Deconstructing a fake "Friend of Palestine"

Mike Khizam op-ed in Adelaide Advertiser: A Deconstruction Gareth Narunsky Tuesday 22 August 2017   In an online op-ed for the Adelaide Advertiser on Friday 11 August, AIJAC guest Dr Eran Lerman congratulated the South Australian Legislative Council for rightly calling for a negotiated outcome between Israel and the Palestinian Authority prior to a Palestinian state being recognised. Presumably in response to this, Australian Friends of Palestine Association executive officer Mike Khizam had his own piece published on the Advertiser's website on Monday 14 August. While Dr Lerman used nuance and reason to make his point, Khizam relied on anti-Israel canards, missing context and blatant mistruths to press his own misinformed views. There is much wrong with the piece, but I will focus on a few key issues: The new motion effectively supports business as usual for Israel and its fifty year occupation of the Palestinian territories. It only supports recognition at the end of negotiations; at the end of a currently non-existent peace process. The peace process at the moment is most definitely stalled, but whose fault is this? Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu frequently repeats an open invitation for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come to the negotiating table without preconditions. In 2008, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud made Abbas an unprecedented final status offer, which gave Palestinians land equivalent to all of the West Bank and Gaza after land swaps and included the painful concession of giving up Jerusalem's Old City to international control. He told Abbas, "it will be 50 years before there will be another Israeli prime minister that will offer you what I am offering you now. Don't miss this opportunity". Abbas never responded. Recently, Abbas described his response to that offer in an interview with the following words, "I rejected it out of hand." In 2010, the United States requested a 10-month settlement construction freeze to coax Abbas to the table; he waited nine months before entering negotiations, and even then only wanted to discuss extending the freeze. Martin Indyk, Chief US negotiator during the 2014 negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, told The Atlantic in July 2014: "I saw him [Netanyahu] sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement." But Abbas simply walked away. Hence it is Abbas who refuses to negotiate in good faith, and it is Abbas who walked away from negotiations in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Similarly, his predecessor Yasser Arafat rejected Ehud Barak's offers in 2000 and 2001. So if the peace process is stalled, it certainly isn't Israel's fault. Yet Mike Khizam wants to reward the Palestinian Authority for its consistent intransigence and refusal to negotiate in good faith. Recognition is designed to help force the Israelis to engage in genuine negotiations and to stop activities, like settlement building on Palestinian land, that undermine the possibility of peace. The Israelis are not shunning negotiations and as for settlement building undermining the possibility of peace, as we have demonstrated here, settlements take up 2% of the West Bank's land no new settlements have been built since 1999. Furthermore, construction that has occurred In the last eight years under the Netanyahu government, always within existing settlement boundaries, has in fact barely kept up with natural population growth. Regarding "settlement building on Palestinian land", under the Oslo Accords, there are no restrictions on Israel building in Area C of the West Bank. Article 5, Section 3 of the Accords, which specifies what will be discussed during permanent status negotiations, makes it clear that the future of the settlements would be resolved only through direct negotiations between the two parties. Furthermore, it is generally accepted - even by the Palestinians - that under a future agreement, Israel would retain the main settlement blocs of Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel, compensating the Palestinians with land swaps. Even Peace Watch's Lior Amihai said in a 2014 interview that despite settlements, "if the parties were to reach an agreement today then the two-state solution is very possible." Our recognition of Palestine does not impose peace on Israel. It is hard to disagree, recognising Palestine doesn't impose peace on anyone. On the contrary, it attempts to give the Palestinians statehood without any obligation to make peace. With no expectations placed upon the Palestinians, it leaves Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority thinking they are free to continue on a path of intransigence, rejectionism and incitement against Israel. We have seen the results of such a path, most recently in Halamish where three members of the Salomon family were brutally murdered in their home by a Palestinian terrorist whose actions were a direct result of such incitement. Furthermore, this murderer will now receive a US $3120 monthly salary as a reward from the Palestinian Authority. Mike, you're right. Recognising Palestine certainly doesn't impose peace. [Israel] has been doing this for fifty years. Khizam would have readers believe it's all Israel's fault that there has been no solution to the conflict over the last 50 years. Never mind that Israel tried to return Gaza and the West Bank to the Arab world immediately after capturing them in 1967, only to be met with the infamous "three no's" from the Arab World - no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel. Time and time again since the Oslo Accords, Israel has sought to settle the dispute once and for all. Arafat rejected offers in 2000 and 2001, Abbas rejected the offer in 2008, refused to negotiate in 2010 and the 2014 negotiations were shuttered before there was a chance for real progress. Israel's total unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was met with rockets and terror tunnels rather than peace. It is only when the Palestinians own up to their own failings, renounce incitement and terror, accept that Israel is here to stay and return to negotiations in good faith, that there can be progress towards real peace. Palestinians