Independent Australian Jewish Voices

This Opinion piece by Michael Shaik (the public advocate for Australians for Palestine) and Antony Loewenstein appears in today's The Age.

The new feature on the IAJV site is a series of blogs that will be regularly updated. Although at the moment there are only two bloggers (Eran Asoulin and Peter Slezak), we will be adding a couple more bloggers in the near future. The link to the blogs is on the left-hand-side navigation bar.

As the top of each blog states: IAJV is not an organization or society with members or a political platform.  In accordance with the principles enunciated in the initial statement, we aim to widen the debate to include a range of opinions not reflected in mainstream Jewish media or official community organizations. As part of this effort, our blogs provide a forum for independent Jewish opinions that are, of course, those of their authors and not those of IAJV organizers or signatories of any IAJV petitions or statements.

This article by Peter Slezak and Antony Loewenstein appears in today's edition of The Age.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies recently circulated information suggesting that IAJV had deceptively associated our original signatories with the Palestinian statement that was to be published in The Australian on Wednesday 12th, 2008. The claim was untrue as well as misleading and deceptive. Although this misinformation was widely circulated, the advertisement itself confirmed what we had reassured many concerned people, namely, that only those 70 people who specifically wrote emails to endorse the statement were listed, and IAJV was not in any way identified with the published statement as author or sponsor. Although we acted properly to ensure that our original signatories were not associated with the Palestinian statement, the Board's actions were clearly intended to embarass our original signatories and discredit us.

Significantly, as of today the Board has not issued any retraction or apology. 

To see the entire NSW JBD letter, click here.

The following article appears in today's The Guardian:

Complicit in Silence: From far away in Australia, Israel is often viewed as a 'plucky country', but the dangers of the situation are hard to miss. By Antony Loewenstein.