Among my many concerns is Ms Segal's demand that she be the sole arbiter of what constitutes anti semitism by Universities, media and artists. Seems very Trumpian.
If we're going to deal with racism it should be ALL racism, not just one special interest.
Segal's husband donated a 5 figure sum to Advance Australia while they were campaigning AGAINST the Voice to Parliament.
She's tainted by association but also she's tainted by her own statements and requirements of others: she wants to silence and punish people talking about Israel's genocidal program and to silence talk about historical facts such as that Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinian Territories and has recently expanded their occupation into Syria and Lebanon, ordering people in those countries out of their homes under threats of murder.
The Jewish community is divided: some support genocide. Others are putting a LOT of effort into campaigning AGAINST genocide. Some Jews, like a professor in the UK, have been arrested for protesting against the genocide.
Albo needs to answer to voters: why did he appoint one racist woman to be arbiter of racism? Why weren't Jews against genocide part of that discussion?
In Victoria, the premier had a meeting to discuss antisemitism but NO JEWS AGAINST GENOCIDE WERE INVITED.
Donation aside, her husband supports racism. She is in a long-term relationship with a racist.
Richard Marles's chief of staff is in a long term relationship with a weapons industry lobbyist. That reeks too. Politicians are supposed to declare conflicts of interest and they are supposed to recuse themselves when voting if they have a conflict of interest. But these people - Segal and Marles's CoS - are influencing the government without any such checks and balances in place.
I seem to think about the ongoing genocide by the Israeli government and the IDF far too often. That's without even thinking about the attacks Israel has conducted on the surrounding countries, or the decades of occupation. Every week I call/contact my local member highlight the latest atrocity committed by Israeli's government and provide a list of what Australia could do (an has done with other countries which have committed war crimes recently) I admit I copied these from a Green's newsletter. Sanction Israel’s war cabinet, Stop the two-way arms trade with Israel (New documents contradict the Albanese government’s claims about its links to Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. It in fact directly signed a $900 million contract with Elbit and closely vetted all stages of its engagement). Expel the Israeli Ambassador, Join South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice, Recognise the State of Palestine. Sorry to go on so long this has been preying on my mind. My only consolation Omar El Akkad's piece 'One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This'.
There’s nothing antisemitic in this post but that’s the sort of thing that gets the Israelis and US riled up pretending it is. You should be able criticise the Israeli government for its genocidal tendencies. You’re not bagging Jews for being Jewish. Sometimes I think the Israelis think they have a free pass on genocide because of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
Agree absolutely with everything you say and do likewise to Penny Wong, Pat Conroy and Andrew Leigh (I'd be sending material to more politicians but I don't have their e-mail addresses)! Thanks, Michael B.
Segal also relies heavily on the IHRA's working definition of antisemitism, that is true. As context, on the IHRA website, in the guidance immediately below the definition, it states as an example: "criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic". This inconvenient guideline is not mentioned by Segal...
To be fair, she did say that “legitimate criticism” of the Israeli government was OK but she didn’t define what “legitimate” was and I get the feeling accusing Israel if committing genocide in Gaza wouldn’t be seen as a “legitimate” viewpoint. It’s something you ain’t allowed to say - case in point our PM cannot utter those words afaik.
Agreed, Sun. The interpretation of 'legitimate' can be as problematic as the Israeli government & Zionist interpretation of 'genocide'. It is a complete failure of the current Australian government and the PM to not call this genocide for what it is and start complying with international law and the conventions Australia is signed up to -- Albanese (not the Francesca variety) is completely beholden to and in fear of powerful lobby groups in all contentious areas. This is not what we voted for...
But then she said to Patricia Karvelas that "anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism* so, I suppose, in her mind, any criticism of the Zionist project of Israel is not legitimate, by definition.
OMG JB! YES! ALL OF THIS! I've been thinking exactly this for months and feeling like its not possible for me to be the only one! Thank you for confirming I'm not...And 100% if you dwell on this evil shit you will go mad. Never in the history of ever has anything made me feel so totally unable to effect any measurable change.
I don't think about it much either. However this thought put the thing in context for me. We live in a big country but 2.23M Gazans live (or lived) in a strip the area from Briz to the Gold coast and from the motorway to the ocean. The IDF have bombed the shit out of them with thousands of tons of explosives. I also think that an outfit like Mossad that can put bombs in phones and find and kill individuals already knew about the impending 7th attack and chose to do nothing, Iin order to provide casus belli for the ensuing carnage to further their territorial ambitions. Just a passing thought though.
John - your last case is not a passing thought - it is - I believe - the absolute truth - along with most/all killed at the Music Rave party being killed by the IDF - all the stories of the atrocities being just that - stories. Informed people are now saying that the numbers so far killed or dead of lack of medical treatment or from starvation is now around half a million (not the 50,000+ that keeps being mentioned).
