Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

Prior to, and during, the recent UK election campaign, there was a renewed focus on antisemitism promoted by sections of, and tolerated by many more inside, the political Left. It seemed that the more one encountered the support base of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the more likely one was to find a

The recent British election was a disaster for incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party.

The AIR doesn't often quote the UK's Guardian newspaper positively, given that paper's dyed-in-the-wool anti-Israel editorial stances and slant to its reporting. However, the Guardian deserves full credit for an April 5 editorial exposing an ugly formulation which has become increasing common on the

As readers are doubtless aware, last week saw yet another apparently ISIS-inspired "lone wolf" attack in London, which killed four people and left more 50 injured, when 52-year-old Briton Khalid Masood first drove into a crowd on Westminister bridge and then attacked police with a knife before being

Sir Gerald Kaufman was more than just another veteran Labour politician. Having entered the House of Commons in 1970, he was the longest-serving parliamentarian of any political hue... And, as an Orthodox Jew, he should have been revered by the Jewish community. Instead, when he died last month aged

AIJAC has issued the following media release in response to UN Security Council 2334: Last week's United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 2334 was shameful and totally counterproductive.

The Balfour Apology Campaign launched the first in a year-long series of global events at the House of Lords in London to decry the creation of Israel and to demand an "official apology from the British government for its past colonial crimes in Palestine." At the gathering, organised by the Palesti

The British decision to uncouple from the EU, expected to take effect by 2019, was not unqualified good news for Israel: Britain, along with Germany, has been among Israel's most stalwart diplomatic allies in the EU and its voice within the decision-making forums of the EU will be missed, particular

The release of the UK Labour Party's report into antisemitism last week revealed the significant extent of the problem. We're not talking about what was contained within the report, we're talking about the launch itself.

If it was true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, Jeremy Corbyn would be an Israel-hating, antisemitic, Holocaust-denier. The newly elected leader of Britain's Labour Party would vehemently deny he is any of the above, but some of his best friends are one or more of these things.

It is shocking, but hardly surprising, to read about the way antisemitism is becoming institutional within the leadership of the UK Labour Party.  For decades, decent people have been in denial, opportunists have made political calculations and bigots who exploited these realities have moved f

The British Government has done something in support of Israel, and the progressive intelligentsia is in shock. Prime Minister David Cameron is taking action against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Jeremy Corbyn, with his controversial history of calling terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah "friends", and associating with known antisemites and Holocaust deniers, has become the leader of the British Labour party. Corbyn claims that his references to terrorists as "friends" was to promote peace

On July 20, UK Prime Minister David Cameron made a major policy speech on countering extremism, which is likely to have a "tremendous impact" and inspire other countries, according to Professor Alan Johnson, an expert in de-radicalisation who was recently in Australia as a guest of the Executive Cou

Europeans go to the polls in May to elect 751 members of the European Parliament for the next five years. Expect surprises. Not that the European Parliament carries much clout; clout is reserved for the army of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels and the sprinkling of political appointe

A report last week by Barak Ben-Shem in the Times of Israel analysed an outbreak of antisemitic comments that followed an application by Jews to the local council in the small English town of Bushey, seeking permission to establish an "eruv". It recalled a similar occurrence in the Sydney suburb of

Transcending sentiment and pragmatic impulses was Thatcher's hard-nosed perception that the qualities of the Jewish community coincided precisely with her own aspirational vision for Britain: self-help and hard work, ambition and endeavour, enterprise, personal responsibility and social justice.

Thatcher's reputation as the "Iron Lady" reflected her self-proclaimed status as a conviction politician, and this is echoed in the eulogies delivered following her death. Though her legacy has divided opinion, when it came to Israel and the Jewish people, she is remembered for her strong, supportiv

The release of The Art of Betrayal, by Gordon Corera, the highly-regarded veteran BBC journalist, should, if our media indeed has the commitment to truth which it constantly proclaims, rightfully see the last decade of often conspiratorial rhetoric about the 2003 war in Iraq fade to reveal a differe

On Friday January 18 at the close of the Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) conference in Perth, Foreign Minister the Hon Senator Bob Carr and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague released a joint statement on the Middle East peace process, condemning Israel's settlements as "illegal unde