are desperate for peace, for normality, for security, and for a future for their children. I don't doubt everyday Palestinians are indeed desperate for these things. But their leadership clearly is not. This is a leadership that spreads incitement and rejectionism among its people, through PA-controlled media, children's television programs and in schools. As above, it is a leadership that pays salaries to terrorists and their families. The same leadership recently named a children's camp after a terrorist who murdered 37 people. And this is a leadership who, when offered in 2008 a peace deal giving them everything they claim to desire, reacted by, in the words of PA President Abbas, rejecting it "out of hand." If the Palestinian Authority truly wanted a future for its people, it would have long ago turned its efforts towards building a state for them instead of extending every effort to delegitimise, incite against and demonise the Jewish one. In 1948 they lost 78 per cent of their country to the new state of Israel... Palestine was not and has never been a country. The name "Palestine" is not Arabic; it was given to the area by Hadrian in 135 AD after the conquest of Judea. Over the centuries various foreign empires - from the Byzantines to the Umayyads to the Crusaders to the Mamaluks - claimed control over the geographical area that was only occasionally known as Palestine, but never anything resembling a state or other autonomous entity. After it was liberated from Ottoman rule, the British ruled over what they called the Palestine Mandate (which also included what is now Jordan) from 1920 until 1948. During this time there were two competing national movements - the Zionist movement of the Palestinian Jews (who were then known merely as "Palestinians") and that of the Arabs (now known as "Palestinians"), but it belonged to neither. Palestinians could have had most of the good land from that area if they agreed to partition in 1947 (the Jewish state was given slightly more territory under than plane but most of it was in the almost uninhabited Negev desert) and created a Palestinian state for the first time in history. Instead they rejected it. Now, Khazim implies, they only want the remaining 22% - but they were offered the equivalent of that in 2008 and couldn't bring themselves to say yes. ... and were denied self- determination in their own homeland because they were Muslims and Christians. This is possibly the most vile canard of all, with not a shred of truth to it. The Palestinian Arabs were not denied self-determination "because they were Muslims and Christians". On the contrary, they rejected self-determination for themselves if it meant having to accept self-determination for the Jews. United Nations Resolution 181, also known as the partition plan, proposed to divide what was left of the Palestine Mandate into separate states for the Jews and Arabs. Though it was far less than what they had been hoping for, the Jews agreed. The Arabs rejected it, and upon the declaration of the Jewish state, five Arab armies launched a war aimed at annihilating it. These are facts of history which even Israel's harshest critics accept. For Mike Khizam to instead allege that the Palestinians were denied self-determination "because they were Muslims and Christians" is a complete and utter fiction and a vicious calumny. It takes a mere five-second google search to expose this libel for what it is. Around 750,000 people, then half of the Palestinian population were ethnically cleansed. Another slanderous fabrication. There was an attempt to ethnically cleanse a people from the land, however it was the Arabs trying to ethnically cleanse the Jews. But according to Khizam's version of events, the 1948 War of Independence, in which Israel fought for its very survival, never happened. It is true that up to 750,000 Palestinian Arabs left their homes during that war, for a variety of reasons - so did many Jewish residents. But to completely leave out any mention of the defensive war the fledgling State of Israel was fighting, and to say the Palestinians were "ethnically cleansed", is intentionally misleading. Khizam also seems to choose which refugees he shows concern for. There is no mention of the 850,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled or forced to flee from Arab nations in the decades following Israel's establishment. Over twenty years ago the Palestinian leadership made peace with Israel and accepted the loss of 78 per cent of their country. Despite signing the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians have neither made peace with Israel nor accepted its existence within its internationally recognised borders (what he calls "78 per cent of their country", a country which I've already pointed out never existed). The very Palestinian leader who put pen to paper on the Accords, then Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, commanded the Second Intifada, in which over a thousand Israeli civilians lost their lives in suicide bombings and other terror attacks - not something you do to people you've made peace with. As for recognising Israel, political expediency may have seen the PLO "talk the talk" prior to the Oslo Accords, but the Palestinian leadership in practice does not "walk the walk" and continues to act contrary to this recognition. Official PA maps regularly omit any reference to Israel, the PA continues to deny Jewish history in Jerusalem and Palestinian school textbooks demonise Israel as "an evil entity that should be annihilated". And they keep saying no to offers that would give them their state. All the while Israel takes more and more of Palestine... We've already pointed out earlier in this document that no new settlements have been built since 1999; nor have the geographical boundaries of existing settlements expanded. It is simply untrue that the settlement footprint in the West Bank is expanding. Israel must either give the Palestinians their freedom or give them the vote. If Khizam is genuinely concerned about Palestinian freedom and voting rights, his anger is being seriously misdirected. Around 98 per cent of Palestinians live under either Palestinian Authority or Hamas rule. Their freedoms are indeed severely restricted - by their own leaders. Mahmoud