Would Victorian Premier John Brumby refuse to meet a senior Chinese government official if the Tibet lobby asked him not to? Of course not. So how come when members of the Jewish lobby once again play bully boy and demand that Mr Brumby not meet with the only Iranian leader to defend Jews, Sayed Khatami, does Mr Brumby meekly accede to their request?
Mr Brumby looks a fool — a puppet of a powerful lobby group and someone not capable of standing up to their incessant demands that only those people they approve of be allowed to meet with political leaders.
Mind you, if Mr Brumby thinks he’s making some sort of international statement by his refusal to meet former President Khatami he’s deluded. “John who?” and “where’s Victoria?” would be the response in Tehran and Washington, one imagines.
Mr Brumby is made to look even more foolish when one considers that Khatami will be the guest speaker at a lunch next Friday organized by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, an old venerable and mainstream organisation not given to hosting people whose views are beyond the bounds of civilised dialogue. Khatami will also be going to Canberra for a day to meet with political figures, although one can imagine that Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and his Shadow Julie Bishop will be subjected to relentless arm twisting by the Jewish lobby not to meet with Khatami.
Perhaps Mr Brumby is not aware that the world changed after George W Bush left office. Talking to Iranian political figures, particularly figures like Khatami who battled against hardliners during his eight years as President from 1997 to 2005, is now okay. A quick scan through back copies of The Economist, one of the most reliable reporters on Iran over many years, gives one a sense of just how brave Khatami was in taking on the mullahs who blocked his every move. It should also be remembered that Khatami was instrumental in back channel discussions with Israel and in a celebrated remark, reported by the BBC on 14 June 1999, Khatami spoke of Jews being safe in Iran.
The Jewish lobby in Australia has every right to campaign for its issues. But it is guilty of curtailing freedom of speech on this and many other occasions — behaving in exactly the same way that the apartheid era regimes of South Africa did when it came to demonising and blackening the name of persons with views that challenged their own narrow view of the world.
Why does the organised Jewish lobby in Australia have such a disproportionate influence on politicians like John Brumby? The cause for which it fights — Israel — is a controversial one, given that nation’s serial abuse of the human rights of its Palestinian neighbours. Yet no other ethnic or nationalist based movement in Australia comes near the Jewish establishment when it comes to being able to seduce political leaders. It is time to question whether this is a healthy state of affairs in a democracy like ours.
I didnt subscribe to Crikey to read unsubstantiated, anti semitic slander.
Nor to read misinformed tripe about a man who has spewed hatefilled bile about Jews on a regular basis.
Go back to reading the protocols and get a new job.
The new foreign minister of Israel, Mr Liberman, is getting ready to do to Israel’s indigenous Christian, Muslim and Druze communities what Iran is doing to its minorities. No doubt those whose concern about human rights isn’t limited to people of their own ethnic or religious heritage will express concern about this. If they don’t, their own human rights credentials will be compromised.
I have a feeling that this Khatami thing is going to be just another repeat of the Hanan Ashrawi pseudo-controversy in 2003.
The level of knee-jerk hysteria and intellectual ‘book burning” – they must not read/hear/see/ talk about issues – is reaching parody when a well documented moderate Iranian leader is blacked out. Surely his views and those of his group must be heard, even encouraged. He’s probably pretty courageous as I imagine opposition there is no walk in the park. I’m keen to hear what he has to say. Does that make me a holocaust handmaiden ? Time to grow up.
Cal: it isn’t Greg Barne stating “Jews being safe in Iran”??? “-he is repeating a statement made by Khatami and as far as I read-Barnes hasn’t said if it’s true or not.
That ‘s probably even more reason that Khatami should be put in a position where his role in Iran can be questioned, rather than this tedious repression practised by the various Jewish lobby groups .
Besides-we recently had a government, along with ones in the UK & USA that falesly claimed there WMDs in Iraq and on that falsehood proceeded to invade and kill Iraqi citizens. Those who stated these lies not only have never apologised, they are lauded as ex-leaders, given great benefits and allowed to reitire peacefully or step into the lucrative lecture circuit.
That alone should point out the rediculious antics of Jewish groups in stiffling dissent. They need to seriously re-think their tactics
But why Aussie politicians are beholden to them is the real mystery.
It’s not just politicians who are pressured into not speaking out. GetUp halted plans to run a campaign against Isreal’s threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities because they were threatened with the withdrawal of a major private donor if they went ahead.