Much of the evidence at the Bondi Royal Commission is one-sided, uncontested and delusional. So much for ‘social cohesion’, Jeffrey Loewenstein reports.
Anyone who followed the evidence given at the Royal Commission on July 13 will have heard what a young woman, Liat (not her real name), said about how she was accused of being a “baby killer” and a “genocide supporter”, as well as the almost unchallenged “evidence” of Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal.
Liat is a young woman studying at Canberra University. While Liat felt put upon and threatened by what she was accused of, she was not cross-examined about her feelings and attitude to Israel. It would also seem that Liat is either ignorant of or not prepared to accept that Israel has killed 20,179 children in Gaza, starved and maimed children, and left 58,550 as orphans – a direct result of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Like so many of the witnesses at the hearing, Liat expressed no empathy, concern, sadness, or even being slightly troubled by the situation in which Gazans find themselves. One has to assume that Liat, too, is a rusted-on 100% supporter of Israel no matter what.
She would doubtlessly accept that Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu speaks for all the Jews everywhere in the world.
Righteous anger
Significantly, while Liat and her cohorts ascribe what was said to her as antisemitic it was not the common slur of “bloody Jews” or “f….the Jews” but rather specifically directed to an anti-Zionist sentiment. Query whether your average punter even knows what Zionism actually is.
Liat and other members of the Jewish community who have given evidence at the Royal Commission – and not cross-examined it would seem – have not shown one bit of introspection that perhaps, just perhaps, Israel’s clear and calculated actions in Gaza (and now in Lebanon) may have triggered the outrage Australians feel at what Israel has wrought.
If the Liats of this world seek to so openly identify with and be supportive of Israel – and go so far as accusing people criticising Israel as antisemites (even describing Jews who are critical of Israel as anti-Jewish ) then it is to be expected that
people will vent their anger at Israel and its supporters in Australia.
Never again. Worst antisemitism comes from Zionists says Australian Jew
Liat and others may not like Israel being accused of genocide despite what many of Israel’s Cabinet Ministers and IDF Generals have openly proclaimed – that they will rid Gaza of its peoples.
The deafening silence
Anyone who has attended any of the weekly rallies around Australia will have heard Palestinians expressing their profound and deep grief for members of family killed or starved to death in Gaza by Israelis. The response from the wider Jewish community? Absolute silence … other than from the Jewish Council of Australia.
If – and it’s a big if! – the usual pro-Israel suspects (including the two prominent Jewish members of Parliament – Josh Burns and Julian Leeser) are genuinely troubled that Jews are being attacked for being Jewish, then rather than generalised babble such as expressing concern about “what is happening in the Middle East” they should be employing their ready public voice and capacity to reach out to some one million Arab/Muslim community in Australia.
After all, isn’t social cohesion the current mantra and buzz word?
Not to be ignored in all of this is many Australians know that some 500-600 Australians have gone to Israel and fought with the IDF – the very military which has clearly been shown (we have all watched TV, read newspapers and social media posts and online publications and heard reports on radio) to have engaged in atrocities.
The ‘special’ envoy
Which brings us to Jillian Segal, the so-called Special Envoy on Anti-Semitism.
For starters, she has no qualifications or expertise to bring to the table as a student, researcher, or publisher on antisemitism. Her career has been in commerce, business and the public service. Segal’s only ‘qualification’ is that she is a one-time president of the ECAJ, the ubiquitous pro-Israel Jewish lobby group in Australia. She was also the Chair of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and a board member of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science.
What has clearly emerged since Segal took up her position is that she is 100% batting for Israel and the Australian Jewish community and deflects any criticism of Israel. She is endeavouring to establish a regime whereby the media and universities and others will be judged by whether they have engaged in antisemitism in accordance with the contested IHRA definition, or more importantly what Segal and her cohorts say it is.
Forget about any democratic principles of open and free speech. And Segal is calling for hand-picked appointees to things like the ABC and SBS to oversee whether what is broadcast or shown is “balanced”.
Segal and Hanson
Segal’s integrity and truthfulness are also open to challenge. Having given sworn evidence at the Royal Commission that the number of deaths in Gaza was “grossly inflated”, responding on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said, “For us the Ministry of Health in Gaza is a source we, and many others, often cite. Independent validation of subsets of the data has found no significant discrepancies in their numbers.”
One needs to assess Segal with critical opprobrium and healthy scepticism, as she has been singularly silent and absent from any public statements or discourse abhorring the clearly racist public pronouncements by Pauline Hanson.
Shamefully, Segal is currently AWOL.
Why? Might it just have something to do with a position which aligns with the right-wing views of the Israeli Government? Or the significant number of Australian Jews who are simply racist? Or, to be charitable, is it that Segal isn’t across her brief and has conveniently overlooked that the Royal Commission was set up to address, amongst other things, social cohesion?
UN refutes Jillian Segal’s Gaza death toll claim before Royal Commission
Jeffrey Loewenstein LL.B was a member of the Victorian Bar and a one-time Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission and member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.