Australia’s new Ambassador to Israel

From the Indian Herald, May 29, 2013, by Rohit Revo, Editor:

Dave Sharma, newly appointed Australian Ambassador to Israel with PM Julia Gillard

 

...Devanand Sharma ...has been appointed as the Australian Ambassador to Israel ... "Dave" Sharma is of Indian Heritage and his high profile appointment is something that has made Australian Indians something to be proud of. At 37 years, ...has also made history by becoming Australia’s youngest Ambassador.

Dave Sharma has earlier served in the Australian diplomatic offices as Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Washington, Third Secretary at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby and as Senior Civilian Adviser with the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville. Dave Sharma was also an Adviser to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer from 2004 – 2006.
Dave Sharma is a senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and was most recently Assistant Secretary in the Africa Branch, and previously, Acting First Assistant Secretary, International Division in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Dave studied in Turramurra high school and when he finished in 1993, he got the highest HSC Tertiary rank of 100 in the state of NSW. He was also the highest ranked student in NSW Public schools that year.
He later studied law in University of Cambridge in UK as part of his undergraduate studies followed by studying medicine in University of Sydney and topped it up with a Masters in International Relations from Deakin University.
Dave Sharma will be accompanied to Israel by his wife Rachel and their three daughters.
Australia has been a strong supporter of the State of Israel since its establishment, and was one of the first countries to grant official recognition and to establish diplomatic relations. The Australian Embassy in Israel opened in 1949.
Talking to Indian Herald, Dave said, “This is a high profile posting as Israel is such an important part of the world for us. We also have a big Jewish community in Australia and have taken a close interest in this relationship.”...
His grandfather was a Brahmin priest from UP in India who moved to Trinidad in 1908.  Talking about his family Dave said, “My father was the youngest of 9 children. My father was born in 1928 in Trinidad and currently lives in Sydney. He however spends time between Trinidad, Australia and Canada.”
“My father did a Law Degree and he married my mother Diana who was from Sydney in 1964. They met each other in Kings College in University of London, where both of them were studying. Lot of my father’s relatives were working in law firms. I am the first one in the family in the field of Foreign Service.”
...Australia and Israel enjoy a significant trade relationship worth more than $900 million a year. Australian exports to Israel include coal, meat and aluminium, with imports including gems, manufactured items and telecommunications equipment.

Public Lecture by Prof. Marc Caplan, Johns Hopkins University, USA.

PUBLIC LECTURE

Education and Initiation in the Novels of the Yiddish Haskole (Enlightenment) and Islamic Negritude

Speaker: Marc Caplan; Zelda and Myer Tandetnik Professor of Yiddish Literature, Language, and Culture; Department of German and Romance Languages; Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Bio: Marc Caplan is a native of Louisiana and a graduate of Yale University. In 2003 he completed a PhD in comparative literature at New York University, submitting a dissertation comparing the origins of modern narrative forms in 19th century Yiddish and post-colonial African literature. Thereafter he held visiting positions at Indiana University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University, before joining the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University as the first recipient of the Zelda and Myer Tandetnik Professorship in Yiddish Literature, Language, and Culture in 2006. In 2011 he published How Strange the Change: Language, Temporality, and Narrative Form in Peripheral Modernisms with Stanford University Press. Currently he is at work on a book project comparing Yiddish modernism in Weimar Berlin with contemporaneous trends in German critical theory, literature, and popular culture, focusing primarily on theories of language and allegory proposed by Walter Benjamin.

Abstract: This lecture will examine the literatures of ostensibly marginal modern cultures as a conceptual and historical key to understanding aesthetic modernism. Professor Caplan will compare nineteenth-century Yiddish literature and twentiethcentury Francophone African literature, finding unexpected similarities between them. These literatures were created under imperial regimes that brought with them processes of modernization that were already well advanced elsewhere. Yiddish and African writers reacted to the liberating potential of modernity and the burdens of imperial authority by choosing similar narrative genres, typically reminiscent of early-modern European literatures: the picaresque, the pseudo-autobiography, satire, and the Bildungsroman. Both display analogous anxieties toward language, caught as they were between imperial, "global" languages and stigmatized native vernaculars, and between traditions of writing and orality. Professor Caplan will demonstrate that these literatures' "belated" relationship to modernization suggests their potential to anticipate subsequent crises in the modernity and post-modernity of metropolitan cultures. The conflicts between tradition and modernity—expressed in both contexts as a competition between initiation and education of young people—results in a literature that provides a critique of modernity even at the outset of the modernization process.               

