Well, I have to hand it to you for the courage of your convictions, Jordana. I doubt if many of your Jewish friends will want anything more to do with you, out side of those young Jews who put their membership of the avante guard, cosmopolititan class above that of their own people. I thought that being a traitor to your own people was just a fashionable fad among white European avante guard types? But I see it has infected the Jewish people as well.

Of course, I would have had even more respect for your opinion had you been penning your spray while under fire in Tel Aviv, from your religious enemies rockets. Enemies who want to keeeel everyone in Israel they can't convert to Islam, or turn them into sex slaves. But I suppose telling your Israeli co religionists how they should respond to HAMAS's self declared genocidal intentions is a lot easier to do when you are 10,000 miles away, and not the one getting shot at.

But I have to hand it to the Israelis. They were one part of the reason why I began to realise that everybody is racist, even though it is just oh, so bloody fashionable to claim you are not. I saw with my own eyes young Jews deploring white Anglo racism, while averting their eyes to Jewish racism towards Arabs.

So yeah. Everybody does it. The Muslims are religious racists who would make the KKK and the SS look like schoolboys in comparison. The Jews, who are the worlds leading victims of racism, are very sensitive to applying racism to their enemies. But practical military logic demands that they must. All the high falootin speeches about how racism is terrible, is rather moot when you have groups of people who for the most part are identifiably different from your own people, doing their best to exterminate your families.

It has happened to the Jews before, you know. More than a few times.

Yes, Lego. With friends like that, the Jews don't need enemies. Self-hatred is not confined to Australians, clearly. Unfortunately, this sort is too stupid to realise that Palestinians would/will treat them the same way as they treat the Israelis prepared to protect themselves.

"The international community has a responsibility to hold Israel accountable."

Normally this would be the right path.
- But unfortunately, it's not going to work.
Do you know who the international community are?

- They're all anti-semites, that is if they criticise Israel in any way -

The reality is that ANY non-Jew critical of Israels policies is immediately labelled racist, and their views dismissed.
Even you will surely be attacked as a 'self-hating Jew'

http://www.ajc.org/anti-zionism-as-a-form-of-antisemitism

"Over a decade ago, the European Monitoring Centre (EUMC) issued a Working Definition of Antisemitism that offered several examples of anti-Israel rhetoric that went beyond simple criticism of the country’s policies and crossed the line into demonization, such as declaring Israel a racist state, holding it to higher standards than are applied to any other nation, or drawing analogies between Israel and the Nazi regime...

AJC helped develop the Working Definition of Antisemitism. It has since been put to use by the U.S. State Department in its monitoring efforts; adopted by the governments of the UK, Austria, and Romania; endorsed by the 31-nation International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA); and recommended by a resolution of the European Parliament. Such use by governments and other international bodies—especially in the training of police, prosecutors, and judges—can clarify and give direction to the fight against antisemitism."

See what they're saying?
They lobby to make it law in foreign countries, that we can't say ANYTHING.
They even lobby the judges and prosecutors, on how these people in authority should punish their own citizens.

Go ahead and see for yourself what happens in ANY discussion on this topic, EVERY TIME:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=21449

Arguments are pushed almost to the point of legal proceedings, with claims of 'anti-semitism' just for non-Jews to express an opinion, and that's even when we still have some freedom of speech in Australia.

Only Jewish people themselves are going to be able to fix this mess.
- People like yourself, and only in the countries that you yourselves are still able to speak freely.

Thanks for posting your article on the forum.
I hope you post more.

The thing is, the people regularly attacking Israel want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. They hate Jews. They make no distinction between 'nice' Jews and 'bad' Jews. To all anti-Semites, a Jew is Jew, end of story. No matter where they live (the author doesn't say she actually lives in Israel, and is in any danger herself) Jews have been hated (quite irrationally) for as long as they have existed. To a Jew-hater Jordana Silverstein is just another Jew: forget the virtue signalling, Jordana.

A great article Jordana.

So different from the usual rightwing, pro-Likud/Netanyahu, therefore pro Netanyahu's Trump diet

we at OLO get from longterm OLO author, Jewish-Australian with pseudonym "DAVID SINGER".

The imbalanced body-count of the total Israel-Gaza conflicts says it all.

That is from 2006 to this day:

185 Jewish Israelis killed

compared to

3,476 Arab Gazans killed.

SOURCE: right sidebar of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict

Elie Wiesel wrote:

"There may be times when we are powerless to
prevent injustice, but there must never be
a time when we fail to protest."

So it is with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
It is not anti-Semitic to criticise the policies
of the Israeli state. I congratulate the author
for having the courage to do so.

There seems to be a growing trend for some to
equate criticism of Israeli state policies with
anti-Semitism. Conflating anti-Zionism with
Jew hatred is a tragic mistake because it is
an attempt to silence critics and support for
Palestinian rights.

Of course challenging anti-Semitism is vital,
but Israel should be subject to the same
critiques as other nations. And this trend to
label criticism of Israel's policies as
anti-Semitism and "Jew hatred"
" chills political expression and any support for
Palestinian rights."

Hear, hear and well said!
Alan B.

plantagenet,"The imbalanced body-count of the total Israel-Gaza conflicts says it all."
It sure tells us a great deal.
1. In Gaza the Hamas regime does nothing to protect its own people. Instead of building bomb shelters it chooses to fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians and construct attack tunnels with the purpose of sneaking into Israel to capture Israels to be used as bait in negotiations to free imprisoned Palestinian terrorists.
2. Hamas operates from within civilian areas in Gaza so when Israel retaliates against its aggression Israel is bound to kill innocent people.
3. A significant number of rockets fired from Gaza landed errantly on their own people!
4. Hamas is happy to see its own people killed because then their so-called martyrs can then be used to con a world saddled with virtue signalling, sympathy for an underdog that does nothing constructive except for touting their cause of perpetual Palestinian victimhood.
5. Hamas, in particular, and many Palestinian activists follow a religious doctrine that preaches a deep-seated hatred for Jews and a wish to exterminate them. They operate a kind of death cult where it is honorable to die if you take a Jew with you.
Finally, this is not some kind of numbers game where Israel in its own self-defence is only permitted to kill a number of Palestinians in proportion to their own casualties. Given Israel's military superiority if it really wanted to it could kill many, many Palestinians than it has.

