Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

I am pleased that, in her latest article replying to me, Chloe Patton has been prepared to engage more substantively with what Daniel Pipes had to say while visiting Australia...

The world is awaiting a US response to Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians in a rebel holdout in eastern Ghouta on April 7 that killed around 70 people and injured hundreds. 

The atheist son of a Jewish convert to Lutheranism and the grandson of a rabbi, Karl Marx hated capitalism in no small part because he hated Jews.

With special sensitivity and acumen, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation decided to kick off the Passover and Easter holidays, a time historically associated with anti-Jewish blood libels, by inviting the almost comically antisemitic Reverend Stephen Sizer, former Vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey, onto its Radio National “Breakfast” program on March 30 – Good Friday –  to discuss Christian Zionism and Israel. His attitude towards Christian Zionism, as with anything relating to Israel, is rather negative. “In its extreme form, Christian Zionism… is very little different to ISIS or Al-Qaeda in terms of what it’s prepared to support,” he said in an interview with Iranian Press TV in 2014.

Abbas is starting to realise that he may have to leave his position due to his state of health, and he wants to influence the choice of his successor while he still has the strength to do so.

Last weekend's Gaza violence in which 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces was not what it might have seemed. It certainly was not the peaceful protest, or the massacre of innocent civilians, that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and their supporters claim.

On March 18, a 32 year old father of four was stabbed to death in Jerusalem's old city by a Palestinian, who was subsequently shot dead by Israeli police. On March 16, two IDF soldiers were murdered in a vehicular attack near Mevo Dotan in the northern West Bank. The driver was arrested.
On March 18, IDF forces blocked and neutralised a Hamas terror tunnel which extended from Rafah, inside the Gaza strip, into Israeli territory (the sixth since operation Protective Edge in 2014).

A profile of Bob Carr by the Australian Financial Review's Geoff Winestock included a vacuous explanation from the former foreign minister on why he is a vocal critic of Israel and yet is quiet on China's occupation of Tibet.

"I goad him by asking then why he is happy to attack Israel for its expansion of settlements in the West Bank but never mentions Tibet. He says Tibet is recognised as part of China but not even Israel itself claims ownership of the West Bank. ‘So I am critical of settlement expansion and want to see a Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel.' The comparison of Palestine and Tibet exasperates him.

Some five months after Philippine troops flushed out Islamic State-aligned militants in the southern city of Marawi, recent military-militant clashes show the Islamic State's local affiliates have regrouped and spread since last year's siege, still gaining recruits and threatening once again to become a rallying point for jihadists across the region. But the persistent regional threat has spurred ASEAN countries towards greater security cooperation.

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council today expressed its regret over the cancellation of the arrangement between the State of Israel and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) to regulate the standing of migrants seeking refugee status in Israel.

Israelis do not hanker for a return to the days of the British Mandate. Nor do they hide secret reservoirs of nostalgia for the sometimes-brutal British colonial police who once strutted about their streets. But they did react with undisguised pleasure to the decision by the UK Foreign Office last month that the future king, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, would this year make the first official visit to Israel by a senior member of the British royal family...

Dr. Pipes contends that part of the Iranian public's frustration with the regime is that they expected to see the benefits of the Iran nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but that instead of improving the standard of living in Iran, the regime has spent millions in sanctions relief on fighting foreign conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Gaza.

However much sleep Pompeo has been getting at the CIA, he's likely to get less when he moves to the State Department.

During his 13th trip to Australia, noted Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes, President of the Middle East Forum, proved that his insights and analyses on a range of world affairs were in great demand.

Having been asked by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, via a local imam, to be the main speaker in the synagogue, I can report first hand on the thirst for knowledge on display.

None of the young Indonesians had ever met a Jewish person, nor even imagined being in a synagogue, let alone in a majestic, historic Jewish house of worship.

A key obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is the institutionalised incitement to anti-Israel violence by the Palestinian Authority (PA)... Perhaps the worst aspect of this incitement, however, is the PA's "martyr" compensation scheme, which incentivises terrorism by providing lifetime monthly stipends to convicted terrorists and to the families of slain terrorists.

Once again, on March 15, an explosive device was detonated in the Gaza Strip. And once again it appears that Hamas was not responsible for the attempted terror attack. However, the spate of recent incidents in Gaza raises suspicions that something is particularly rotten in the "kingdom" of Hamas.

UNRWA does provide valuable health, education and welfare services to Palestinians who are often in genuine need. But it does so at the cost of a series of problematic behaviours which have become a significant obstacle to any two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah emerged visibly shaken but unscathed after an assassination attempt on March 13 in the Gaza Strip. The soft-spoken former academic arrived in Gaza to open a sewage plant and attend some political meetings. He had barely crossed into northern Gaza when his convoy, which included Palestinian Intelligence Chief Majid Farraj, was rocked by two 33-pound bombs. Seven security guards were wounded and three cars were damaged in the attack.

"This nation [Muslims] should know that it was [...] created to spread Allah's religion and lead the nations, and this could only be achieved by Jihad for the sake of Allah!"

These words were not said somewhere in the war ravaged Middle East by a supporter of ISIS or other extremist groups. They were not whispered in a dark room, hidden from public sight. This call for holy war, or jihad, was voiced loud and clear to a large crowd in a Sydney mosque just a few months ago.

Last December 15th, in the village of Nabi Saleh on the West Bank, then 16-year-old Palestinian Ahed Tamimi once again placed herself in front of a camera.

For years, Tamimi has been the subject of exploitative, incendiary videos on social media on her confrontations with Israeli soldiers recorded by her notorious extended family of virulent anti-Israel activists...

"An early election seems inevitable," Israel's most watched daily TV news bulletin reported on March 11. The political crisis that was gripping Israel at that time centred on ultra-Orthodox politicians threatening to bolt Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition unless the Conscription Law was amended so that more military-service deferments can be handed out to ultra-Orthodox men.

Gaza is in a dire and deteriorating state. Economic activity is down, unemployment is extremely high, and long-standing problems with water, sewerage and electricity are worsening. People aren't starving, but that is virtually the only positive.

Many, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, will reflexively point the finger at Israel and its long-standing blockade. Yet Israel is in fact the only local actor ferrying and facilitating the entry of all essential goods into the enclave...

In honour of Israel's forthcoming 70th anniversary, Government Member Stuart Robert moved a motion in Parliament on February 28, in the lead up to the 80th anniversary of the Evian Conference on the plight of Jewish refugees, to officially apologise for Australia's position on persecuted Jews in 1938

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) today welcomed the Parliamentary speeches made on March 26 by Federal MPs Stuart Robert, Steve Irons, Dr Mike Kelly, Mark Dreyfus, Tim Wilson, Milton Dick and Michael Danby in support of a motion moved by Mr Robert congratulating Israel on its upcoming 70th anniversary.