Abbas is now in his 12th year of a four year term and no parliamentary elections have been held since 2006. In the Palestinian Authority, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are virtually non-existent. Palestinians living in Gaza face a similar or worse situation under Hamas. So Palestinians should indeed be given a vote - by their own leaders. Even if Israel withdrew tomorrow to the 1967 borders, turning over the entire West Bank to the PA (presumably what Khizam means by giving Palestinians "their freedom"), Palestinians would not have their freedom. In fact, the 300,000-odd Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who currently enjoy residency of Israel, would experience a severe drop in their freedoms. Israel is on the wrong side of history in so far as it pursues colonial expansion and constructs a new apartheid state in the occupied territories. "Colonial" and "apartheid" seem to be two popular buzzwords used by anti-Israel activists. The former is used to suggest a foreign people came to a land in which they had no ties and displaced the local people - a gross fallacy. The ties of the Jewish people to the land of Israel can be proven beyond doubt. Or Avi-Guy says it best: "Once Israel is falsely depicted as a ‘colonial enterprise,' instead of the result of long struggle for self-determination for the Jewish people (who came not just from Europe, but rather from all over the world - including many who are indigenous to the Middle East region), one can pretty much be certain that we are not talking about settlements, human rights or peace anymore ... too often the settlements are merely a distraction, when the real objection is to ‘Zionist national identity,' and its political manifestation - Israel - alone of all the national identities in the world." As for the "apartheid" allegation, this too is patently false. Justice Richard Goldstone, who wrote and then retracted the infamous Goldstone Report after Operation Cast Lead in 2009, wrote in a New York Times op-ed: "The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony. "The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain ‘an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.' This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa's enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters. "But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel's citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defence, even as Palestinians feel oppressed." Next. Israel has successfully pursued a strategy of sidelining the UN, international law and its obligations under agreements it has signed. First to the UN. The Palestinians, along with many of Israel's detractors, have pursued a strategy of demonising and delegitimising Israel at the UN, which seems all too happy to accommodate their behaviour. The Palestinians have pursued a unilateral strategy at the UN to avoid negotiations with Israel and more recently within UNESCO to see absurd resolutions spirited through denying Jewish history and legitimacy at some of Judaism's holiest sites. As for international law, no official legal body has made a definitive ruling on its application in the West Bank. Even the highly politicised and flawed UNSC Resolution 2334, which calls settlements a flagrant violation of international law, according to UN Watch, is lawless "because it purports to state a legal conclusion which it is unqualified to do and which is incorrect". In fact, as Ambassador Alan Baker - who participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords - argues, Israel is well within its rights under international law to have a presence in the lands it took from Jordan in 1967 and even the settlements which are on state land (not the illegal outposts) are legitimate under international law. This is not to say the Palestinians have no right to a negotiated sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in the future, but as Amb Baker quite correctly points out: "Even the Palestinians themselves, in the Oslo agreement that they signed with Israel, acknowledge the fact that the ultimate permanent status of the territory is to be determined by negotiations. Therefore, even the Palestinians accept the fact that this is not Palestinian territory, it's disputed territory whose status is yet to be settled." Which segues us nicely to the point of who is actually sticking to the agreements they have signed - hint: it's not the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority is obligated under the accords to recognise Israel, and while it did this in English to the world, it tells its population something very different in Arabic and in the maps schoolchildren study in PA schools. It is obligated not to incite against Israel yet as discussed earlier in this piece incitement, including by PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself, is rife, not to mention the financial rewards the PA dishes out to terrorists and their families. The Palestinian Authority is obligated not to seek unilateral actions, yet this has been its sole strategy for the past five years as it continues to avoid negotiations. [Israel] continues to fight any sign of support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people... Israel does not fight "any sign of support for the legitimate rights of Palestinians". Israel does fight demonisation and delegitimisation, such as that promoted by the anti-Israel boycott movement. Sadly, the purveyors of this hate like to package it as support for Palestinian rights, but you never hear them speaking up for the rights of Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan or Syria. Nor do they bring up the autocratic PA or brutal Hamas regime who curb Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza respectively. Only when Israel can be blamed, demonised or delegitimised are the rights of the Palestinian people suddenly important. The problem is that views such as Mike Khizam's are one of the reasons the Palestinian Authority continues its intransigence, rejectionism and incitement. It is only when the Palestinians own up to their own failings, renounce incitement and terror, accept that Israel is here to stay and return to negotiations in good faith, that there can be progress towards real two-state peace.