Date      Wednesday 12th June 2013        
Time      5:30 until 7:00pm             
Venue    Bank West Lecture Theatre in building 200A, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley 
RSVP     To HUM-ResearchEvents@curtin.edu.au by 7th June 2013          

Catering               Food and Drinks will be provided             
Parking                 Visitor parking is available in car park D3

Jimmy Barnes joins Cantor Meir HeIfgott in the Central Synagogue (Sydney) to sing "My Yiddish Momme"

Terrorist who killed 38 Israelis was appointed PA adviser

A recently published article (see below) has prompted Akiva Hamilton (Shurat Hadin) to add the following to his response to World Vision Australia's Whitewash of an AusAID Recipient's Terrorism Links:

"World Vision Australia justifies giving millions of AusAID dollars to convicted terrorist Bashir Al-Khairi by noting that he "is close to Mahmoud Abbas" (PA Prime Minister and PLO Chairman). 

However Abbas's appointment as his advisor, of an arch-terrorist Hussein Fayyad who murdered 38 Israelis, shows that that being a convicted arch-terrorist is no impediment whatsoever to being 'close to Mahmoud Abbas'..."

From JPost, 29 May 2013, by KHALED ABU TOAMEH:

Man behind 1978 Coastal Road massacre made adviser to Abbas.

Coastal Road Massacre Bus Photo: Wikimedia commons

Hussein Fayyad, one of the commanders of the terror group that carried out the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, revealed on Tuesday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had appointed him as one of his advisers.

The attack, which led to the killing of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, was planned and carried out by Abbas’s Fatah faction.

Fayyad, who was released in a prisoner swap with Israel in 1985, said that Abbas signed a decree in 2008 promoting him to the position of “advisor” to the PA president.

...Abbas Zaki, member of the PLO executive committee...praised Fayyad as a “fighter for the Palestinian revolution” ...

Libs to cut funding for BDS activists

From The Australian, 25 May 2013, by Ean Higgins:

A COALITION government would block all federal funds to individuals and institutions who speak out in favour of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.
..."The Coalition will institute a policy across government that ensures no grants of taxpayers' funds are provided to individuals or organisations which actively support the BDS campaign," Ms Bishop told The Weekend Australian.
...The Coalition policy is most immediately directed at [University of Sydney's] Jake Lynch who, along with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies that he directs, is a vocal supporter of BDS.
Associate Professor Lynch drew the ire of Jewish groups when he rejected a request for help from Israeli academic Dan Avnon, who developed Israel's only civics curriculum for both Jewish and Arab school students.
... Ms Bishop told The Weekend Australian: "It is inappropriate for Associate Professor Lynch to use his role as director of the taxpayer-funded CPACS . . . in support of the anti-Semitic BDS campaign."...

Shurat HaDin Claims World Vision Whitewash of AusAID Recipient's Terrorism Links

From Shurat Hadin (Israel law Centre), 24 May 2013, by Akiva Hamilton:
World Vision’s latest attempts to whitewash its continued taxpayer-funded support of a Gaza based organisation (the UAWC) with very close links to an illegal terrorist organisation (the PFLP) are episodes straight out of the TV series “Yes Minister”.
They are characterised by a failure to confront the evidence, misrepresentation of the independence and expertise of “experts”, use of straw horse arguments, reliance on hearsay from anonymous and unverifiable sources and attempts to confuse the issue.

