Editorials

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society considers the Occupation of the West Bank to be a significant obstacle to the achievement of a lasting peace, and the settlements to be one of its worst manifestations.

Its effects are numerous:

*Israel’s youth must risk their lives in policing a hostile aggrieved Palestinian population, and risk becoming brutalised by the experience;

* Jewish settlers and their Palestinian neighbours have an understandably impossible relationship which often results in openly violent and destructive behaviour;

*It breaches international law, the very system that actually made possible the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948;

*Development of Palestinian civil society and its economy, which are the prerequisites of prospects for peace, is stifled.

Many Israelis share this view. The AJDS has decided that it does not wish to give financial support to those who produce and export from the settlements, and wishes to discourage others from doing so. We are taking this stand because we hope that it will encourage people to think about the question of the Occupation, and, at a more fundamental level, because we don’t wish to be supportive of people who breach International law, with or without the approval of the Israeli Government...(more follows)

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society has become the first community-affiliated Jewish organisation to adopt the view that some boycotts of Israel may indeed be justified. The decision culminated a 16-month process of discussion and expression of a wide range of views in its Newsletter.

The resolution (full text below) rejected the Palestinian civil society version of Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS): "The AJDS is opposed to any Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at the breadth of Israeli economic, cultural or intellectual activity". The AJDS only supports "selected BDS actions designed to bring about an end to the Israeli occupation, blockade and settlement on Palestinian lands lying outside of the June 1967 Israeli borders."

1 June 2010

The terrible and deplorable deaths and injuries that occurred on board the Turkish flagged ship, the Mavi Marmara, one of a convoy of ships attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, are not only heartbreaking for the immediate families of the nine people killed and the many injured, but a tragedy for all people who yearn for a resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Overland magazine has been attacked by an academic 'push' for publishing non-mainstream opinions on the Israel-Palestine issue. Here is the AJDS response.

The Executive of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society is in broad agreement with the views expressed by Jeff Sparrow and the rest of the Overland editorial staff in the final two paragraphs of their 3 May statement titled “Overland and Bias: a response to some critics.” They wrote:

The following statement was issued by the AJDS’s
official spokesperson Les Rosenblatt.

The 9 April Australian government decision to stop processing the asylum/refugee entitlements of Afghanis and Sri Lankans – predominantly from the persecuted minorities of Hazaras and Tamils – combined with the threat to force their return to their countries of origin – based on completely untenable claims of “durable security” in these countries – is intolerably inhumane.

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society agrees with the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring

Many people within the Jewish community, whose support for Israel is not in question, have watched and noted the way in which the occupation of Palestinian land has had a corrupting influence on Israel's soul. Many Jewish Israelis are blind to the indignity and abuse on a daily basis accorded to ordinary Palestinians passing through Israeli checkpoints. They are insulated from feeling the deprivation, frustration and powerlessness in the lives of people under occupation behind a wall and out of view.