BDS camapigners show their colours

Last Sunday afternoon, the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and the United Israel Appeal (UIA) held a public event at a local Jewish School hall

Rabbi Shalom White, from Perth's Chabad congregation, attended the AIJAC/UIA event, together with his children.

As they approached the venue and saw about ten protesters at a Boycott ("BDS") rally, chanting “free, free Palestine…” and holding placards reading “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea”. They stopped to take a selfie with the rally as background.

When the Rabbi and his children arrived at the entrance to the venue, with the BDS rally on the opposite side of the street, the BDS rallyists shouted “Shame on you: child murderers!”

The Rabbi responded: “My children go to this school. They must be protected by these same guards you see here, because of the possibility of a terrorist attack targeting Jewish children. Are their lives worth less than Arab children’s lives?” 

BDS rally: “YES! You brought it on yourselves…” 

Rabbi White: “Are you saying that my child's life is not worth anything?”

BDS: “Shame on you, child murderers!”

Rabbi White posted this selfie on his Facebook account with the caption: “Got a selfie with my kids, they called me and my kids child murderers and said that is justified for my children to be killed by terrorists.”

Our ABC is sleeping with our enemies

From The Australian, August 14, 2017, by Jennifer Oriel:

Imagine waking up in Afghanistan this morning. You are in a foreign country fighting a long war against international jihad. You joined the Australian army because you love your country. You love your country so much that you are prepared to sacrifice your life to keep Australians safe from terror. You serve because the war for freedom and democracy, global peace and safety is a war worth fighting. Every house surrendered to the Taliban is a girl who will never know freedom.

But the human face of war is lost in the slow grind of nation-building for a country that isn’t yours. Maybe troops feel they are fighting someone else’s war and it erodes morale. There will be no heroes’ welcome when they return home. Instead, there will be Al Jazeera on the ABC and political correctness from Canberra.

