I have known Jake for many many years (and I disagree with his views on Israel) The behavior he has been so causally accused of ( by what seems to some very careless amateur hour journalism) is so totally out of character as to be simply unbelievable.

A part time lecturer at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (where Jake Lynch is the director) criticizing the 'unbalanced and distorted' coverage of the situation...

Surely you are in no position to provide an unbiased account of the events that occurred? Or do you only recognize conflicts of interest when you are using them to torch the credibility of others?

Would you like to comment on the hypocrisy of people who are such fervent supporters of 'freedom of speech', but only when they wish to speak...who will turn around and silence others who disagree with them while they attempt to exercise the same freedoms?

I look forward to your response.

Mat22
good point

And are we seriously expected to believe this:
"Eventually I had the idea of showing her the banknotes I was carrying in my pocket to emphasise the point I then made to her, that she would leave me with no choice but to take out a private prosecution for assault, and that this could cost her a lot of money"

Surely no one expects other than a deteriorating media coverage of things other than fashion & celebrity in our modern world.

With the slow death of the serious, & in fact any news paper, & the growth of TV news coverage, people should have noticed the dramatic change in what are called reporters/journalists.

Where once many adults, with great knowledge & experience, some minor level of writing skills, & the ability to not stutter in front of cameras held sway, just look at today's crop.

The requirements today are first children, with long straight hair, on a photogenic head, with an attractive slim FEMALE body, with the ability to wear make up effectively, & pose at the best angle for the camera.

The ability to look good wet is an advantage for cyclone/disaster reporting.

Next is a requirement to have avoided all subjects practical at school, with a knowledge of any science or math meaning total rejection.

They must then have spent 4 years in a citadel of indoctrination, where their left leaning attitude can be enhanced, while learning to talk inanely with no facts or knowledge on any subject.

Finally a really solid knowledge of what dress, & critically, shoes suit what stories, & they are a reporter.

Straight from school to authoritative twit in just 4 years.

Do people really pay attention to other than fashion reporting, by the girls club?

Continued.

I have noticed a recent huge improvement in weather girls. Not in Queensland of course, where their complete incompetence has seen them replaced with men, often actually meteorologists, who do know that north is at the top of weather maps.

No these are southern ladies, & some of them do seem to know that Perth is on the left of the map, & don't wave at it when describing Brisbane's forecast. Hell some of them do appear to really know what they are talking about, & are possibly meteorologists themselves.

I live in hope that this improvement can be transferred to those giving the news bulletin.

I'm not all that hopeful. When I recently watched a 7 news it's content appeared to have degenerated to that of those morning chat shows, many ladies watch. Perhaps some of those idiot lady reporters have been promoted to news directors.

Perhaps our TV stations have decided they can't compete with the net, & are abdicating any serious news programing, in favour of so called celebrity chat shows.

So you don't get Jane Bunn, Livinia Nixon and Vanessa O'Hanlon up there?
God, I don't think I could live in Queensland.

The hypocrisy in your article is astounding. Firstly this was not just a student protest there were obviously staff such as Jake Lynch protesting (.i.e acting like animals in a rage) and you happened to be there, apparently not part of the group, although I find it hard to believe that.

In the interest of full disclosure do you care to disclose your relationship with Jake Lynch and your views on the Israel Palestine conflict? Because I think the reader needs to understand your agenda and your motives for writing this...

It is shocking that Jake Lynch is the head of a department in which it is so critical for all views to be expressed and students to not just be given a one-sided and bias perspective. Instead he stifles freedom of expression, puts out his own views and violently interjects when a view he doesn't agree with is presented.

OMG. I read about 2/3 of the first page of this article and as far as I can tell it's pretty much a load of lies.

The melee lasted some 30 minutes by all accounts.
The Australian Jewish News DID GET CLARIFICATION from Lynch.

The students protestors claimed that they weren't permitted their freedom of speech rights last year when a speaker from Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned from speaking at the university,yet they were denying Col Kemp his rights. What hypocrites.

Lynch tried to stop the security guards evicting the protestors.

If you go to the FB pages of his fellow academics leftists, they clearly know what he is like and are slamming him for his behaviour.

Jake Lynch is no stranger to controversy. In November 2012, Lynch declined a request by an Israeli academic, Professor Dan Avnon, to name him as a University of Sydney contact on his application for a Sir Zelman Cowen fellowship, which underwrites exchanges between the University of Sydney and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, citing that he believes in the BDS and therefore was boycotting Israeli universities and academics.

In an exclusive interview, Professor Avnon broke his silence to tell ‘The Australian’ he believed Professor Lynch deserves a “red card” for refusing to sponsor him because the Sydney academic supported the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

“The fact that academics at the University of Sydney have rallied to my cause doesn’t diminish the severity of Lynch’s attempt to boycott me as a Jewish Israeli academic,” Professor Avnon said.