I am well aware not all Jewish people support Netanyahu, but Segal obviously does. We are being asked, nay told, to accept our human rights being usurped by an unknown percentage of the 0.46% of our population of Australia identifying as Jewish. There is a difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist. There is a vast difference between “justifiable retaliation” and committing and continuing a genocide. There is a vast difference between giving Australian Jews a voice and silencing/criminalising anyone who disagrees with genocide. Albo has got this very wrong.
I'll say this. You must have cojones like watermelons to drop this critique in the current climate. Better now than before we lose our right to free speech I guess.
Excellent post, JB. You'd think we'd have learnt better by now, but weaponising hatred is eternal. And hiding the political behind the skirts of religion (and vice versa) as justification for atrocity is perhaps the second-oldest trick in the book. It's still the immediate go-to for sanctimonious arseholes like Netanyahu and his bestie, Trump, even as they vividly demonstrate their own moral bankruptcy. Not unrelatedly, Jillian Segal has shown herself to be epically unsuited to the role she occupies.
She may not have known about the Advance donation but a couple’s political ideology has to have some alignment, and that has fed into this antisemitism thing.
As said before, it’s a bit Trumpy, and Albo should stay the fuck away from it.
The fact that we can't call this what it is does my fucking head in. Too many supposedly serious people maintaining "well ackchyually, it's not genocide. It's just an ongoing systematic campaign of sparkling war crimes". The fact that the government either didn't do enough due diligence to see these ghouls coming (or worse felt the need to kowtow to them) is unforgivable.
I agree with what you said with the caveat that I've probably read a lot more about what actually happened during "that" attack, which raises questions about the validity of Israel blaming Hamas for deaths at the music concert. (Note: a mass burial of bodies in vehicles instead of individual autopsies and burials seems highly suspect.)
It seems the Holocaust has given the state of Israel a get out jail free card in perpetuity. Don’t get me wrong I believe the state of Israel has the right to exist and the West does owe the Jewish people a great debt for allowing the holocaust to occur. And god only knows the Middle East has not made Israel welcome and has on several occasions tried to wipe Israel off the map and has overturned Millenia of living peacefully with Jews until the past century. But … that doesn’t give Israel the right to commit genocide in Gaza.
The Western Allies were aware of the Holocaust from 1942 onwards. They made the decision not to address the issue because they wanted to concentrate on defeating Germany (poor excuse given that the Allies bombed the civilian population of Germany as part of their strategy of total war).
Yes, it was the Ashkenazi Jews who were slaughtered in the Holocaust and it was that group who were given Israel as a home state - displacing Palestinians as a consequence the event known as Nakaba. Neither Jews or Arabs covered themselves in glory during this period. Both sides engaged in war crimes. It was like The Troubles in Northern Ireland except on a grander scale. Then after the Nakaba the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews were forced from their homes in North Africa and the Middle East in retaliation.
Yes, the Ashkenazi did behave as colonists coming from a ‘cultured’ European background they looked down their noses at to their eyes the primitive Third World conditions of the Palestinians.
So there is bad blood on both sides. I believe in a two state solution. That said even that will be unstable because of ongoing disputes how the two states can be partitioned.
Maybe a Canton system like Switzerland would work better?
Some questionable statements here, MP. The West owes the Jewish people? Do you mean Winston Churchill, the Preside of the US FDR, Menzies? Who allowed or significantly - outside the regions of the Final Solution - who even knew that was occurring - they - if they knew - might owe the European Jewish communities - but from the beginnings of the Zionist project leading up to 1948 - and then beyond - commencing with the Naqba. Why on earth would the people of Palestine in the Middle East welcome that ethnic-cleansing invasion and land theft? The ones doing the "wiping off the map" are the Zionists. As for living for millenia - peacefully - with Jews (from the so-called Time of Christ or the Roman era) that was the experience of the Mizrahi (ancient Jewish communities of North Africa, Middle East) but has nothing to do with north-east European Jews known collectively as Ashkenazim - they are Europeans and have no biblical Palestine-era DNA. The whole premise of Israel is built on a lie. And, as some say - a plot supported post-WWII by the UK/US as a foothold in the Middle East for energy needs - or variations on that - removing a community from Europe...
Among my many concerns is Ms Segal's demand that she be the sole arbiter of what constitutes anti semitism by Universities, media and artists. Seems very Trumpian.
That struck me immediately too.
We didn't vote for her.
If we're going to deal with racism it should be ALL racism, not just one special interest.
Segal's husband donated a 5 figure sum to Advance Australia while they were campaigning AGAINST the Voice to Parliament.
She's tainted by association but also she's tainted by her own statements and requirements of others: she wants to silence and punish people talking about Israel's genocidal program and to silence talk about historical facts such as that Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinian Territories and has recently expanded their occupation into Syria and Lebanon, ordering people in those countries out of their homes under threats of murder.