The ABC’s deal with Al Jazeera compromises the credibility of the national broadcaster. The Al Jazeera network is owned by Qatar’s ruling family. Qatar harbours Taliban leaders and reportedly supports other Islamist interests that Australian troops are fighting in the region. David Kirkpatrick wrote in The New York Times: 

“Qatar has for many years helped support a spectrum of Islamist groups around the region by providing safe haven, diplomatic mediation, financial aid and, in certain instances, weapons.” The Egyptian media reports that: “Qatar is using groups such as the Taliban, Islamic State … for its own protection.”

Since 2001, Australia has fought its longest war to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban. By May this year, 42 Australian personnel had died. The US Department of Defence reports that 2216 American lives have been lost in the struggle to free Afghanistan from jihadism. Among them 1833 were killed in action. And the Taliban hasn’t stopped killing our allies. This month, US troops were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber attacking a convoy. Islamic State has emerged in the country also. When Western forces retreat, jihadis strike. The US and Australia have sent additional troops to consolidate democratic nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, taking the number of our personnel to 300.

We might expect Australia’s publicly-funded media to ride with us in the war on international jihad. Yet the ABC’s Al Jazeera coverage of the Western war on terror often seems to align with Qatari foreign policy. It promotes porous Western borders and mass migration from Islamist states to the West while casting our military action to prevent Islamist incursion in a negative light. It frequently plays down the risk that the movement for international jihad poses to the free world. Israel is commonly demonised while some of the Islamic world’s worst violators of human rights are liberated from sustained scrutiny.

Qatar’s relationship to the Taliban is highly problematic. In 2013, the Taliban Afghanistan Political Office was opened in Doha. Qatar’s assistant foreign minister cut the ribbon at the official opening ceremony of what has become known as the Taliban embassy. Obama administration officials supported its establishment. Under a subsequent prisoner swap deal between the US and Qatar, the administration freed five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a US soldier being held by the Taliban, Bowe Bergdahl. He was feted by Democrats despite allegations that he might have deserted his post in Afghanistan before being taken by the Taliban. Bergdahl will stand trial in October for desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy.

Republican senator John McCain described the “Taliban five” freed by the Obama administration as “the hardest of the hard core. These are the highest high-risk people.” Notably, the UAE rejected the administration’s proposal to take the Taliban five because the Taliban would not agree to three conditions stipulated by the US. In a letter to The New York Times, UAE ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba listed the conditions as, “the Taliban must denounce al-Qa’ida and its founder, Osama bin Laden … recognise the Afghan constitution … renounce violence and lay down their weapons”. Qatar reportedly accepted the jihadis without requiring the Taliban to observe any of the conditions.

The relationship between Qatar and the Taliban raises the question of credibility and bias in regard to the Al Jazeera network. Last month, Jewish leaders raised specific concerns in News Corp papers about the ABC’s coverage of Israeli affairs. Executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Colin Rubenstein wrote in this paper: 

“Qatar’s ruling family, the owner of Al Jazeera, is one of the main supporters of Hamas — a terror group committed to Israel’s destruction.”

In June, Lateline host Emma Alberici interviewed Iranian academic Mohammad Marandi after jihadis attacked the Iranian parliament. Despite Islamic State taking responsibility for the attacks, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shifted the blame to Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump. Half-way through the interview, Marandi hadn’t mentioned Trump. Alberici prompted him twice. After her second prompt (where she called Trump’s condolences to Iran “provocative”), Marandi unleashed a tirade against the West. He said: “The United States is the country that created this whole mess. They helped create the extremists in Afghanistan with the Saudis. 9/11 was blowback … the whole region is collapsing and this is largely due to American policies … if there’s one country in the world that’s responsible for … the export of terrorism across the world, it is the United States. It chooses Israel which is an apartheid regime.” Alberici didn’t correct him.

It is unclear why the government is not addressing potential political bias produced by Al Jazeera’s partnership with the ABC. Perhaps the matter is complicated by the government’s reluctance to list the Taliban as a proscribed terrorist organisation. It is clearly dishonourable to make Australians pay for the distribution of news financed by a state that backs our military enemies. Under conditions of war, such material might be called propaganda.

