Letters, November 5, 2010
Retired leaders should butt out of Israel
THE likes of former presidents Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson, as well as the Vatican, should stop intimidating Israel, because their negative actions will not bring peace to the region.
Israel-bashing will get them nowhere. Why don’t they just retire and grow flowers or take a holiday? They may curry favour with Arab and Palestinian extremists and like-minded academics, journalists, anti-Israel Jews and others, but they are doing nothing positive to achieve the peace that both the Israelis and Palestinians are seeking,
They push the Palestinian refugee issue, but at no time do they make reference to almost double the number of refugees who were dispossessed and fled from the surrounding Arab countries in 1948.
When that problem is also addressed, maybe we might be on the road to a resolution of the Middle East conflict.
As for the campaign to boycott, divest and delegitimise Israel, we as Jews and our Israeli brethren should boycott, divest and delegitimise them.
Tony Aufgang
South Yarra, Vic
Inherent flaw of unilateral declaration
THE editorial (AJN 29/10) suggests that the Palestinians may approach the UN to endorse Palestinian statehood “in the territory¬†encompassing East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — the pre 1967 borders”. For the sake of clarity, let’s call this land “the Palestinian land”. That might be one scenario, but that would mean that the Palestinians would have to acknowledge that the land outside of “the Palestinian land”, which for the sake of clarity, let’s call¬†”the Israeli land”,¬†does not belong to them. It would mean that the Palestinians would have to acknowledge that the Israeli¬†land belongs to someone else. The Palestinians¬†might want to call that land¬†”terra incognito”,¬†but the rest of the world, including the UN, knows the owner of that land as Israel. The Palestinians would therefore¬†have to acknowledge that land belongs therefore to Israel.
That is something that they have not been prepared to do up until now. So what makes you think that they are ready to do that now? (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says that recognition was given in 1993. If that’s the case, why is the Palestinian Charter exactly as it was prior to recognition, and why is¬†there such a big problem to do what has already been done before.) This is an option the Palestinians will not run because to do so means that they would have to recognise Israel and that is something that they are simply not prepared to do.
The other scenario is that the Palestinians might simply approach the UN to endorse Palestinian statehood, in the land that appears on their own¬†official maps, that is to say, all of the aforementioned “Palestinian land” and “Israeli land” combined. That gets rid of the Israel problem because there simply isn’t anything¬†left to call Israel.¬†Given their track record up until now, this would seem to me to fit their aspirations much better. This way, they don’t have to recognise Israel because there isn’t one. This is an option that the Palestinians will not run because, firstly, it would make them look stupid — why after all be engaged in peace talks with Israel if you can get the whole lot through the back door? And secondly, they know that the US would veto it anyway which would make them look stupid.
Let’s face reality, if the Palestinians¬†really wanted a Palestinian state, they could have¬†done it years ago and saved everyone a lot of trouble with wars and intifadas. Just about everyone in the world wants the Palestinians to have their own state. The problem is that the Palestinians do not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel. They want a Palestinian state instead of Israel.
The Palestinians say they will be ready for statehood by the end of 2011. I am not going to hold my breath on this one.
Michael Shaw
St Kilda East, Vic
Benefits of recognising the Jewish State
THE continuous effort of making peace in the Middle East by the US and the few allies of Israel seems a never-ending effort.
I had just read the France Soir Historique (French News edition of History) dated May 14, 1948, when Israel became a legitimate country as voted for by the UN, albeit not with the consent of all countries.
We know what has happened ever since.
The history of Israel from 1948 shows the constant warfare — fights to repel the militant Arab opposition to allow Israel to exist in peace. Our enemies in the Arab world don’t seem to understand either how to live in harmony and peace with different religions, or how they could make life for their own population much better with the help of Israel’s advanced technology, agriculture, economic knowhow, and research in improving¬†education and health.
In today’s news, we read that against all efforts to continue a peace effort, militant Arab groups still maintain their opposition to officially accept the Israeli state, thus keeping up the state of war against Israel.
The message to moderate Arab leaders must be to make the militants recognise the value in Golda Meir’s words: “When the Arab mothers and fathers will love their children more than hate Israel, then there is a chance of peace in the Middle East.”
Tom Sinclair
Bondi Junction, NSW
Crime in Victoria is not rising under Labor
I WAS disappointed by the claims by David Southwick regarding the increase in violent crime since Labor came to power (AJN 29/10).