The Jewish community is divided: some support genocide. Others are putting a LOT of effort into campaigning AGAINST genocide. Some Jews, like a professor in the UK, have been arrested for protesting against the genocide.
Albo needs to answer to voters: why did he appoint one racist woman to be arbiter of racism? Why weren't Jews against genocide part of that discussion?
In Victoria, the premier had a meeting to discuss antisemitism but NO JEWS AGAINST GENOCIDE WERE INVITED.
This reeks.
'Never Again' means never again to ANYONE.
I also don’t buy the idea she knew nothing about her hubby’s donation to Advance either. Doesn’t pass the pub test.
Just how rich do you have to be to not tell your partner about giving fifty thousand dollarydoos to the freaky racist group?
Donation aside, her husband supports racism. She is in a long-term relationship with a racist.
Richard Marles's chief of staff is in a long term relationship with a weapons industry lobbyist. That reeks too. Politicians are supposed to declare conflicts of interest and they are supposed to recuse themselves when voting if they have a conflict of interest. But these people - Segal and Marles's CoS - are influencing the government without any such checks and balances in place.
Using food and/or wounded children as bait, then killing the starving and rescuers? Genocide. Deliberate and systematic.
At the very least, it's war crimes & crimes against humanity
I seem to think about the ongoing genocide by the Israeli government and the IDF far too often. That's without even thinking about the attacks Israel has conducted on the surrounding countries, or the decades of occupation. Every week I call/contact my local member highlight the latest atrocity committed by Israeli's government and provide a list of what Australia could do (an has done with other countries which have committed war crimes recently) I admit I copied these from a Green's newsletter. Sanction Israel’s war cabinet, Stop the two-way arms trade with Israel (New documents contradict the Albanese government’s claims about its links to Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. It in fact directly signed a $900 million contract with Elbit and closely vetted all stages of its engagement). Expel the Israeli Ambassador, Join South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice, Recognise the State of Palestine. Sorry to go on so long this has been preying on my mind. My only consolation Omar El Akkad's piece 'One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This'.
There’s nothing antisemitic in this post but that’s the sort of thing that gets the Israelis and US riled up pretending it is. You should be able criticise the Israeli government for its genocidal tendencies. You’re not bagging Jews for being Jewish. Sometimes I think the Israelis think they have a free pass on genocide because of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
It's not just you - that's their intent - the Zionists!
Agree absolutely with everything you say and do likewise to Penny Wong, Pat Conroy and Andrew Leigh (I'd be sending material to more politicians but I don't have their e-mail addresses)! Thanks, Michael B.
Segal also relies heavily on the IHRA's working definition of antisemitism, that is true. As context, on the IHRA website, in the guidance immediately below the definition, it states as an example: "criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic". This inconvenient guideline is not mentioned by Segal...
To be fair, she did say that “legitimate criticism” of the Israeli government was OK but she didn’t define what “legitimate” was and I get the feeling accusing Israel if committing genocide in Gaza wouldn’t be seen as a “legitimate” viewpoint. It’s something you ain’t allowed to say - case in point our PM cannot utter those words afaik.
Agreed, Sun. The interpretation of 'legitimate' can be as problematic as the Israeli government & Zionist interpretation of 'genocide'. It is a complete failure of the current Australian government and the PM to not call this genocide for what it is and start complying with international law and the conventions Australia is signed up to -- Albanese (not the Francesca variety) is completely beholden to and in fear of powerful lobby groups in all contentious areas. This is not what we voted for...
But then she said to Patricia Karvelas that "anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism* so, I suppose, in her mind, any criticism of the Zionist project of Israel is not legitimate, by definition.
What a gut wrenching disappointment Albanese is (Anthony, not Francesca to be clear) Francesca is anything but disappointing.
OMG JB! YES! ALL OF THIS! I've been thinking exactly this for months and feeling like its not possible for me to be the only one! Thank you for confirming I'm not...And 100% if you dwell on this evil shit you will go mad. Never in the history of ever has anything made me feel so totally unable to effect any measurable change.
I don't think about it much either. However this thought put the thing in context for me. We live in a big country but 2.23M Gazans live (or lived) in a strip the area from Briz to the Gold coast and from the motorway to the ocean. The IDF have bombed the shit out of them with thousands of tons of explosives. I also think that an outfit like Mossad that can put bombs in phones and find and kill individuals already knew about the impending 7th attack and chose to do nothing, Iin order to provide casus belli for the ensuing carnage to further their territorial ambitions. Just a passing thought though.
John - your last case is not a passing thought - it is - I believe - the absolute truth - along with most/all killed at the Music Rave party being killed by the IDF - all the stories of the atrocities being just that - stories. Informed people are now saying that the numbers so far killed or dead of lack of medical treatment or from starvation is now around half a million (not the 50,000+ that keeps being mentioned).
