

Is there some vicious payback mentality at play here? Every ethnic group in Australia would have arrived with some bigoted “baggage” from their native countries, while others would have experienced some racism right here. Possibly there is a new anti-social culture developing among sections of the youth in today’s multicultural society.

They would not have been at last week’s excellent Harmony Walk. There needs to be research undertaken from the arrested perpetrators to get to the bottom of it all.

Perhaps it is time for another walk: a “friendship walk”:, like the “flower people’s” marches of my youth, with the theme of “make love, not war”!

Malvina Malinek
South Yarra, Vic

Butt out

THE decision of the English Court of Appeal in overturning a lower court’s ruling on the question of defining who is a Jew (AJN 17/07) is yet another example of an abhorrent trend these days of secular courts telling religious authorities how to determine halachah. Last week it was the Israeli Supreme Court telling the kashrut authority what is kosher, this week it is an English court telling British Jews who is Jewish.

When will courts come to recognise that their role is to determine the law, not to tell Judaism how to determine halachah?

Secular courts do not have the background, knowledge or believe in G-d to even consider such matters and should leave them to more appropriate authorities.

Joshua Szwarcbard
Caulfield North, Vic

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