Australia & NZ.

New Zealand has yet again supported a one-sided, biased United Nations General Assembly resolution that censured Israel, while ignoring the role of terrorist organisation Hamas. Another emergency session against Israel was held to condemn Israel (while systematically turning a blind eye to the world’s worst perpetrators of gross and systematic …

Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) National Chairman Mark Leibler AC and Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein AM today wrote to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to express AIJAC’s “sincere appreciation for Australia’s principled stance at the UN General Assembly by voting in favour of the US amendment to the unbalanced …

MEDIA STATEMENT from the ECAJ – Executive Council of Australian Jewry regarding the interview  of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer on Radio National Breakfast on Good Friday, 30 March 2018. The ABC has written to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) apologising for inaccuracies and for the omission of material context …

As Israelis, and Jews around the world, celebrate the 70th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jewish state, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters protest the very existence of Israel, in what they call Nakba Day (Arabic for ‘catastrophe’) As Israelis, and Jews around the world, celebrate the 70th anniversary of …

This week New Zealand’s Prime Minister, yet again, pointed an accusing finger at Israel for the “devastating one-sided loss of life” in the conflict on the Gaza border. Ms Ardern could perhaps be excused for getting it wrong, in speaking so soon after the conflict. However, as the week unfolded …

Late in 2016 many New Zealanders were appalled at the stance taken by our government in co-sponsoring UN Resolution 2334, which was seen as a biased, counter-productive and unbalanced censuring of Israel. A large number of Israel supporters responded with actions such as letter writing, a march on Parliament and …

Speech at Nations Bless Israel event Sydney. 29 April 2018. Who has ever seen anything as strange as this? Who ever heard of such a thing? Has a nation ever been born in a single day? Has a country ever come forth in a mere moment? But by the time …

Nations Bless Israel. Blessed are you O Lord our G-d, ruler of the universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this day. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לזְּמַן הַזֶּה. My parents – both survivors – came to this great country …

Last year, 2017 Yassmin Abdel Magied posted the following insult in reference to ANZAC day – Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. ANZAC Day is commemorated annually on April 25th in Australia and New Zealand and is held close to the heart of Australians. In 1915, Australia and New Zealand witnessed an …

Seventy years after the crushing defeat of Nazi Germany, Nazi ideas and groups are re-emerging throughout the West. Although Nazism remains on the political fringes, adherents are increasingly active and emboldened in propagating the antisemitism, white supremacy, racist hate, and homophobia that are intrinsic to Nazi ideology. In Australia, a …

Green MPs Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman demonstrated selective outrage last week, suggesting that their concern for human rights in the Middle East extends only so far as Israel can be blamed. In the space of one week they stridently and publicly condemned Israel for protecting its border and population …

House of Representatives on 26/03/2018 PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS – Israel. That this House: (1) notes that 14 May 2018 is the 70th anniversary of the creation of the modern state of Israel, a seminal event that occurred in 1948, and congratulates Israel on an amazing seventy years of democracy, growth …

Professor Alan Dershowitz needs little introduction in legal circles.  A preeminent civil-liberties and constitutional lawyer and recently-retired Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, he has also been described as “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world” after taking on a string of high-profile cases. Professor Dershowitz was in New …

Not long ago, the activist far right comprised a motley assortment of anti-Islam groups and individuals rallying in cities across Australia railing against Islamist terrorism, Muslim immigration and the Islamisation of Australia. Today, the activist far right scene has been sharpened and galvanised into something much bolder, more militant and …

January 26 – Australia Day, is the day we celebrate the birth of our great country.  The day to remember the First Fleet which arrived in 1788, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip after its long arduous journey to Australia, landed in Sydney Cove. Australia Day is the day …

I’m no biblical scholar, but if I was asked to name great Jewish prophets off the top of my head, Moses, Abraham and Jonah would likely get a mention. Gideon Levy, the Israeli commentator, would not. Nevertheless, on Levy’s visit to New Zealand in December, the unctuous RNZ interviewer Wallace …

Once again, Sydney Town Hall was the scene of flags emblazoned with images of guns, chants calling for an uprising and ethnic cleansing, and hate-filled war-cries in the name of Allah. NSW state politicians, Labor’s Shaoquett Moselmane and the Greens’ Mehreen Faruqi, were among those who addressed the crowd of …

New Zealand is the only Western country where a tertiary institute has awarded a degree to a work of Holocaust denial or revisionism.  Joel Hayward wrote a Master of Arts thesis at Canterbury University that concluded “the weight of evidence supported the view that the Nazis did not systematically exterminate …

Newshub reported that there were “at least 50”, TVNZ said there were “hundreds”, and one of the the organising groups thought they counted 400 people protesting in Auckland. In reality, approximately 150 people gathered in Aotea Square in Auckland to protest against the United States’ acknowledgement of Jerusalem as Israel’s …

The anniversaries continue. And more than a few involve Australia, and in a significant way. Just having come off the high of the centenary of Be’ersheva in Israel, this week we celebrated 70 years since the historic United Nations vote on partition known as Resolution 181. In particular, at a …