He was offered positions by two far superior faculties

The points made by Aron22 stand out pretty clearly. It's hard to take this article at face value.

Richard Kemp was also present, and this is his account (The Australian 17.03.15):

"The protesters occupied the lecture theatre, intimidated members of the audience and were intent on preventing the exchange of views my lecture was intended to facilitate. Two of the academics then joined them, one of whom I saw badgering an elderly woman who objected to him photographing her on his iPhone. When she tried to push the iPhone out of her face he grabbed her arm forcibly, and appeared to hurt her. When she retaliated physically, the academic — an associate professor — waved a $5 note in her face and the face of a Jewish student."

As a supporter of the Gazan Palestinian Armed Military Forces known as HAMAS, addressing Australians, it is clear why Paul omitted to mention key facts:
1. HAMAS, according to its Charter, is committed to using military / terrorist means to obliterate the state of Israel,and to commit genocide on all Jews. They say it.
2. Hamas had been rocketing Israel indiscriminately for years with thousands of missiles.
This had made life unbearable for a large part of Israel's population. Having only 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter is no fun for a toddler.
3. Having appealed to the UN, futilely, to act to stop the missiles, Israel attacked Hamas's infrastructure of command and control centres, arms depots, firing positions, ALL of which Hamas had placed IN DENSELY POPULATED RESIDENTIAL suburbs deliberately as human sacrifices, knowing that the Pauls of the world would exploit the inevitable human toll of "collateral victims" for propaganda.It worked.
4. The Israel Defence Forces used a variety of means to forewarn civilians about impending attacks, with the aim of avoiding civilian casualties. These included leaflets dropped from the air, telephone calls SMS's etc.
5. The UN's figures of casualties were provided by HAMAS.
6. The UN today consists of mainly authoritarian regimes, with a preponderance of Arab and other Islamic states, so naturally the UN is unbalanced and distorted with respect to Israel.
7. The Pauls were silent when Israeli babies were being butchered by Hamas, when Hamas was rocketing Israeli kindergartens, hospitals etc, but suddnely became a humanitarian when Israel said, "enough!"

9 The Pauls of the world would have us believe that when non-Jews fight wars, civilians are spared, but when Jews fight wars, they target civilians.
10. And most of all, the Pauls of this world hate to hear the vow, "Never again."
It drives them mad.
.

I'd just like to add that not only is Richard Kemp's eyewitness observation wildly at variance with Paul's version here, the most damning thing has to be the issue of the $5 note.

Most people have immediately understood the aggressive thrusting of the money in the face of people who are most likely to be Jewish to be a crude anti-Semitic gesture. But here's Lynch's version:

"Eventually I had the idea of showing her the banknotes I was carrying in my pocket to emphasise the point I then made to her, that she would leave me with no choice but to take out a private prosecution for assault, and that this could cost her a lot of money.”

Sure. In the heat of the moment, while he is being brutally attacked by a middle-aged woman, Lynch has the presence of mind to play charades. A less sophisticated person would have shouted out the unambiguous "Stop it or I'll sue", but Lynch goes for a gesture that only he and his diehard supporters could possibly interpret in the way he claims. It is frankly ludicrous.

Finally, in correspondence with Gerard Henderson that appeared in the Weekend Australian, Lynch doesn't mention the kick to the private parts, only the water, and he acknowledges that he "emerged without injury". Why, then, was he threatening to sue?

Perhaps your readers might like to read the letter sent by Colonel Kemp to the Vice Chancellor concerning the events that took place during his address.

http://jewsdownunder.com/2015/03/14/letter-from-colonel-richard-kemp-to-vice-chancellor-usyd/

I note that the CV of the author of this article - Paul Duffill - contains the following information:

"Paul Duffill is a part-time lecturer at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. His research and teaching focuses on peacebuilding and dialogue, evaluation, pedagogy and non-violent civil society initiatives in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He has worked as a trainer in inter-cultural communication and dialogue in Japan, Australia and the West Bank in Palestine. He is also project manager of a human rights curriculum development project headed by the University of Sydney’s human rights program and carried out in partnership with several other universities across Australia."

Does Mr Duffill view what happened at Colonel Kemp's address as a "non-violent civil society initiative"?

Do Mr Duffill's lectures teach that such behaviour as that detailed in Colonel Kemp's letter to the Vice Chancellor represent a "non-violent civil society initiative"?

How many staff members of the Centre for Peace and Conflict studies were present to hear Colonel Kemp? Do they consider the actions of those protestors who silenced Colonel Kemp as "a non-violent civil society initiative"?