Recognizing a Palestinian State before a Peace Agreement with Israel Undermines the International Rule of Law

From the JCPA, Vol. 17, No. 22, August 7, 2017, by Peter Wertheim:

The following is a brief overview only. Follow the link to the full article.

• Among those who advocate immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, without a peace agreement with Israel, there is a striking irony in the contrast between the legalistic approach they purportedly adopt on one question, namely settlements, and their cavalier disregard for well-established legal principles on another, namely the creation of states and their recognition. One either supports the international rule of law as a general principle or not at all. One does not get to pick and choose.

• The four criteria of statehood set out in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, 1933, are widely accepted as the minimum required by customary international law for the creation of a new state. Two of the criteria – a single, centralized government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states – are manifestly not satisfied by any Palestinian entity.

• The internal divide between the secular nationalist movement among Palestinians, represented by the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA) which controls parts of the West Bank, and the theocratic movement, represented by Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, has resulted in internecine violence on many occasions. All attempts at internal reconciliation have failed and appear to be intractable. They are at loggerheads on the most basic questions, not only concerning peace with Israel and other issues of foreign and domestic policy but also on the essential nature of a future Palestinian State. Thus, for reasons which are entirely internal to Palestinian society, there is no reasonable prospect for the foreseeable future of any government being formed which would exercise effective control over both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and would have the capacity to give effect to any agreements purportedly entered into by “Palestine.”

• Although recognition is a political act and a matter of discretion, it is “subject to compliance with the imperatives of general international law.” Given that the criteria of government and the capacity to enter into relations with other States are at present not satisfied by any Palestinian entity, recognition of any such entity as a State would be to affirm a fiction, contrary to the imperatives of general international law. Recognition by even a large number of other States cannot overcome clear and compelling objective evidence indicating that the mandatory legal criteria of statehood have not been met. An exception would be admission of the entity as a member State of the UN. If, notwithstanding its admission to the UN as a member State, the entity does not, in fact, meet the customary law criteria of statehood, at law it is still a State, albeit a failed State.

• Applying the additional requirements for recognition contained in the European Community Declaration and Guidelines (1991), the Palestinians have failed, and are likely to continue for the foreseeable future to be unwilling to make commitments to respect the inviolability of the frontiers with Israel, to repudiate all territorial claims by Palestine against Israel and to settle all disputes with Israel by peaceful means.

• Recognition of a Palestinian State at the present time would not only be contrary to the well-established requirements for statehood stipulated by customary international law and the additional requirements mandated by the European Community Declaration and Guidelines in 1991. It would also contravene the internationally recognized and witnessed Oslo Accords between the Palestinians and Israel and lay the foundations for opening a new phase of the Palestinians’ conflict with Israel, rather than for resolving the conflict. Recognition would, therefore, undermine the primary purposes of the UN Charter and the current international rules-based order, which is to maintain international peace and security.

This is a brief overview only. Follow the link to the full article.

South Australian Legislative Council Rejects unilateral recognition of "Palestine"

10 August 2017

South Australia's Legislative Council passed a sensible and constructive resolution on promoting Middle East peace. 

The resolution, passed yesterday evening by a vote of 11 to 10, calls for a "two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinians, "both sides to resume direct negotiations in good faith" and "the commonwealth government to recognise the state of Palestine once the two sides have successfully negotiated a two-state solution, as required by international law as set out in the Oslo Accords." 

This stands in contrast to a resolution passed by the South Australian House of Assembly in late June, which mentioned only Israeli settlements as a "major obstacle to peace" and called "on the commonwealth government to recognise the state of Palestine (as we have recognised the state of Israel) and announce the conditions and time lines to achieve such recognition", implying that such recognition should occur regardless of any progress toward a peace agreement between the sides. The same motion was put to the Legislative Council, but was defeated.