Despite Mr Southwick’s claims, Victoria’s overall crime rate has actually fallen by 30 per cent in the past decade and compared to the same three-month period last year, we have witnessed a 27.5 per cent reduction in street assaults in Melbourne’s CBD and a 12.4 per cent decrease in street assaults state-wide.
Crime has instead fallen in every year since Labor came to government in 1999, and is now at its lowest level since the introduction of computerised recording in 1993. I recognise that more needs to be done to ensure the safety — that’s why the Brumby Labor Government is putting 1966 new frontline police on our streets.
The Caulfield electorate deserves much more than a candidate who relies on creating an unwarranted climate of fear within the community.
Jennifer Huppert MP
Southern Metropolitan Region, Vic
Money must be found for Yiddish course
IT is with great regret that I read of the failure of the Yiddish course to continue long enough to allow the enrolled students to complete it (AJN 22/10). I understand that the candidature is small, and that a university has to run in the black, but I find it inconceivable that students would have to backtrack, re-enrol in other subjects without a thought to the extra cost of tuition fees, or have to put in more time at university than originally planned.
As an ex-student of the Yiddish course at the University of Sydney, I came away with a proficiency that allowed me to take weekly Yiddish conversational classes at the COA. As a visitor to Montefiore home in Hunters Hill, there were times when I was in conversation with an elderly resident with failing cognitive powers and the only way we could converse was in the tongue of their youth i.e. Yiddish. My point is that it has allowed me to give back to our community in a way I would not have expected when I started the course.
I, too, have played a minor role in collecting Yiddish books presently being stored at the university. As a community aware of protecting our past for those surviving us in the future, I pray that a few generous people, with an eye to assisting preservation of our heritage, may come forward to financially enable the Yiddish students already enrolled in the course to at least complete it. One never knows what they may contribute to our community members thanks to the Yiddish education that touches on so much of our past as a people.
Arlene Schwartz
Rose Bay, NSW
B’nai B’rith sale is a costly mistake
EXPECTING a lot of letters, I waited a week to see what the response would be to B’nai B’rith selling its building in Hotham Street (AJN 22/10). Surely over the years the community has realised that once sold, large blocks of land in Elwood and Caulfield are never available for use by organisations when they decide to expand in the future.
For example, Jewish Welfare made a huge mistake by selling its two large low-cost housing complexes in Herbert Street, Elwood a few years ago. They could have been refurbished, costs could have come from a special appeal or a partnership could have been worked out with the builders. There are now 70 flats on one of these sites.
Imagine if say 10 of these could have been kept by Jewish Welfare. A continued income and not the one-off profit of $ 4-5 million. With rising house prices and exorbitant rents,  there will always be a demand for low-cost flats. The rising number of unemployed individuals with special needs means that we will need to build huge numbers of low-cost units.
Surely if B’nai B’rith rented out its building, it would have more than enough to rent smaller premises and carry on the great work that they presently achieve.
Leon Friedman
Elwood, Vic
The sorry state of shul attendance
WHEN I was a growing up in Sydney during and just after World War II, there were three Orthodox congregations, no Jewish day schools or ­hospitals, and we received our religious upbringing and knowledge from our family and by attending Sunday school. Synagogue services always had good attendances of all age groups and both sexes. Over the ensuing years we have seen the Orthodox congregations rise to more than 30, the advent of Jewish day schools and university colleges, a Jewish hospital and a number of retirement facilities. We have also seen a rise in the number of Jewish charity groups and providers, and a great rise in the number of alphabet soup groups to provide centralised charity giving, governance and to be the voice of the Jewish population of Australia.
What else do we see?¬†Despite the growth in the overall Jewish population, the majority of the synagogues report a diminishing attendance at services, with apparent difficulty at times of obtaining a minyan.¬†More importantly, we also see a diminishment in the actual regular attendance of the community leaders at our synagogues.¬†If our civic leaders do not attend regularly, then how can they exhort the attendance of their fellow Jews?¬†Or is it a case of “Do as I say, not as I do”?
I do not know the answers, but let us see, along with the entreaties to politicians and the public in regards to Israel and its problems, a return to regularly going to shul and help to make a minyan for those wishing to say Kaddish.
Joe Kensell
Five Dock, NSW
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