I am well aware not all Jewish people support Netanyahu, but Segal obviously does. We are being asked, nay told, to accept our human rights being usurped by an unknown percentage of the 0.46% of our population of Australia identifying as Jewish. There is a difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist. There is a vast difference between “justifiable retaliation” and committing and continuing a genocide. There is a vast difference between giving Australian Jews a voice and silencing/criminalising anyone who disagrees with genocide. Albo has got this very wrong.
I'll say this. You must have cojones like watermelons to drop this critique in the current climate. Better now than before we lose our right to free speech I guess.
Someone’s gotta say it. Richard Flanagan in The Age today has also said as much.
As did Ronnie Salt in The Shot today .....
https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/none-of-this-passes-the-pub-test/
Excellent post, JB. You'd think we'd have learnt better by now, but weaponising hatred is eternal. And hiding the political behind the skirts of religion (and vice versa) as justification for atrocity is perhaps the second-oldest trick in the book. It's still the immediate go-to for sanctimonious arseholes like Netanyahu and his bestie, Trump, even as they vividly demonstrate their own moral bankruptcy. Not unrelatedly, Jillian Segal has shown herself to be epically unsuited to the role she occupies.
She may not have known about the Advance donation but a couple’s political ideology has to have some alignment, and that has fed into this antisemitism thing.
As said before, it’s a bit Trumpy, and Albo should stay the fuck away from it.
The fact that we can't call this what it is does my fucking head in. Too many supposedly serious people maintaining "well ackchyually, it's not genocide. It's just an ongoing systematic campaign of sparkling war crimes". The fact that the government either didn't do enough due diligence to see these ghouls coming (or worse felt the need to kowtow to them) is unforgivable.
I agree with what you said with the caveat that I've probably read a lot more about what actually happened during "that" attack, which raises questions about the validity of Israel blaming Hamas for deaths at the music concert. (Note: a mass burial of bodies in vehicles instead of individual autopsies and burials seems highly suspect.)
However, it's important to note that Australia has a court ruling that anti-Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism. It hit the news almost immediately, with an SBS article that was nuanced but the headline obscured the finding. However, lawyers are now discussing this. https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/kostakidis-to-go-before-court-after-judiciary-recognises-anti-zionism-is-not-antisemitism/
It seems the Holocaust has given the state of Israel a get out jail free card in perpetuity. Don’t get me wrong I believe the state of Israel has the right to exist and the West does owe the Jewish people a great debt for allowing the holocaust to occur. And god only knows the Middle East has not made Israel welcome and has on several occasions tried to wipe Israel off the map and has overturned Millenia of living peacefully with Jews until the past century. But … that doesn’t give Israel the right to commit genocide in Gaza.
The Western Allies were aware of the Holocaust from 1942 onwards. They made the decision not to address the issue because they wanted to concentrate on defeating Germany (poor excuse given that the Allies bombed the civilian population of Germany as part of their strategy of total war).
Yes, it was the Ashkenazi Jews who were slaughtered in the Holocaust and it was that group who were given Israel as a home state - displacing Palestinians as a consequence the event known as Nakaba. Neither Jews or Arabs covered themselves in glory during this period. Both sides engaged in war crimes. It was like The Troubles in Northern Ireland except on a grander scale. Then after the Nakaba the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews were forced from their homes in North Africa and the Middle East in retaliation.
Yes, the Ashkenazi did behave as colonists coming from a ‘cultured’ European background they looked down their noses at to their eyes the primitive Third World conditions of the Palestinians.
So there is bad blood on both sides. I believe in a two state solution. That said even that will be unstable because of ongoing disputes how the two states can be partitioned.
Maybe a Canton system like Switzerland would work better?
Some questionable statements here, MP. The West owes the Jewish people? Do you mean Winston Churchill, the Preside of the US FDR, Menzies? Who allowed or significantly - outside the regions of the Final Solution - who even knew that was occurring - they - if they knew - might owe the European Jewish communities - but from the beginnings of the Zionist project leading up to 1948 - and then beyond - commencing with the Naqba. Why on earth would the people of Palestine in the Middle East welcome that ethnic-cleansing invasion and land theft? The ones doing the "wiping off the map" are the Zionists. As for living for millenia - peacefully - with Jews (from the so-called Time of Christ or the Roman era) that was the experience of the Mizrahi (ancient Jewish communities of North Africa, Middle East) but has nothing to do with north-east European Jews known collectively as Ashkenazim - they are Europeans and have no biblical Palestine-era DNA. The whole premise of Israel is built on a lie. And, as some say - a plot supported post-WWII by the UK/US as a foothold in the Middle East for energy needs - or variations on that - removing a community from Europe...