I am sorry Farid Farid but your original post and your follow-up are full of near incomprehensible post-modernist jargon.

Also in my original post I did not allude to any anti-Semitism on Farid Farid's part. What I did point out was the degree of the "demonisation of the 'other'" - the 'other' being Jews in this case - throughout the Arab and Islamic World.

Here's another, very recent example of that demonisation. In the April 14, 2006 edition of his weekly show on Al-Resala TV, The Raids,in which he discusses the battles of the Prophet Muhammad, Egyptian cleric Hazem Sallah Abu Isma'il explained to his audience that, according to U.N. statistics, "Jews produce more than 82% of the video clips in the world," and added that "82% of all attempts to corrupt humanity originate from the Jews."

I certainly would call that demonisation. Wouldn't you Farid Farid?

What amazes me is that jew, christian and muslims are prepared to bring their problems to Australia. Anyone that supports countries or organisation that are in conflict over religious differences doesn't deserve to be in this country. Why don't you all go to your religious country of choice and settle it there.

For a belief system that promotes love, peace and caring, yet is constantly fighting shows how far from reality that belief system is. In the last 3500 years, since the inception of monotheism, there has been only about 230 years that have been free of religious war. For a belief system that prides itself in its spiritual approach to life, the followers of god appear to be more materialistic than non believers. All their conflicts are about land and their desire to control and be there.

Jews live as far in the past as other god followers. They conveniently forget the millions of gypsies, poor and other ethnic groups that were also massacred by christian nazi's. They are as racist as the nazi's were, constantly lying about their expansion plans, and slowly demolishing the palestinians around them.

Why aren't those that send money to isreal or any country in conflict classed as supporters of terrorism and charged accordingly, then thrown out of Australia. By using this country to support war mongering monotheists, you are abusing the freedom and rights that are a part of this country. Jews, muslim and christian lobbiests should be classed as supporters of terrorism and a threat to the stability of this country. Their aim is to be the defining power in whatever country they are in and to use whatever methods they can to achieve that aim, to everyone elses detriment.

Alchemist,
Though I support much of your argument regarding wars I suggest rather than genralise you try to clarify your arguments with facts. There is a difference between humanitarian aid given and funds given to fund terrorism.

For instance we give aid to refugees in war torn countries but we do not support wars.

I personally support a Christian young Australian man in Austria helping with settlement and humanisation of refugees from Middle East and African countries they are 99% Muslim seeking a better life in Europe; especially Germany.

Strewth: For their own strange reasons, Jews do feel an intense connection to Israel as their old country. That's the Diaspora. As to them being several ethnic groups, big deal. There are plenty of countries that on paper look like a patchwork affair. Besides the obvious examples of Australia and the U.S., we could throw in Brazil, India or Russia. Should this stop them from having a common identity?

As to Palestine being stolen for the Jews, that's true to an extent, although my understanding of it is that even before Israel was founded there were Jews living there and always have been. They would probably claim that it's just been a very, very long occupation of their lands for thousands of years by Arabs, Romans, etc. If the Slovaks could be occupied/conquered for about a millenium and end up with their own homeland, why shouldn't the Jews?

Whether it should be or not, I am sure that Israel was founded in part as atonement by the west for the Holocaust. In some ways it was for participation (and let's not forget that except for Bulgaria and Denmark, every other occupied nation sent its Jews to the Death Camps) or failure to intervene. Not only did Britain, America, etc. know what was going on, but they actually prevented a lot of Jewish immigration, sent German or Austrian Jews back to The Third Reich because they were "German" or "Austrian" and supposedly "the enemy", and of course, the Allies made absolutely no attempt to bomb the railroad tracks to Auschwitz, etc. (which would have dramatically slowed down the efficiency of the Final Solution). So I'd say that the west at the time was pretty damned well complicit in the Holocaust.

Finally, whilst Israel may have preceded Hamas, it certainly didn't precede the sort of militant Arab sentiment in the region. Israel was attacked on several occasions. Furthermore, it doesn't justify the existence of suicide bombers. The cause of suicide bombers is the twisted minds of idiots who can't see past the Dark Ages in their world view.

Shorbe: "an intense connection"? Fine. Spiritual Zionism? Fine. But not a Jewish state built on the statelessness and dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine (Political Zionism). Australia (and the other states you mentioned) differ fundamentally from a country like Israel because, instead of being just the state of its citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or religious denomination, Israel, as a self-proclaimed Jewish state, underpinned by the ideology of political Zionism, presents itself as the state of a dubious ideological construct known as 'the Jewish people'. Hence its blatantly discriminatory Law of Return which entitles any citizen of any other country in the world automatic Israeli citizenship - provided they are Jewish (and nobody really seems to know exactly what this consists of these days) - while excluding Palestinian Arab refugees whose fathers and grandfathers were born in Palestine. You want "an intense connection" to the land of Palestine? Try a Palestinian refugee. The problem with political Zionism is that it has largely replaced Judaism as the core identity of many Jews with Israelism, which is to say the worship of a state. And we all know where that leads. Re Jews always living in Palestine? No problem. They lived there not at the expense of non-Jews, but alongside them. Re the Holocaust, you talk about "the west" being "complicit". Let's assume for argument's sake that that is correct. Does that then give "the west" the right to condone the handover of part of the Arab world to the European Jewish victims of the Holocaust? Re Israel coming under attack: have you forgotten (or never studied ) your history? Every attempt to colonise the land of another people is met with resistance - sometimes futile, sometimes effective, sometimes quite bloody. Not to recognise the prior, primary violence of colonisation and occupation, while playing up the reactive violence of resistance to same, or pretending that it is the product of sick minds, as you do, betrays a vested interest in the maintenance of that colonisation and occupation. If your house is invaded you'd be less than human if you didn't resist.

I’m grateful to the respondents for their primarily constructive comments on my article.

The intention behind the article was to provide a factual and hopefully informed discussion of the Australian Jewish community as they view themselves. That is the best I can do as a secular Jew who sits inside – albeit arguably on the margins of – that community. It may be that others would like that community to be something radically different but short of magical social engineering that is not likely to occur.

In my opinion, potential oppressors and victims sit in every community. There are Jews who were persecuted in both Europe and in the Arab world, and equally Jews who have persecuted others. Ditto Arabs and Palestinians. This should be obvious to anyone.

One final point: My article was not about the rights or wrongs of Israeli policies, and I would suggest that those who obsessively want to discuss such should have the courage to submit their own article and policy recommendations on that topic.

Philip