Coming to a School Near You?

Building bridges, raising awareness, reaching out. Sounds good. Tell me more:

"The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' (JBD) third 'bridge-building' road trip saw the organisation's chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, raise awareness about the Jewish community on NSW's Central Coast. Alhadeff conducted interviews with two local radio stations, discussing such topics as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, racism and JBD outreach programs. Together with education manager Lynda Ben-Menashe, he also delivered a 2-hr presentation about the Holocaust to Erina High School's HSC students." (Gosford road trip, 20/8/10)

Just a minute, what was that about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

I wonder what Vic & Lynda had to say to the students of Erina High about that little shindig. Well, actually I don't have to wonder. I've got a fairly good idea thanks to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' newsletter, At the Board. Volume 1 - 2008 has this to say under the heading Bridge-building tour reaches thousands:

"The NSW JBD reached 800 people directly - plus thousands more through media interviews - during an intensive bridge-building tour of Central West NSW. JBD CEO Vic Alhadaff and Education Manager Lynda Ben-Menashe visited Forbes, Parkes, Dubbo and Mudgee, conducting 19 engagements in a week - with 8 schools, 5 media outlets, 3 Anglican churches, 2 Rotary clubs and one MP - Independent Member for Dubbo Dawn Fardell. Topics covered included Israel, the Middle East, the Holocaust, the Jewish experience in Australia, Jewish belief and practice, racism and antisemitism... Throughout their visit, Alhadeff and Ben-Menashe encouraged visits to the Sydney Holocaust Museum and distributed educational materials, including the Understanding Judaism brochure which was published by the JBD; the anti-racism Paper Clips DVD; Alan Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel; Rabbi Raymond Apple's book The Jewish Way; promotional packages from the Sydney Jewish Museum; and lists of websites for teachers to utilise... 'We spoke about Israel's world-leading water-management practices, the fact that drip-irrigation - which is used extensively in the Central West - is Israeli technology, and the fact that Israel leads the world in water recycling. 'We encouraged connections with the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, which conducts IT trade missions to Israel. We also found commonalities between the local communities and Israel's experience in responding to terrorism, as the Forbes rugby team was in Bali and Forbes lost 3 of its sons there. We emphasised that the clash with democratic values for which those 3 young men were killed is what Israel faces on a daily basis."

Yes, kiddies, it really is as simple as that: just as your mates were murdered most foully by the enemies of democracy in Bali, those same enemies of democracy have been, and are even now, busy murdering Israeli Jews.

Now while Vic & Lynda are free to propagandise for Israel in Australian schools, and have been doing so at least since 2008, over in 'the Middle East's only democracy' another group, with a genuinely educational agenda, can't even speak to Israeli teachers, let alone get into an Israeli schoolroom:

"Government officials warned Israeli teachers last week not to cooperate with a civic group that seeks to educate Israelis about how the Palestinians view the loss of their homeland and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Israel's education ministry issued the advisory after Zochrot - a Jewish group that seeks to raise awareness among Israeli Jews of the events of 1948, referred to as the 'nakba' by Palestinians - organised a workshop for primary school teachers. The ministry said the course had not been approved and told teachers not to participate in Zochrot-sponsored activities during the coming school year." (Israel tells schools not to teach nakba, Jonathan Cook, The National, 21/8/10)

Hm... I wonder what Vic & Lynda are telling Australian students about the Palestinian nakba. Well, actually I don't need to wonder, I know. Here's a paragraph on the subject from a little booklet distributed by the JBD called The Arab-Israel Conflict & the Peace Process: "Essentially... the Arab exodus was a result of the fact that the war of 1947-1949 took place, in the sense that if there had been no [Arab] invasion and a peaceful partition had been completed then it is unlikely that any substantial emigration would have occurred."

To unwrap: There are no Palestinians, only generic Arabs. There was no ethnic cleansing, only war. If only the Arab states hadn't invaded Palestine, if only the Palestinians - sorry, Arabs -had jumped for joy at the partition of their homeland, then there'd have been no substantial emigration.

Substantial emigration, for God's sake!

Perhaps, now that Zochrot have been prevented from talking to Israeli teachers, they could visit Australia, stopping off first at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies to educate slow learners, Vic & Lynda, before proceeding to Erina High and all of the other schools who've been misinformed by them.