Episode 1: When faced with overwhelming evidence find biased cronies and call them “experts”

Shurat HaDin has presented over 40 separate pieces of evidence linking the UAWC to the PFLP. This evidence identifies five UAWC directors as senior members of the PFLP terrorist organisation. It shows extensive cooperation between the UAWC & the PFLP including a use of UAWC facilities for terrorist anniversary celebrations. It shows ongoing arrests of senior UAWC figures for terrorist related activity.
You can even see video of the UAWC President during almost the whole period World Vision has funded the UAWC speaking, as a senior PFLP terrorist, at a Hamas terrorist rally. He was the lead in act for the Hamas leader who was arrested a few days later.
Has World Vision seriously engaged with any of this evidence and provided counter-evidence to disprove it?
NO! Apart from one claim of mistaken identity of a UAWC director, which Shurat HaDin has photographic identification evidence to support its position, World Vision has completely failed to even attempt rebutal of the evidence.
Instead World Vision has engaged “experts” which it attempts to present as “independent” and well qualified but are in fact anything but.

Dov Weissglas

Israeli attorney Dov Weissglas has a long history of opposing Shurat HaDin’s attempts to get compensation for victims of terrorism. When Shurat HaDin obtained Court ordered liens over Palestinian Authority (PA) assets to secure legal claims against the PA for its active involvement in terrorist atrocities that killed and maimed hundreds of Israelis, attorney Weissglas represented the PA in trying to get these liens removed.
When Shurat HaDin sued the Bank of China for knowingly facilitating the transfer of funds to Hamas for a terrorist attack that killed and maimed dozens of Israeli school students, attorney Weissglas was there to defend the Bank of China.
Attorney Weissglas’s senior role in the expulsion of hundreds of Jewish families from their homes which resulted in Gaza becoming an Iranian missile base (also known as “disengagement”) certainly rounds out the picture of exactly who Dov Weissglas is.
Attorney Weisglass is entitled to his legal practice of opposing attempts to get justice and compensation for terror victims. That is every lawyer’s right and even terrorists are entitled to legal representation, but World Vision’s attempts to present him as independent are disingenuous in the extreme.

Mati Steinberg

World Vision presents Prof Mati Steinberg as “Israel’s leading intelligence analyst” and “Head of the Division of Palestinian Affairs of Israel’s General Security Service” (GSS). Both these statements are patently false bordering on ridiculous.
Steiberg was is not an intelligence analyst at all, let alone a leading one. Nor did he ever head a division of the General Security Service (GSS).
Steinberg left the Shin Bet 10 years ago and was merely an advisor to the GSS on Palestinian affairs, not an intelligence analyst or department head. He is an academic who has made his career studying Palestinian society and has a long history of being sympathetic to the Palestinian cause andopposing action against terrorists. A google search reveals that he is quoted a number of times in Haaretz, a newspaper read by only 7% of the Israeli population and representing the views of the far left, but not in more mainstream Israeli publications. He speaks at conferences of the far left organisation PeaceNow.
Again, Prof Steinberg is entitled to his opinion and robust public debate is an important part of Israeli democracy, but it is quite misleading for World Vision to present Prof Steinberg being a “Israel’s leading intelligence analyst” or of being capable of giving an “independent opinion” in a matter such as this. His political positions are well known and are on the far left of the Israeli political spectrum. His professional role requires him to be on good terms with Palestinians and be sympathetic towards them, even when they are involved with terrorist organisations as the UAWC is.
World Vision has grossly misrepresented both the independence and credentials of their so-called experts.

Episode 2: Establish a straw horse and then attack it

World Vision then proceeds to create a straw-horse argument that the job of these experts is to “substantiate our “allegations”.
Shurat HaDin has not made “allegations”. We have presented substantive evidence.
Our evidence does not require further “substantiation”. It is substantive in and of itself.
Our evidence must either be rebutted or it stands.
It is not up to any expert, let alone an extremely biased one with little qualification for the job, to rule on the evidence Shurat HaDin has presented. World Vision does not get to appoint judges.
It is up to World Vision to either rebut the evidence presented with real counter evidence, not biased opinion of its cronies, or accept its truth and stop funding the UAWC.

