You had an article in the Australian Jewish News?

You presented your beliefs to the Communal Plenum?

Loewenstein was right, in the many articles he had published. Is there no end to the silencing of your views?

Yes, I am being sarcastic.

You had an article in the Australian Jewish News?

You presented your beliefs to the Communal Plenum?

Loewenstein was right, in the many articles he had published. Is there no end to the silencing of your views?

Yes, I am being sarcastic.

I assume that America’s Jewish lobby has a great deal of power and influence in Washington, though not as much as its detractors claim. The idea that the American Jewish lobby controls US foreign policy is nonsense, of course, though many people around the world are convinced of its truth.

But Australia’s? How could Australia have a powerful Jewish lobby when it doesn’t even have a powerful–or sizeable–Jewish community? I saw one reference to there being 120,000 Jews there, out of a population of 20 million. Come on!

OK, so you have some Jews living in St. Kilda in the Melbourne area, and even a few good Kosher restaurants there. Also, many South African Jews have settled in St. Ives, a suburb of Sydney. Big deal. I have family in Australia, and they told me that the Jewish community where they live (Melbourne) is an ingrown, self-contained world of religious Holocaust-survivor families. My impression is that they’re affluent enough, but hardly power brokers.

I can’t believe that the article in “The Age” mentioned the notion of “taking on the Jewish lobby in Australia” with a straight face. Next, we’ll hear about the powerful Jewish lobby in New Zealand or Canada.

Read Rubenstein again. He didn’t say you used the apartheid anaology, he said (after listing a range of matters) that “a number of other signatories, including Sol Salbe, Avigail Abarbanel and Ephraim Nimni, have similar views.”

Your co-signatory Abarbanel went on record in the Melbourne Age yesterday to the effect that she doesn’t support a two state solution at all. We know Loewentsein’s position already.

It’s clear to me that along with the fakes, the anonymous signatures and the non Jews who signed, many of these independent voices are talking from different pages and some of them are duplicitous and deceitful.

It’s a shambles!

< <>>

You are SOOOO wrong!

We, the coalition of willing dupes, fully support Antony Loewenstein and his truly just campaign of codmenation of Zionist secret weapons of mass distraction!

Signed:

Goa Tse

Ezer Shtuyot

Al K. Hallick

Mia Retrich

Lech Lazazel

Ben Zonar

Wayne Kerr

Ben Dover

Jaque Strappe

Ima Goose

Amanda Huggankiss

Mike Rotch

Oliver Clozoff

Heywood U. Cuddleme

Hugh Jass

Bea O’Problem

Seymour Butz

Anita Bath

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prank_call

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Bar_prank_calls

< <>>

All the best, Dave!

Shalom,

Maksim-Smelchak.

Israel views misrepresented

COLIN Rubenstein claims I oppose the existence of the state of Israel and that I have called it an apartheid state (Opinion, 9/3). This is not true and highlights the argument about abuse and vilification as a substitute for reasoned debate, as put by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society to the communal plenum this week.

I am a strong supporter of the two-state solution. It is not unreasonable to assume that Dr Rubenstein , or someone from his organisation, monitors the Australian Jewish News, where he would have read my view that “Israel is my homeland and I very much support its continuing existence inside the Green Line”. Otherwise a quick Google will come up with even more information. He may also find out who translated from Hebrew the writings of Dr Ron Pundak, the head of the Peres Peace Centre and one of the best-known advocates of a genuine solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike Dr Rubenstein, I believe that such a solution requires Israel to withdraw to the internationally recognised, pre-1967 borders.

As for the “apartheid” remark, I have publicly taken a stand opposed to any such simplistic comparison. Deliberately misrepresenting my views provides a good example of the need to ensure that alternative Jewish views do not get silenced ‚Äî the very point of the recent statement.

Sol Salbe, Maidstone

*end rant*