AIJAC Executive Director Dr. Colin Rubenstein, who was in the South Australian Legislative Council to witness the historic vote, said, "Credit goes especially to Andrew McLachlan of the Liberal party - with help from other Liberal members, Corey Bernardi's Australian Conservatives, and John Darley of the Nick Xenophon Team - for his leadership in steering the passage of this sensible and constructive resolution. A degree of dignity and common sense has now been restored to the South Australian Parliament through the Legislative Council's rejection of the ahistorical, one-sided and counterproductive resolution passed in the lower house in June, and its replacement by a resolution which actually serves the cause of peace."

SA Parliamentary Friends of Israel event (L-R) Dr. Colin Rubenstein, John Gardner MLA, Andrew McLachlan MLC, Dr. Eran Lerman, Sam Duluk MLA, Dennis Hood MLC, Norman Schueler

Dr. Rubenstein noted that following the vote, South Australian Parliamentary Friends of Israel met with visiting Israeli strategic analyst Dr. Eran Lerman, who congratulated the members on the vote just taken. Dr. Lerman explained why the vote was so important - arguing the lower house vote does no favours to Palestinians by encouraging them to believe they can advance their goal of a state without ending the conflict, or engaging in negotiations and mutual compromise with Israel.

Israeli Sovereignty Over the Temple Mount Is Crucial for Peace

From BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 539, July 24, 2017, by Prof. Hillel Frisch:


Temple Mount, Dome of The Rock, Jerusalem, Israel


Regardless of its direct security merits, Israel’s decision to place metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount has been transformed by adversaries and Israel alike into an issue of sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Power-sharing there has always constituted a slippery slope to disaster. 

The murder of two Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount is an appropriate moment to rectify the situation by reasserting Israeli sovereignty over the holy site.

Why is Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount so important? Because international “partnership” arrangements in political hotspots not only rarely (if ever) work, but make matters much more volatile and dangerous. At the Temple Mount, only exclusive Israeli sovereignty can work.

Many partnerships over contested areas have been attempted, and they have led to only one outcome: failure.  In 1949, for example, the UN tried to broker deals between Israel and Syria over demilitarized zones delimited in the Armistice Agreement. The three areas were perennial hotspots over which much blood was shed. They were only resolved (as are most Middle Eastern political conflicts) by a decisive victory and the establishment of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Before that, it was bedlam. Since then, there have been 40 years of quiet.

In Jordan, after the 1967 Six Day War, Arab states tried to broker power-sharing arrangements over Jordanian territory between the beleaguered Hashemite monarchy and the Palestinian terrorist organizations. During three years of bargaining and meddling, massive firefights took place between the two sides in which hundreds if not thousands of civilians were killed.

This was but a prelude to the final showdown when the monarchy said enough is enough: sovereignty now. That period, dubbed Black September (1970), was in fact the beginning of a full year of bloodletting. It ended only when the Jordanian monarchy won a decisive victory.

The Jordanian victory was so decisively won that hundreds of Palestinian terrorists fled westward into Israeli hands to avert the fate that awaited them. Only then did the Jordanian state achieve the Biblical “40 years of peace.” Ironically, Amman is now demanding that Israel share sovereignty, a prescription that proved disastrous in its own political history.

The same goes for Lebanon. Arab attempts to induce a partnership over sovereignty between the Lebanese state and the Palestinians after the Six Day War ended in unprecedented violence. Unfortunately, the Lebanese state, unlike Jordan, has never been able to reassert sovereignty. The result is that Lebanon suffers from perennial internal political violence only a powder keg away from reverting back to the fifteen-year civil war that more or less ended in 1989.

In Cyprus, attempts by foreign powers to establish power-sharing between the Greek and Turkish populations resulted in violence and have never succeeded. Peace came when the Turkish invasion of 1974 achieved a decisive victory resulting in the partition of the island.

Fast-forward to the Oslo “peace” process. There, too, the paradigm was built on shared power. Informally, in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled east Jerusalem through Orient House, Faisal Husseini’s political headquarters.

Husseini, dubbed a peace advocate, in fact headed the Fatah militia, the Tanzim, in Jerusalem. The PA police frequently kidnapped east Jerusalemites suspected of being informants or who were accused of selling land to Jews, as well as journalists (on rarer occasions) who took a critical view of the PA.

