Australia & NZ.

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 …

The 12 month period ending 30 September 2017 saw a 9.5% increase over the previous year in total antisemitic incidents in Australia involving threats or acts of violence, according to the annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia published by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). The ECAJ, Jewish community …

I accidentally found myself caught up right in the middle of the Run for Palestinian Human Rights event yesterday. Yes, me. A proud Zionist. I was just trying to find a parking spot outside the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning when I saw small …

It is hard to describe the feelings of being in Israel at this very special moment. Particularly, that of being an Australian in Israel and more specifically, spending yesterday in Be’er Sheva. Overlay that with being a Jewish Australian and words fail to capture the incredible symbiotic and deep connections …

We are now living in the era of post-truth and alternative facts, the internet is awash with unsupported opinions – some absolutely outrageous and many completely unfounded… This is a movie that says truth is important and really matters and you can find out about it and you can nail …

Yesterday New Zealand’s new Prime Minister-elect, Hon Jacinda Ardern, and New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister-elect, and likely Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rt Hon Winston Peters, signed a coalition agreement, which revealed the full extent of the policy wins obtained by New Zealand First in return for enabling …

Imam Tawhidi is good man, suffering at the hands of fellow Muslims because he speaks of..                         Gender Equality and Women’s Rights No to Extremism No Killing of Apostates Establishing of the Caliphate Politics and Religion Patriot Imams Giving Back to the Country Joining the Australian Army He has been blocked …

For many Jewish New Zealanders, their decision on which political candidate to support will at least partly be based on that candidate’s position on Israel and “the conflict”, as well as their sensitivity around antisemitism as it exists in 2017. Jacinda Ardern, who may well be New Zealand’s PM in …

In choosing politics over principle, the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party has moved further down the treacherous path laid out by Bob Carr and his ilk.  That path is contrary to the interests of peace for the people of the Middle East and to the values of freedom and …

29 July 2017 saw an anti-Israel rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square that had been billed as “Alaqsa solidarity rally” to protest against Israel’s “security measures that require Palestinians to enter through metal detectors to go pray” (sic). These measures were removed by Israel before the day of the rally, after …