It appears from the available evidence that The Department of Peace and Conflict Resolution inculcates the following basic principles in its adherents:
1. to resolve conflicts and achieve peace on your own terms, total victory is essential. No compromises.
2. to achieve victory, blitzkrieg tactics are a must. Overwhelm the enemy by means of a lightning invasion involving maximum brutality.
3. as ancillary means to demoralise the enemy, incorporate propaganda and racist taunts in the onslaught.
4.when the tide of battle turns against you, plead victimhood.

In the Soviet era, many totalitarian front organisations in the West, used the word, "peace" in their names.
Deja vu.
Nowadays, similarly motivated front organisations piggyback on the global jihadist movement. Collaborators.
Israel represents for the front organisations and the jihadists an obstacle to world revolution of one sort or another, hence the terrorism, physical and verbal that is directed against it.
Peace!

Like totalitarian front organisations of the past, The Department of Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at The University of Sydney makes intensive use of what has been called "Newspeak."
That is, inverting the meanings of words.
The invaders who shut down Colonel Kemp's talk blitzed him and the audience with thunderous amplified shouts of "you support genocide,"referring to the jihadist myth that Israel perpetrates it in Gaza.

In fact, Gaza's population in 1967, when Israel assumed control, was about 300,000. Today it is about 2 million.
In the Peace Department's newspeak, "genocide" means "exponential population growth."
What genuine academic institution would dare to shoot itself in the foot by uttering such a transparent lie?
Answer: an institution that is not a bona fide academic one, but merely a miserable jihadist front.

I was a student at the University of Sydney in the 1970s and saw many examples of student protest, particularly over South Africa. In more recent times I have been a postgraduate student in the Department of Jewish, Hebrew and Biblical Studies. I firmly believe in Freedom of Speech including the removal of section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act. I am not Jewish.

Professor Jake Lynch and his students have every right to their beliefs, have every right to express those beliefs and have every right to peaceful protest. They do not have the right to violently disrupt an academic lecture contrary to the by laws and regulations of the University of Sydney. They do not have the right to interfere with the right of Colonel Kemp's audience to hear his presentation in a peaceful environment. The correct and proper procedure for Professor Lynch and his students would have been to sit quietly in Colonel Kemp's lecture and then peacefully asked him questions at its conclusions.

While I personally disagree with violence, Professor Lynch and his students can hardly complain, given their performance at Colonel Kemp's lecture, if they were subject to violence. Just as the Jews are perfectly entitled to fight back against Palestinian aggression towards their people, the audience at Colonel Kemp's lecture are perfectly entitled in my view to fight back against Professor Lynch's aggression.

The greatest irony of the entire episode is the name of Professor Lynch's centre: The study for peace and conflict. It is quite clear that Professor Lynch has little interest in peace, but most certainly promotes conflict. If he and his students are indicative of the current Palestinian attitude, it is hardly surprising that the Jews are loosing patience. It is PEACE Professor Lynch that the world wants in Palestine, not CONFLICT.

Paul Duffill has attempted to defend the unjust treatment of Israel (elsewhere) by arguing that Israel "Illegally occupies" territory.
He is mistaken.
The basis in international law for Israel's territorial rights is the 1922 League of Nations-endorsed and UN re-endorsed Mandate for Palestine, according to which the entire "West Bank" and Gaza Strip were to be part of the evolving renascent Jewish nation-state.
Duffill refers to an International Court deliberation in support of his spurious claim but fails to mention that Israel did not present its case there, and that the court issued a mere advisory opinion, that is far from definitive or authoritative unless, of course, one agrees with Duffill that only one side has the right to put its case.
He would do well to consult the opinions of far more qualified jurists than he such as Lauterpacht, Riebenfeld, Stone and a myriad others.
Sincerely

Leon Poddebsky

In a previous post I referred to the Mandate for "Palestine."
It is relevant to note that Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan are all products of that mandates system which supplanted the defeated Ottoman Empire post World War One.
Jordan is purely a creature of British imperialism, which transplanted Arabs from the south of the Arabian peninsula to "Palestine" and created for them a "state" called Transjordan (later renamed Jordan.) 66% of the populace there call themselves "Palestinians," and the former King of Jordan, Hussein, said"Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."
But for Duffill ideologues, that is kosher.

In June 1967, when Israel repulsed "Palestinian" Arab / Jordanian/ Egyptian aggression, it took control of what had been illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt since 1949, namely the west bank and gaza, respectively. In those territories there had never been a sovereign nation-state since the ancient Jewish Kingdoms.
There had certainly never existed even in imagination a mythical entity called a "Palestinian state."

Duffill and co-ideologues approve of Arabs enjoying national self-determination in 99% of the Middle East, but begrudge Jews a country which pre-1967 was one-third the area of Tasmania.
That is known as socialism and communism.

Leon Poddebsky.