Israel I
Boaz Magal (Write On, GLW #493) makes several correct criticism of Israel, but then tries to salvage some legitimacy for the Zionist state by saying, "there is no other place the Jews really can call home". If this is true, how do you explain the fact that more Jews live in the US than in Israel? Or that more than 80% of the world's Jews live outside Israel? How do you explain the fact that many anti-Zionist Jews have spoken out over the years against this apartheid state?
I believe Boaz when he says he had to overcome much "Zionist brainwashing" to make even the criticisms of Israel that he does. But it appears he still clings to the central pillar of Zionist ideology the idea that Jews can not peacefully live alongside non-Jews (and therefore need an exclusively Jewish homeland). This is nothing but a crude inversion of ideas such as "Aryans can not live peacefully alongside Jews", and clearly does not match reality.
Shua Garfield
Hobart
Israel II
The recent call for an Australian academic boycott of Israel by John Docker, Ghassan Hage and 90 other Australian academics represents an outrageous attempt to limit freedom of speech, and promote a propagandist rather than scholarly version of history.
Their petition is based on the binary opposites of good and bad nations. The Israelis are described as evil and immoral oppressors guilty of "crimes of war, massacres and colonisation" who have "elected their extremists to power". And the majority of Israeli academics are accused without any evidence whatsoever of supporting these actions.
In contrast, the Palestinians are portrayed as defenceless and innocent victims. The recent wave of Palestinian suicide bombings culminating in the "Passover massacre", which provoked the furious Israeli retaliatory response of Operation Defensive Shield, has been airbrushed off the pages of history.
The real Middle East is, however, far more complex than these caricatures might suggest. There are extremists and moderates on both sides.
The petition also suggests an equivalence between Israel and apartheid South Africa. This analogy has no basis in fact. Israel is a comprehensive nation-state formed on a democratic basis, and consisting of a range of social groups and classes. In contrast, South Africa involved a small white population exploiting a much larger black majority.
The analogy is also historically offensive. Israel was created specifically as an affirmative action project to compensate Jews for their horrendous experiences of racism culminating in the Holocaust.
Philip Mendes
East Caulfield Vic [Abridged]
Cuba
Isn't it odd sheer Alice in Wonderland that while the US accuses Fidel Castro of being a cruel dictator, it is the US which forbids its citizens from visiting Cuba (except for a few exceptions like Jimmy Carter, who had to ask permission from the "home of democracy"), while the Cuban government allows any Cuban with a US visa to visit America?
Of course, the US makes it very difficult for Cubans to get US visas, and does not live up to the figure of 20,000 per year, as agreed on with the Cuban government. The US does this in the hope that visaless Cubans will then make desperate voyages in leaky boats, and arrive (if they survive the journey) to a warm welcome, jobs, housing, etc., and much-needed publicity for the "Cuban refugees".
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic
Terror laws
Regarding the Howard government's draconian terror laws, we'd like to inform your readers of our makeshift email-and-phone-the-pollies campaign which has had a tremendously good result. By encouraging thousands of Australians to email the politicians at the last minute, it helped impress them with the great level of concern about this issue and contributed to the vote's delay from May 14 to June 17 (when the Senate next meets).
For our convenient list that contains the email addresses of all politicians (plus links to phone numbers), please see < http://www.blatantpropaganda.A HREF="mailto:com"><com>.
Let them know we don't want or need these fascistic laws. Most of all target the Labor senators and tell them to oppose the laws 100%. We don't need or want their amended versions either. This needs to be done now.
If these laws are passed, it makes it a lot more possible for future governments to ban groups like the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, the Democratic Socialist Party and to jail members and sympathisers.
This issue calls for massive mobilisation and action. Left activists should be writing letters to the editors, postering, leafleting, calling talkback radio, marching in the street, and most of all, directly lobbying the politicians as if our lives depended on it. This issue is a perfect chance for us to impress and inform other Australians of the Howard gang's true colours, their lust for dictatorial police state powers.
I fear that the left has done too little, too late.
John Stirling
Canberra
From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.