Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps the ugliest outcome of the tragedy of Prisoner X is the exploitation of this issue by the usual suspects to denigrate Israel and particularly the Australian Jewish community, of which I am a very proud representative. Given the official ethos of multiculturalism in Australia, no other Australian minority would have been so savagely disrespected by various political, academic and media commentators in a similar situation. I include Professor Ben Saul in the Age, the international affairs editor of the Financial Review, Tony Walker, and Elizabeth Jackson from the ABC. As the Sydney Institute's media watchdog noted:

Professor Saul's article contains the kind of undocumented generalisations which would not be acceptable in an undergraduate law essay at the University of Sydney. Professor Saul's article is replete with imputations that what he calls "Australian Jews" are not loyal to their country. Saul runs the line that there is a "problem of divided loyalties among Australians with multiple national identities". He focuses on Jewish Australians who are also Israeli citizens and also mentions "Americans" and "Chinese".

There are six million Australians, who have more than one passport, and the absurdity of taking Professor Saul's allegations to all those Australians would highlight the disgraceful nature of his attack on 10,000 people who have dual Israeli-Australian nationality.

Saul runs the line that Australian Jews choose loyalty to Israel over Australia. Gerard Henderson makes it clear that none of these imputations would be acceptable even publishable, in the Age if they were directed at an entity which might be termed in Saul's style—not mine, I might say—'Australian Muslims' with respect to any country. Saul and the Age seem to single out Jewish Australians in a way that is totally unacceptable in a pluralist society like Australia. The allegations that Australians have loyalty to a nation other than Australia is as old as the Commonwealth of Australia, Henderson argues, and as offensive. Despite Saul's imputations, there is no evidence that Jewish Australians, whether they hold dual nationality or not, are anything other than loyal Australians. It is laughable when you look at the Australian Jewish community—and I know of so many contributions in so many different areas—to be subject to this kind of disgraceful attack in the soon-to-be-demised Melbourne Age.

It is offensive to question the patriotism of the Australian Jewish community based on the activities of one ex-Australian, who was the citizen of a foreign country. In no other case would Saul or his ilk seek to apply the collective responsibility á la the Herschel Grynszpan case in 1939. Greens boss Christine Milne railed about the suppression order in terms of the claim that Mr Zygier was being held without legal representation. Of course, there are suppression orders in this country, but she never apologised the next day, when Mr Zygier was represented by three leading lawyers—Roi Belcher, Moshe Mazor and Boaz Ben-Zur—or his human rights lawyer Avigdor Feldman was reported.

This whole affair has been dreadfully handled by some people in the media. The worst was perhaps the assumptions made by Elizabeth Jackson on AM and the free ride she gave the telephone box spokesman, Antony Lowenstein, who she interviewed. I particularly objected to her implied attacks on Jewish schools and on Jewish religious leaders. The schools in my electorate—Yeshivah, Yavneh, Bialik and Mt Scopus—regularly come in the top 10 schools in Victoria and it is a disgrace for them to be portrayed as centres of espionage by Elizabeth Jackson and Anthony Lowenstein. Worse was what she said about Jewish religious practice. She said:

So what are your observations about the way that Jewish institutions, and perhaps it even happens in the synagogues, I don’t know—but how do they facilitate this kind of mentality?

What kind of incitement is that to be broadcast on our ABC? Can you imagine if one of the broadcasters made similar remarks about Australian Muslims? I think this whole affair has been treated disgracefully by extreme left politicians like the Australian Greens, the ABC and the Melbourne Age. The foreign minister quite rightly said that this affair had been handled quite well between the Australian security agencies and Israel. We should look to mainstream criticisms of the handing of Australian passports— (Time expired)