Episode 3: Use hearsay and anonymous, unverifiable sources

Tim McCormack’s article on his trip to Israel can be summarised as follows: Tim Costello & I met with lots of people who said the UAWC were fine, but we won’t tell you who they are are and we won’t provide anything in writing.
It is not acceptable for World Vision to cite general statements by anonymous and unverifiable sources and then say they’ve conducted a serious investigation.
World Vision have refused to provide Shurat HaDin a copy of Prof Steinberg’s report, a copy of any official Israeli government document substantiating their 3rd hand hearsay or further information about its funding of the UAWC.
Given that for many months World Vision loudly trumpeted the lie that the UAWC was registered as a charity in Israel and still haven’t retracted this false claim despite incontrovertible evidence, Shurat HaDin rightly demands to see the basis for these claims so they can be investigated.

Episode 4: If you can’t win on the facts then confuse the issue

Shurat HaDin’s complaint is about Australian tax-payer funds being used to support a terror-linked group potentially in breach of Australian law.
We have never suggested that the UAWC itself was involved in actual terrorist attacks or passed money directly to the PFLP.
What we have provided evidence of is that key directors of the UAWC have been involved in actual terrorist attacks (Al Kheiri & Khalafallah) as members of the PFLP and many other directors and officers of the UAWC were members of the PFLP and/or were being arrested by Israel for security related issues.
It is well known that terrorist organisations conduct charitable and other legitimate activities  (in order to gain popular support) in addition to their murderous terrorist activities. However it is also well established that funding even a the charitable aspect of a terrorist organisation assists the military arm by freeing resources and assisting it to gain popular support.
The US Supreme Court has recognised this and found that providing a proscribed terrorist organisation with any assistance, even training in international law and political advocacy was illegal*. We have made this clear from our first letter to World Vision back in February 2012.
Shurat HaDin has never suggested that Khalid Hidmi was involved with the PFLP. He appears to be a lower level officer of the UAWC charged with the day to day running of legitimate projects. The organisation he works for is headed by PFLP members and works closely with the PFLP but Khalid Hidmi himself does not appear to be involved in this aspect of the organisation. Thus the freedom of movement of Khalid Hidmi is irrelevant to the question of whether the UAWC is the agricultural arm of the PFLP terrorist organisation.
Contrary to Tim McCormack’s suggestion, Israel does not conduct targeting killings against persons involved in the charitable arm of a terrorist organisation, only those actively involved in effecting terrorist attacks that endanger the lives of Israelis. The suggestion that Israel can or would conduct a military operation in Gaza to shut down the UAWC is ridiculous.
But Israel’s unwillingness to conduct a military operation to shut down the UAWC does not mean that Australian tax-payers money should be going to such a terror linked organisation, nor that such funding may not be in breach of Australian anti-terror law which prohibits indirect support of a terrorist group.
It is about time World Vision stopped the game playing and “Yes, Minister” tactics and faced the bare truth - they have been funding an organisation established by terrorists, headed by terrorists and which works closely with a terrorist organisation. It is not an appropriate use of Australian taxpayer funds nor should a leading Australian charity be involved with such shady figures and potentially illegal activity.
As I said to Rev Tim Costello when I met him in Tel Aviv in Feb 2013: “If you found out that an organisation you were funding was headed by a convicted murderer who was a senior leader of an illegal motorcycle gang, as were many of his fellow directors, you would stop funding immediately - Why is a lesser standard applied to terrorists?”

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^*Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. –––– (2010), 130 S. Ct. 2705 (2010)

Victorian Parliamentary Friends elects new conveners and secretary

From JOHN LENDERS MLC Member for Southern Metropolitan Region, Secretary Victorian Parliamentary Friends of Israel, 22 May, 2013:

In accordance with the procedures of the Victorian Parliamentary Friendship Groups, a midterm election has recently been held for the Parliamentary Friends of Israel. I am writing to inform you that David Southwick and Marsha Thomson were re-elected as Co-Conveners and I was elected as Secretary.

This group looks to create closer ties between Victorian Parliamentarians and that State of Israel. We wish to work closely with the Jewish Community to further this aim.

The Victorian Parliamentary Friends of Israel group has one of the largest memberships of all friendship groups, with substantial representations from both major parties. David, Marsha and I wish to be proactive in organising events and participating in events organised by the community....