Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

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

On June 9, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced that on June 1, it had discovered a tunnel built by Hamas under some of its schools located in Gaza. Specifically the tunnel was found under the Maghazi Elementary Boys A&B School and the Maghazi Preparatory Boys School, both located in a compound containing additional schools.

Israel announced on Tuesday that it will restore full diplomatic relations with New Zealand, and that its Ambassador Itzhak Gerberg will return to Wellington in the coming days.  Israel downgraded its diplomatic ties with New Zealand in response to New Zealand's co-sponsoring of UN Security Council resolution 2334 in December last year.

Following the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Europe, including in Manchester and London, and other recent attacks in Paris, Stockholm and Berlin, Israeli counter-terrorism expertise appears to be in unprecedented demand.

"Thank God who heard our pleas," said Israel's Prime-Minister-elect to his euphoric followers on the night of 17 May 1977, as the unthinkable became fact: Menachem Begin, Leader of the Opposition for 28 consecutive years and the loser of eight straight general elections, was elected to lead the Jewish state.

Begin's triumph would transform Israel politically, culturally, and socially, heralding a 40-year era that may now be drawing to a close.

Israeli officials have long argued that the Palestinian Authority should be held accountable for its incitement to violence against Israelis. It seems that now, finally, the international community may be starting to catch on.

FIFTY years ago and 19 years after the 1948 War of Independence, Israel was once again dragged into an existential war.

Recently, Israel's state archives released detailed original transcripts of Cabinet discussions before the war.

Conquest wasn't on the minds of Israel's leaders. Survival was.

The Australian (May 20) ran two articles from the Economist magazine looking at the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War with a subtext that accused Israelis of living the good life whilst Palestinians suffer...

Although the main article noted that Israelis wrongly expected the Arabs would sue for peace in 1967, bizarrely nowhere was there any background given to the war's origins as a defensive war for Israel or the fact that Israeli offers to negotiate the return of the territories immediately in exchange for peace were formally rebuffed.

Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein appeared on The Bolt Report on Sky News Australia, discussing why seven Arab countries to have cut ties with Qatar and why the ABC and SBS are wrong to use content sourced from Al-Jazeera, among other topics.

This post contains two short video excerpts and audio of the entire segment.

In a dramatic move, on June 5 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and the Maldives announced they were all severing diplomatic relations with Qatar over its support for terrorist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as for its close ties to Iran, with which it co-owns the largest natural gas field in the world.

This month marks 50 years since the Six Day War - which is pivotal to understanding the modern Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While it did not start that conflict, which began with Arab rejection of Israel's existence prior to its establishment in 1948, it has drawn the map from which proposals for two states must be carved out.

The Six Day War is viewed by many Israelis as both a blessing and a curse.

Several thousand Palestinians participated in riots to mark May 15's Nakba Day (the "catastrophe" of Israel's establishment) with rock-throwing and Molotov cocktails prevalent.

Hamas' stance in its new political document that it will accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if offered, but opposes ever recognising Israel, confused much media reporting.

After the horror of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, relations between the two nations would not, could not, ever be "normal". Like it or not, Israel and Germany would be forever locked in a unique diplomatic embrace.

So, it was not altogether surprising that Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on his first visit to Israel as German president last month, should include a stop at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance centre in Jerusalem.

When the North Jakarta District Court sentenced outgoing Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama to two years in prison for blasphemy for suggesting that some people had misused a Koranic verse to block his re-election bid, it added dramatic confirmation of the paradox surrounding South East Asia's relationship with Islam. While Islamist terrorism in the region has been largely subdued, Islamist-inspired identity politics and intolerance are arguably posing a growing challenge to civil freedoms.

The security cabinet of 1967 appears in these never-published transcripts as a group of serious, professional and responsible decision-makers. While the ministers brought their worldviews to the table, they often didn't vote on party lines, often did listen to one another, and generally managed to make decisions, albeit slowly and through compromises.

Dr Colin Rubenstein joined Michael McLaren on Sydney radio 2GB to look back on the Six Day War, 50 years on.

Most anniversary discussions of the 1967 war and its consequences are going to focus on the hot-button item on this list: Israel's half-century of control over the lives of Palestinians. Indeed, it is a worthy and a thorny issue.

The swift and decisive victory of 1967 became the standard to which the IDF aspired - and the kind of victory expected by Israeli society in future engagements. This is problematic, considering the ways Israel's opponents have changed and the means they now deploy.

The Iranian tragedy is that it is entirely uncertain whether Rouhani is even capable of ushering in the desired change. After all, Iran is not a democracy, and the elections are far from expressive of the public's true wishes. The election race was limited to establishment insiders who were vetted and approved by the Supreme Leader and his clerical cohorts.

Surely nobody but Donald J. Trump could get a warm laugh from an audience of Israeli notables within seconds of highlighting the Iranian regime's desire to destroy our country. That's what happened deep into the main speech of the President's May 22-23 Israel visit, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

When I received the invitation to speak at a Sydney event designed to help educate Muslims about Islam, I was both happy to accept and curious as to how my comments would be received...

A simple counting of 50 years of military occupation might lead reasonable people to believe that it can no longer be considered temporary. But that fails to take account of an alternative time frame: the Arab and Muslim countdown until the end of Zionism and the State of Israel.

This special edition of the AIR contains several different essays and articles looking back on the historical watershed that was the 1967 Six Day War from the perspective of half a century. However, I would strongly like to recommend one more important essay that we simply could not fit in this edition, but which provides an important analysis on what actually happened back in 1967.

The mortar shells came early in the morning. At about five. At regular intervals. Solemn and sinister. They were a reminder of how close it all was. We were in the Damascus Old City. There was still fighting in Jobar, about two kilometres away. The rebels had also counter-attacked from the east... This was not in accordance with the line being promoted by the regime, according to which the rebellion was on the verge of defeat. But there it was.