Not The Best Time To Be A Friend Of Israel And The Jews

                                   Is there ever a good time?

Harder to stick up for Israel and the Jews than you could possibly imagine

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A great article by Andrew Bolt that deserves to be read carefully by the Australian Jewish community and its leadership. Even if it is only to observe the ancient Jewish tradition of doing your absolute best to not make the same mistake twice.

Carr is a warning to Jews: the Left is the natural home of the bigot

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Andrew Bolt Blog 

Andrew Bolt

APRIL102014(8:08am)

Many of Australia’s most prominent Jews face a terrible reality that I’ve warned about for almost a decade: the natural home of the anti-Jewish bigot is now the Left. Too many prominent Jewish intellectuals here have pampered their enemy.

ABC chairman Jim Spigelman concedes the point:

Spigelman: My father was a bit of a lefty from his Polish days because Jews in Poland tended to be on the left ‘cause all the anti-Semites were then on the right. That’s exactly the reverse today.

Throsby: Is it?

And, right on time, former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr takes the stage.

Carr is not an anti-Semite, but his views on the Jewish lobby are absurd and dangerously close to an anti-Semitic trope: 

The Australian Jewish community did this brave friend a grave disservice by not speaking out in his defence against even the most vile attacks on his integrity and reputation during the section 18C action brought against him, no matter what you might think about the underlying issue.

The treatment of "light skinned" aborigines who identify as aboriginal is one issue.  Bolt was just plain wrong and offensive and he deserved to be told and why. He deserved to be told comprehensively and in detail.

But I don't recall that happening.  Instead we got this 18 C prosecution that was allowed to carry the perception at least of being very much a Jewish affair. 

I still recall the shock at the shrillness and the severity of the attack on Bolt and what was said in the opening address to the court. Almost hysterical. I honestly remember thinking that at least the judge is Jewish too. He will know that this is way over the top and even more offensive than what Bolt said. He will throw this thing out. 

Not a bit of it as we now know.  

These guys must really hate Bolt. The Green/Commo/Left has always hated Bolt that again borders on hysteria and a large part of the reason for that is that Bolt is a friend of Israel and the Jews. 

How much of this attack on Bolt was politically motivated in  any case? All of it? The Ugly Left hates Bolt and really really hates Murdoch and News Limited and for them this was an opportunity to ping the bastards big time.

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And so now the communal leadership is about to lose 18 C for the Jews and all the others who need it and it will be replaced with something that is designed to ensure that a Bolt prosecution will never happen again. 

These things depend on perceptions. You can be certain there is little sympathy in  conservative circles  for a community asking for protection against even the most sinister of Holocaust deniers even when there are still survivors among us and when there is also a perception that this is a community that does not even stand by its own friends even when one of them has just been vilified in open court in an attack that itself bordered on Holocaust denial. 

And especially when there is a perception in some places that it was mainly a Jewish driven thing anyway. 

Now a certain creepy former politician with an unsavoury reputation has just alleged that when he was foreign minister, Middle East foreign policy was sub-contracted to Melbourne based parties acting for the Jews and who control the party when it comes to issues about Israel and "Palestine" through a system of coercion involving donations and intimidation. They even have there own faction in the party. And the creep is actually given credibility.      

Not a great era in the history of the Melbourne community in particular. After all this is the city of the Melbourne Age which is not past publishing antisemitic cartoons. Friends like Bolt are not as common on the ground as you might wish. That is because it takes courage. 

As Bolt has suggested there are lessons to be learned by Australian Jews and their leadership from this affair. And one of them surely is that if your friends are under attack then you stick by them. Especially if he is being vindictively attacked with real malice at least in part by a political class that seriously hates Bolt in large measure because he is such a good friend of Israel and the Jews.  

It is a good thing the Jewish community has such a powerful and far reaching "Lobby" acting in its interests. It would be in deep dreck if it did not.  

cross posted

Israel Thrives

Jews Downunder