Following the Australia-wide advertisement by Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) calling for a more open debate over Israel/Palestine, the following letters have appeared in the Australian Jewish News over the last weeks:
What a dismay to find Independent Australian Jewish Voices’ advertisement in last week’s AJN.
We do live in a democracy where anyone has freedom of expression. However, it is beyond comprehension that this group could even suggest deconstructing vital security systems designed to keep Israel as safe as possible. The very idea that they would ask us to pressure the Australian government with their views is ill-conceived. Such pressures can only incite further anti-Semitism. The protective policies have been designed to safe-guard their relatives who have chosen to live in Israel.
Israel is not just a memorial to the Holocaust as implied in the ad. Israel stands for the present and future existential future existence of the Jewish people. Israel cannot afford the luxury of complacency. It must stay vigilant. Our turbulent past has taught us that.
Rosie Hersch
Brighton East, Vic“ENOUGH is enough”. This is the title of a large advertisement in The Australian, signed by the Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV).
Helen Lepere Elsternwick, Vic
Now I am returning the same title to them. Everybody is entitled to their opinions, but to advertise it in newspapers is to me a cowardly way to do so.
It… has been… shown on TV many times how people on the flotilla attacked the Israeli soldiers with iron bars and other tools.
They were warned in advance that they were in foreign waters and that they should turn back. One of their answers was: “Jews, go back to Auschwitz”. Didn’t the members of the IAJV notice it? I wonder how would they react in such a situation.
With the rise of the anti-Semitism around the world, does embattled Israel need this?
Only citizens… who live in their own country have the right to criticise it.
Why do those academics not advertise Israel’s courageous medical achievements in Haiti, or the fact that this tiny country accepted refugees from Darfur, or that Israel’s army is the only army in the world that tried to warn their enemies about forthcoming bombardments? I do not recall Hamas doing so before sending rockets to Sderot.
My Jewishness has always been and will… remain to… be a source of pride,… in spite of the fact that I… lived through the Holocaust and lost my entire family.