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Remember to check our website ...www.hobartsynagogue.org regularly for calendar updates, interesting info, etc. etc.
Remember that you can get your kosher foods at Coles Sandy Bay in Hobart
Page 17
It is false to state that Zionists, the people who founded and continue to build and/or support the State of
Israel, reject human rights. Israel, the Zionist state, is an open, pluralist society that counts itself among
the few democracies of the world. Zionists include Holocaust survivors, fleeing from the world’s most
brutal regime and its attempt to ethnically cleanse Jews. These refugees created what is now the most
multicultural nation on Earth. Israel, the world’s only Jewish nation (with a 20% Arab minority who
exercise the right to vote), allows gay rights, abortion and dissent, has an active independent judiciary, a
myriad of political parties and boasts the largest per capita volume of independent, critical, media in the
world. It is a shining example of economic success, borne from the largest per capita number of absorbed
refugees in the world.
It is a lie to argue that Israel is anything other than an open, tolerant, liberal democratic society. Since its
foundation, Israel has been a democracy. Albert Einstein was offered the job of Israel’s first President,
something one would think that the former head of Australia’s Republican Movement, Greg Barns, would
have remembered. It is wrong to pretend that the Zionist movement rejects Palestinian rights, human
rights or is quasi-religious. Integral to Zionism is democracy, freedom and the rule of law. This has
repeatedly been lauded by Israel’s Arab citizens, who enjoy a standard of living many times greater than
any of the surrounding Arab nations.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, Israel absorbed, housed, fed and found employment for one million Jews forced to
flee a crumbling and repressive USSR which for decades had denied their right to practice Judaism: an
increase of 25% of the existing Israeli population. Imagine if Australia accepted 5 million people in ten
years!
While one may disagree with the policies of Israel’s current government, one can not reasonably argue
that Israel’s Prime Minister, the Israeli public, or the Zionist movement, have rejected the notion of
Palestinian statehood. Four of the last five Israeli Prime Ministers has offered a Palestinian state in one
form or another. Each offer by Israel has been rejected by Yasser Arafat and these rejections have been
followed up with terrorism.
We in Australia enjoy considerable freedom to write whatever we like, on virtually any subject. This
freedom is even greater in Israel, reflecting the principles of representative government which our two
countries share. While Mr Barns is free to criticise Israel or Zionism as much as he likes, it is surely
expected that he do some basic research before he offhandedly disavows an entire movement. Mr Barns
has done his audience a disservice. Zionism is a responsible, honourable movement and one which
supporters of democracy and multiculturalism would do well to learn from.
Instead of bashing Israel, Greg Barns would be better advised to critique the human rights abusing nations
surrounding it.
Josh Landis is the Executive Officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry
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