The leading letter by Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies,
Sydney (SMH 18/6) damning Marrickville Council’s twinning with Bethlehem is
yet another instance of the vitriol Australians witnessed throughout 2003
when the Zionist lobby tried to brand the highly-respected Palestinian Hanan
Ashrawi a terrorist.
It was a particularly nasty campaign over months designed to stop Dr Ashrawi
from receiving the Sydney Peace Prize. Not only was Dr Ashrawi slandered,
but so were the decent people who recommended and supported her nomination.
It resulted in Sydney University refusing the use of the Great Hall for the
ceremony, the Lord Mayor of Sydney boycotting the event, sponsors of the
Sydney Peace Foundation withdrawing their support permanently, and its head
Professor Stuart Rees being threatened. Fortunately, Sydney’s former
premier Bob Carr stood his ground and the ceremony took place in Parliament
House with hundreds of Australia’s leading personalities giving Dr Ashrawi a
rousing standing ovation at the dinner held in her honour.
A lot of damage though had been done to get to that point. The lies were
incredible and they were delivered not only by the usual suspects, but also
respected members of Australia’s Jewish community who in every other case
support social justice and human rights except when it comes to the
Palestinians. Now we are having the same rubbish being peddled again about
Bethlehem – a city that has borne the full brunt of Israel’s vicious
apartheid policies.
Practically encircled by an 8 metre high Prison Wall and a checkpoint
resembling an international border terminal for Palestinians trying to reach
their places of work, study or visiting family, Bethlehem has become a ghost
town. Once a thriving bustling place filled with tourists coming to visit
the place of Jesus’ birth, its hotels and restaurants stand empty as Israel
warns off foreigners and busses them in and out to see its holy places. As
for the Christians leaving Bethlehem, this is not due to Muslim
intimidation, persecution, “murders, beatings and land grabs”, but without
question Israel’s brutal military occupation.
The worst kind of slander is to allow readers to make inferences about
people or incidents without giving any background information or explaining
the reasons for actions taken. The seed is sown and proliferates rapidly
before truth can undo the damage. Alhadeff tries to do this by inferring
that Victor Batarseh, Mayor of Bethlehem seeks Israel’s destruction because
he opposes a two-state solution. Even the most uninformed observer given a
map would be able to see that such a solution is impossible today as Israel
continues its land theft and settlement expansion. A democratic, secular
one-state solution, therefore, is a perfectly reasonable alternative. It
just means that Israel cannot be an exclusively Jewish state with the 1.2
million Palestinian who are second-class citizens of Israel and the 4
million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Just like Ashrawi who was falsely accused of supporting suicide bombers,
Batarseh - a Roman Catholic and former US thoracic surgeon - is being
maliciously tarred with the Hamas terrorist brush. Forgotten, of course, in
all this vilification are the forever-demonised Palestinian people who are
being subjected to the worst human rights abuses ever seen by a state which
calls itself democratic and a “light unto nations”. And Alhadeff, quoting
an Israeli Arab journalist working for a right-wing Israeli newspaper to
make his point that Bethlehem is no longer a Christian city but an Hamas
stronghold, is absolutely disingenuous. One has only to read former US
President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine Peace not Apartheid” to know that
Israel’s Wall “ravages many places along its devious route that are
important to Christians” and has almost completely closed off Bethlehem to
the outside world.
Marrickville Council has taken a courageous stand against what is likely to
be another campaign of intimidation for daring to help the Palestinians. We
can only hope that the Australian public will see through this latest attack
on the Palestinians as it did so robustly in 2003 when it refused to buckle
under the Zionist lobby and spoke up in defence of our most prized
Australian value - “a fair go” for all.
Sonja Karkar
President
Women for Palestine
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