Bravo Jordana for a timely and accurate assessment of the key challenges facing Palestinians and the State of Israel. Having worked with the late Professor Irwin Hermann at Victoria University, I got to read his PhD Thesis on Britain and Zion and his Public Lecture on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict for Australian audiences. Maintaining the status quo is a disaster for Palestinians and their colonial oppressors. There is no room for apartheid in the world. Our political elites need to change their policies and programs towards Israel and Palestine in support of peace with justice, sustainability and ethics. War crimes must be punished.

Such naivety!

What happened recently in Israel/Palestine had nothing to do with Jews, Palestinians or Antisemitism - it was all about the preservation of just one man, Netanyahu.

As the noose around his neck was tightening and all other tricks to remain Israel's prime-minister failed (thus bringing him closer to prison on charges of bribery and corruption), Netanyahu was forced to pull out that violence, both within Israel and with its neighbouring Gaza.
When war errupted, Naftali Bennett (Israel's intended next PM) declared that the prospects of an alternate government are now off the table. Netanyahu believed him and stopped the war, then when Bennett renewed the negotiations for an alternate government, Netanyahu was shocked and called it "the deceit of the century". In that silence one could hear his next unspoken sentence: "Had I known this, I would have never stopped that war".

Israelis and Palestinians alike were killed, wounded and became homeless while Jews around the world got scared of a new wave of antisemitism, but then who cares about such trivialities when the king's pants are on fire?

I take this opportunity to congratulate Naftali Bennett on his successful forming of a new coalition. I strongly oppose his political views, but I do respect his honesty and integrity, something Israel lacked for such a long time. I am also encouraged by the fact that his new coalition, for the first time in Israel's history, includes an Arab party: I wish it success!

Now let's see if I got the last poster right?

Benjamin Netanyahu, who's brother was a genuine Israeli war hero who was killed in action, started the war between Israel and HAMAS, so that the resulting chaos and bloodshed would ensure his victory in the next Israeli elections?

If you really believe that, could I interest you in purchasing a coat hanger shaped bridge in Sydney, possessing a good income stream, and it is going really cheap

Dear meshugana,

What an utter load of hogwash.

The Israeli government has had a direct policy of putting its civilian population into a militarily occupied territory, deliberately putting them at risk, in order to illegally seize land.

It is their aggressive territorial ambitions which continues to drive tensions and violence in the region. There is nothing more joyful to people like Netanyahu that having a Jewish body count.

He has repeatedly claimed the right to seize more illegal land as a direct result of Jewish deaths in the occupied territories.

The murder of the three Jewish/Israeli teenagers saw the direct expropriation of 1000 acres of Palestinian land near Bethlehem under the orders of the then Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon is a case in point.

Why aren't you calling this out?

Dear LEGO,

«Benjamin Netanyahu, who's brother was a genuine Israeli war hero who was killed in action»

Never heard of brothers with opposite characters, one good the other evil?

Many books and films were made about such brothers, but why do we need to look beyond the very first brothers of Genesis 4?

The resulting chaos and bloodshed may not ensure Netanyahu's victory in the next Israeli elections, but can help him remain a "caretaker" PM for a while longer and longer and longer, all the while using his powers to undermine the justice system to prevent his conviction.

Had he ever cared for any ideology, then all he had to do was to resign and then his Likud party could easily remain in power and promoted exactly those values which he supposedly believes in. However, the current Likud has lately became his private personal party. The old guard, including Menachem Begin's own son, deserted him and created a new party, with exactly the same ideology EXCEPT his personality-worship.

I don't know about you, but what would a man not do to avoid jail? Had I been about to be sent to jail then I would probably avoid it by committing suicide.

In 1968, I was in high school when 500 Million Arab Muslims told the world's media, in no uncertain terms at all, that they were going to attack 2 million Israelis and wipe them right off the map. Everybody knew what was going to happen. Exactly what had happened to the Jews throughout their history. According to the traditional Muslim way of waging war, the men would be slaughtered, every one of them. The women would be gang raped and made "wives" of the warriors of the conquering armies of Islam. And the children forced to convert to Islam. Israel would disappear.

There was no doubt at all in the western world just who the damned aggressors were and who the victims were.

But fifty years later a remarkable thing has happened. Israel, which have five times offered peace with it's Arab enemies by proposing partition of Palestine/Israel to get peace, and who has handed back conquered territories like Sinai and Gaza to get peace, is now portrayed by a bunch of western brain dead morons as the aggressor. One idiot here on OLO even claimed that the Yom Kippur war was only started by the Arabs to take back land stolen by Israel. If he had half a brain, he would realise that means all of Israel.

It has become a fashion among those who think that they are something special, to take a completely plain example of Muslim aggression and turn it around to make the victims of Muslim aggression, the aggressor.

Why? Because we have in western society a new and expanding caste of people who think it is just cool to always be naysayers, and to always oppose what main stream society thinks. It is a form of narcissism that verges upon insanity. To make that insanity worse, they are defending religious fanaticism from a fundamentalist religious civilisation which is diametrically opposed to whatever values the trendies support.

The Israelis are going to keep importing Jews into Israel for their own survival. That means they will take the lands of their implacable enemies to make room.