The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 5

"The pro-Israel lobby in this country is a powerful, influential and intimidating group. Backbenchers such as Julia Irwin and Leo McLeay get left way behind, along with the interests of the Palestinians." Alan Ramsey, Lost, even with a map, 30/8/03

Meanwhile, over at Fairfax...

In my first post in the series, The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament, I cited Sydney Morning Herald columnist Alan Ramsey's brave foray into the matter of The Motion, Don't mention the war as Israel lauded (8/3/08). His was a lone voice in the Fairfax press that week.

There were, of course, the inevitable outraged responses on the letters page (10/3/08): Ramsey's reference to "Jewish financial support of party coffers" drew satirical scorn ("Curse those Zionist paymasters!") and assertions that "[t]here is no evidence that Jewish organizations per se have ever donated to Australian political parties." One letter writer dismissed his opinion piece as a "finger-pointing rant."

And they, apparently, were just the tip of the iceberg: according to Letters co-editor, Mike Ticher, in his Postscript comment on 15/3/08, "That [letters on 'white flight'] was just a polite exchange compared with the vitriol inspired by Alan Ramsey's opinion piece on Israel last Saturday and the various responses to it."

Another letter attacking Ramsey, Friendships with Israel are more enduring than hate-filled rhetoric, by Robert Goot and David Knoll, presidents respectively of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, was published on the day of Rudd's motion (12/3/08). They charged him with a) "indulging one of his passions - hatred of Israel"; b) "crossing the line from robust debate to racial vilification"; c) " denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination"; d) "applying double standards by requiring Israel to adhere to standards not demanded of any other democratic nation"; e) "using images associated with classic anti-semitism"; and f) "reverting to classic anti-semitic canards about Jews and money."

To its credit the SMH printed 3 rebuttals of Goot and Knoll the following day (13/3/08). To touch briefly on each of these accusations:-

a) For Zionists, reasoned criticism of Israel is invariably misconstrued as "hatred for Israel."

b) This is a groundless assertion not in any way borne out by reference to what Ramsey actually says.

c) Notice that Goot and Knoll want self-determination, not for Israel's citizens as such, 20% of whom are non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs, but for "the Jewish people," including presumably Goot and Knoll.

d) This begs the questions: What kind of democracy discriminates in law against part of its citizenry, exiles and renders stateless millions more potential citizens, and occupies the land of another people? And since the passing of apartheid South Africa, are there any other such "democratic nations?"

e) Another groundless assertion not borne out by reference to what Ramsey actually says.

f) Perhaps Goot and Knoll should first take this matter up with the editor of The Australian Jewish News. In its issue of 9/2/07, the AJN journalist, Melissa Singer, writes, under the headline, Jewish political donations nudge $1m, that "Jewish-owned businesses and individuals continued their support for the 2 major political parties in 2005-06, according to an Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) report released last week. While the overall number of Jewish donors was down on 2004-05, it is anticipated that 2006-07 will be stronger, with an election less than 10 months away." Singer goes on to list Frank Lowy's Westfield Group, Harry Triguboff's Meriton Premier Apartments, Phil Green's investment firm Babcock & Brown, David Goldberger & David Wieland, Smorgan Steel, Richard Pratt and his Visy Group, Harry Segal, Gandel Group, Sherman Group, Ivany Investment group, law firm Arnold Bloch Liebler, and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. [As Jack Lang told the young Paul Keating: "Always put your money on self-interest, son, it's the only horse that always tries."]

Thankfully, Ramsey was not bullied into silence. Quite the contrary, the whole of his regular Saturday column of 15/3/08, Blinkers off for the other side of the story, was devoted to the bizarre spectacle which had taken place just 3 days earlier in the House of Representatives.

While The Australian had given the false impression of near wall-to-wall support for the motion, Ramsey tells a different story: "...one half of the Australian Parliament 'celebrated' the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves." Apart from Rudd and Nelson, "[n]obody else spoke. The whole affair, carefully orchestrated, carefully bipartisan, lasted just 15 minutes. The press gallery was almost empty. So, too, were the 2 public galleries. About 100 invited guests...filled the first 3 rows of the Speaker's gallery...These were the people who, after Rudd's...motion had been 'put and passed' without a vote, applauded enthusiastically. The only other person who spoke - or attempted to - was a middle-aged woman [who] held up a T-shirt, exclaiming, 'What about UN resolution 242?' " She was evicted.

Ramsey goes on to tell the story of how, on the same night, a lone Liberal MP, Susan Ley, "did an extremely courageous thing...speak for the Palestinian people. She was the only MP [out of 150] who did...When Rudd and Nelson had spoken at midday I counted 53 Government MPs present, including 6 ministers, and 39 Coalition MPs. When Ley got the call 7 1/2 hours later...to speak on the adjournment, there were 5 people in the public gallery, 4 Labor MPs and 2 Coalition MPs in the chamber, and one journalist in the press gallery." Ramsey gives an edited version of Sussan Ley's speech, from which I quote the following:-

"Israel has many friends in this country and in the Parliament. The Palestinians, by comparison, have few. Theirs is not a popular cause. But it is one I support, in part out of knowledge that the victors of WW II, including Australia, wrote a 'homeland' cheque to cover the sins of the holocaust and centuries of anti-semitism in Europe, but it was the Palestinians who had to cash it."

Ley referred to Israel's 'achievements' (though mistakenly describing the Jewish ethnocratic state as a "democracy"), its "40-year occupation of the Palestinain territories, its continued expansion of [illegal Israeli] settlements [on Palestinian land] and its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees." She also asserted that "The current blockade of Gaza, confiscation of Palestinian land, and the expansion of settlements must be mentioned in the context of today's motion."

"We are the leaders of our generation. We are accountable for results. If the principal protagonists and the rest of the world community hand Palestine on to the next generation as a twisted mess of grievance, hatred and retribution, then we have failed. The last 2 generations of leaders have failed to produce peace. Let us renew our efforts."

Ramsey reflected: "Unlike earlier in the day, nobody applauded - though I wished I could have. Many Australians, too, had they been present, surely would have wanted to acknowledge such a speech of such honesty and sensibility...Ley put the grovelling Rudd and Nelson to shame. The truth is there is no real debate in this country about the travesty of what is happening in the Middle East, and there are those in the community who, with their money and influence, do all they can to ensure no such open debate occurs, either in the national Parliament, in the media or anywhere else. So why was the Rudd Government, in its first 4 months in office, doing what no Australian government or parliament had done, to acknowledge any of the decades of Israeli statehood since the Six-Day War in 1967 saw the Israeli military occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and ignore 40 years of mutual violence and barbarity as well as 40 years of UN resolutions to withdraw? The Howard government did not 'honour' Israel's 50th anniversary...nor the Hawke government the 40th...nor the Fraser government the 30th...Why the 60th in 2008 the instant a Labor Government comes to power?"

Ramsey's question demands an answer. At least one Labor MP was trying to prise one out of the PM: "When the Labor caucus met on Tuesday...Sydney's Julia Irwin asked Rudd this very question. Why? Irwin never takes a backward step in her defence of Palestinian rights, but all she got from Rudd this time was waffle. He did not explicitly respond as to why 60 might be different from earlier decades when the Parliament had done nothing and neither had earlier governments. And no Labor MP supported Irwin in pushing it. She was a lone voice in the Labor caucus as Susan Ley was in the Parliament. How's that for political ticker?"

Unfortunately, like Ley and Irwin in federal politics, Alan Ramsey is a lone voice in Australian journalism. What have we come to? Where are we going?