To speak in favour of the BDS movement is not antisemitic \u2013 and yet The Australian newspaper has been quick to draw a parallel between the two.<\/i><\/p>\n
The boycott, divestment and sanctions<\/a> (BDS) movement, a thriving Palestinian-led initiative<\/a> that attacks institutional links<\/a> to Israel\u2019s illegal settlements,\u00a0has been\u00a0gaining in popularity. In Australia, the movement has been slowly growing\u00a0as Israel continues to defy international law \u2013 and it now faces one of its greatest opportunities in the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center<\/a> is an Israel-based organisation that claims to be a civil group \u201cfighting for rights of hundreds of terror victims\u201d. It is currently taking [TMS Advisor and TRANSCEND Member Prof. Jake Lynch, head of Sydney University\u2019s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies<\/a> (CPACS), to the Australian federal court.<\/strong><\/p>\n They assert that Lynch has allegedly breached the 1975 racial discrimination act by refusing to sponsor a fellowship application by Israeli academic Dan Avnon. Lynch and CPACS support BDS, and since Avnon works at Hebrew University \u2013 a key intellectual hub\u00a0which is targeted<\/a> by boycotters<\/a> for allegedly being complicit\u00a0in the establishment of illegal settlements<\/a> \u2013 Lynch declined to be named as a reference.<\/p>\n The story has been largely ignored. Fairfax Media has not touched it, and ABC TV\u2019s 7.30 only briefly addressed it last week<\/a>. Instead, it is\u00a0Rupert Murdoch\u2019s The Australian which has been driving the debate on the issue, publishing countless stories that deliberately conflates<\/a> antisemitism and support for the BDS movement.<\/p>\n Just last week, after the horrific bashing of Jewish men in Sydney<\/a>, the paper featured a Holocaust survivor on its front page<\/a> condemning the attack. Within the article was the rhetorical device of inserting comment about BDS \u2013 as if physically assaulting Jewish people was on the same spectrum as a peaceful, non-violent attempt to force Israel to abide by international law.\u00a0Bizarrely, an op-ed published by Newscorp’s The Telegraph also said that the best response<\/a> to the assaults was to support Max Brenner \u2013 the chocolate shop whose parent company, the Strauss Group, has been a\u00a0target<\/a> of BDS protestors for\u00a0supporting the Israeli Defence Force<\/a>.<\/p>\n Countless letters<\/a> have since been published in The Australian reinforcing a correlation between antisemitism and the boycott \u2013 following this logic, Lynch and his backers are a threat to public order. This also ignores the nearly 2,000 signatories<\/a> of a public petition backing Lynch (which a number of academics, including the co-founder of\u00a0Independent Australian Jewish Voices<\/a>, Peter Slezak<\/a>, signed).<\/p>\n Last week, The Australian ran an editorial<\/a> which implied that Lynch blocked Avnon\u2019s academic credentials simply because he was an Israeli. Another front page story in the paper<\/a> last week claimed that Hebrew University is a bastion of Jewish and Arab co-operation, yet ignored the litany of examples of the institution<\/a> repressing Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n Lynch tells me that Shurat HaDin have deliberately skewed his BDS stance. He denies, despite the group\u2019s Australian lawyer Andrew Hamilton said on ABC TV last week<\/a>, having \u201cadmitted\u201d that he boycotted Avnon because he was Israeli.\u00a0He told me:<\/p>\n I have made it abundantly clear from the start that the policy is aimed at institutional links. If the Hebrew University is anything like the University of Sydney, then it probably employs academics from various backgrounds in terms of religious affiliation and country of origin. It would not make any difference to my or the CPACS’ policy if the applicant was originally from Belgium, Botswana or Bolivia \u2013 I believe the University of Sydney should revoke its part in the Sir Zelman Cowen and Technion fellowship schemes, and I reserve my right not to collaborate with them.\u00a0Andrew Hamilton has clearly not paid serious attention to our policy, or to what I have actually done in pursuit of it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that Avnon, endlessly praised in the Australian media<\/a> as a humanist who believes in co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians, sits on Israeli group Metzilah\u2019s General Assembl<\/a>y. This is a group that put out a report<\/a> explicitly rejecting the Palestinian right of return to lands stolen by Israel, and claims that a Jewish state discriminating against equal rights for Palestinians is not problematic. It is worth noting that the Palestinian right of return is a requirement in international law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Largely missing from the ferocious media coverage has been any information about the real agenda of Shurat HaDin. The organisation, according to Wikileaks documents, has strong links<\/a> to Israeli intelligence and Mossad, just one of the many groups that now prosecutes Israel\u2019s argument for the Jewish state. The law firm\u00a0tried to sue<\/a> Twitter for daring to host Hizbollah tweets, former US President Jimmy Carter for criticising Israel<\/a> and Stephen Hawking for damning the Israeli occupatio<\/a>n.\u00a0Even the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a leading Zionist lobby, refuses to endorse<\/a> Shurat HaDin\u2019s case against Lynch, pointing out that attempts to suppress the campaign through litigation are inappropriate.<\/p>\n Also absent from the debate is the reason BDS exists. It is\u00a0growing <\/a>due to a complete lack of faith in US-led peace talks. American journalist Max Blumenthal recently published a book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel<\/a>, which shows in forensic detail the reality of the Israeli mainstream\u2019s embrace <\/a>blatant racism against Arabs and Africans. This isn\u2019t what the Israel Shurat HaDin and its fellow travellers want the world to see. Indeed, Australian Israel lobby AIJAC responded to the latest BDS case against Lynch by completely ignoring<\/a> illegal settlements altogether. This week Dean Sherr, a young lobbyist,\u00a0wrote an entire column<\/a>\u00a0in The Australian about BDS without mentioning their existence.<\/p>\n The fear of BDS is reflected in the massive amount of money and resources<\/a> Israel is spending to stop it. Instead of moving towards a democratic state for all its citizens, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to demolish Palestinian homes and build illegal colonies<\/a> on Palestinian land.<\/p>\n Shurat HaDin\u2019s Australian lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, told Haaretz last week<\/a> that BDS \u201cdoes nothing to help Palestinians and indeed harms them. It is merely an excuse for the vilest public antisemitic campaign the western world has seen since the Holocaust.\u201d\u00a0With such a statement, which essentially compares Jake Lynch to a Nazi, it\u2019s no wonder Zionist advocates are losing the public relations battle globally.<\/p>\n For some of us on the left, using the racial discrimination act as a tool to silence views we find distasteful is deeply worrying \u2013\u00a0I write this as somebody who opposed the legal case<\/a> against News Limited columnist Andrew Bolt in 2011.\u00a0A real democracy is a place where any individual has the right to vehemently oppose colluding with an overseas university institution that disputes equal rights for Jews and Arabs.<\/p>\n I look forward to Australia\u2019s leading public backers of free speech, such as Bolt, Miranda Devine and the Institute of Public Affairs<\/a>, loudly backing Lynch. Somehow I think I\u2019ll be waiting a while for these brave advocates to find their voice.<\/p>\n __________________________<\/p>\n Jake Lynch is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, and an advisor to TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n Antony Loewenstein is an independent Australian journalist, photographer, documentarian and blogger who has written for <\/em>The Guardian, The Nation, Huffington Post and <\/em>Haaretz, amongst many others. He is the author of two bestselling books, <\/em>My Israel Question and <\/em>The Blogging Revolution and co-editor of <\/em>Left Turn and <\/em>After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. In 2013 he releases a book on vulture capitalism, <\/em>Profits of Doom, and is the co-author of a book on religion, faith and politics, <\/em>For God’s Sake. His website is here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n