Advocates of the “peace” process often pointed to that “partnership” as a success. In September 1996, however, riots over the tunnel built along the Western Wall – riots that cost the lives of 25 Israeli security personnel who were killed by heavily armed members of the Palestinian security forces – dispelled that illusion. Never before had tens of Israeli security force personnel been killed in firefights with Palestinians in an Israeli-controlled area.

Alas, bowing to international pressure, Israel did not close down Orient House, and paid the price tenfold during the “al-Aqsa Intifada.” Ultimately, Israeli “cohabitation” with the PA in east Jerusalem came to an end – at least on the purely political level – with the closing of Orient House in August 2001 and the Defensive Shield offensive nine months later. Once again, decisive victory and the imposition of exclusive Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem brought about a relatively durable peace.

Many in Israel, as well as foreign actors such as the PA and Jordan, are now calling on Israel to repeat the costly mistake of persevering in the illusion of power-sharing over the Temple Mount. They want not only Israeli cooperation with the Waqf but also considerable augmentation of Waqf personnel.

There is no doubt that Israel will make a decisive move to reassert the sovereignty it has lost over the past three decades on the Temple Mount, just as it rid Jerusalem of Orient House and destroyed terrorist sanctuaries in major PA towns in 2002.  The question is, why wait until more Israelis and Palestinians have been killed or maimed before acting to ensure decisive victory and the reassertion of Israeli sovereignty?

Israel is a light unto the nations that surround it. Their populations widely acknowledged this when Israel sent a former prime minister and president to jail – a move unthinkable in a region plagued by violence and dictatorship.

Now is the time for Israeli sovereignty to shine on the Temple Mount, for the benefit of Muslims and Jews alike.

Man pretending to be "in the middle"

John Lyons, journalist for The Australian, and inveterate Israel-basher, published a self-serving article in this weekend's Australian Magazine, promoting his book.

I attempted, twice, to post the following comment below the article, but it was deleted. (And Lyons is the one complaining about intimidation and censorship.)


John Lyons

Here's the comment:

Lyons asks “Are there any factual mistakes in it?” ... as if the specific details he chooses to examine are all we need to know. But the accuracy of the facts and images he cherry-picks for his stories is not the sole determinant of the extent of his bias.

By his own admission, Lyons based himself on “the best balcony in Jerusalem” which he regards as his “base” and “private time machine”. Ensconced in his foreigner’s bubble, Lyons scans the environment for juicy stories that fit the narrative he has swallowed, hook, line and sinker. “If things were really bad ...Sylvie and I would jump into our car and head towards the trouble spot...”

Well, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. And that sums up Lyons’ body of work from his private balcony. If you accept, as Lyons apparently, long ago, has done, that that Israel is an illegitimate Western, colonial implant that has dispossessed a blameless, innocent people, then every act of self-defense by Israel can be portrayed as an example of Jewish fascism.

As a fig leaf for his blatant bias, Lyons grudgingly acknowledges that “some of these children should ...be seriously dealt with...”, but he nevertheless churns out dozens of “stories” about the treatment of defenseless children by well-equipped Israeli soldiers. How many stories has he devoted to the thousands of Jewish men, women and children murdered on the streets, in their homes and in their beds by generations of Arabs nurtured and groomed, from their cradles, to hate and murder?

The Arabs persecuted the Jews in Palestine from the 1920s, and launched a relentless campaign, against their own interests, to obliterate the Jewish national revival …before any “occupation” and even before the establishment of the State of Israel. Since their self-inflicted, violent and catastrophic rejection of the 1947 UN partition, misguided, self-serving Arab leaders have kept the refugees of their 1948 war, and their descendants, in squalor and dependent on international aid, as cannon fodder, fed on hatred and false hope, and squandered repeated opportunities for statehood and economic progress.

And along comes John Lyons, decades into this century-long conflict, to sit on his luxurious balcony waiting for the next “really bad” flare-up of violence, to photograph and bear witness to armed soldiers confronting stone-throwing children. And he portrays all objections to his myopic interpretation of events around him, as “intimidation” ...