IAN WILCOCK, FORMER AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL ON ANTI-SEMITISM
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
That consistently pro-Israel newspaper, The Australian, carries an article by Ian Wilcock, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, explaining why antisemitism on the part of the Palestinians is an obstacle to peace:
“An astonishing part of PA ideology is the constant use of the notoriously forged document of a century ago, the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the PA, this is presented as proof that Jews are running an international conspiracy to conquer and divide the world and to portray Jews and Israelis as inherently evil…..
Sadly there is much more….
And then there is Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip and which is in a declared partnership with the PA. It has signed up to every vile anti-Semitic calumny history has to offer. Its charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.
….To allow these obscenities to continue must further undermine the confidence of the only negotiating partner that could actually deliver a state for Palestinians – Israel. Not to take such action would confirm that the PA has joined with those (headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran) whose objective is to threaten, demonise, delegitimise, even obliterate Israel, but who refuse to engage in the hard and even dangerous work of negotiation and compromise….”
The usual suspects are grumbling on social media about this article, which is reviving memories amongst them of how, to their anger, the Canberra Times (not known for its friendship towards Israel), carried last year an excellent article by Rev Peter Kurti which he correctly labelled the Greens’ campaign for a boycott of Israeli products antisemitic. In the course of the article he remarked:
‘An essential part of the compact of a free society is that all its citizens are afforded protection from persecution and freedom from fear….
When a segment of society is targeted by reason of its identity – be it a religious, ethnic or national identity – the right of that segment to live free from fear is compromised….
BDS states on its website that boycott targets are chosen ‘”based on their direct contribution to grave human rights abuses and international law violations of the Israeli state and military’”.
BDS declares two objectives. First: compel Israel to respect international law and freedom; second: achieve justice and equality for Palestinians by ending what it describes as ‘”Israel’s systematic oppression of the Palestinian people’”….
Behind the BDS rhetoric about justice, freedom and peace lurks a much darker objective. Committed to the belief that Israel, a tiny sliver of a democratic state, is the leading threat to world peace, the boycott campaign is part of a renewed offensive to challenge the legitimacy of the state of Israel. And with that, the nature of the BDS campaign is revealed.
Far from being simply an attempt to urge the Israeli government to change its policy on the occupied territories, the campaign really amounts to a denunciation of the Jewish state itself.
After all, if BDS is so concerned about ‘”basic human rights” and ‘”violations of international law”, why was it so oddly silent when Syrian forces loyal to President Assad shelled the besieged city of Latakia, forcing more than 5000 Palestinian refugees to flee a refugee camp?
And why doesn’t it threaten boycotts against any of the human rights-violating, non-democratic regimes around the world?….
“They’ve got rocks in their heads,’” union leader Paul Howes has said of BDS attempts to equate the [Max Brenner] chocolate protest with the campaign against apartheid in South Africa.
The BDS has crossed the line between a protest which is anti-Israeli policy and one which is anti-Semitic….’
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