MichaelK

I am hardly short of diaspora experience. After 65 years since my birth in Australia I have also lived for several years in London and Zurich all of the time in equal contact with the Jewish and general communities.

I would say that the threat of the death penalty as applied to some Iranian Jews would be a distinct damper to criticism of the government.

Regarding Jews in Australia I would hardly imagine that Sir John Monash, Sir Isaac Isaacs and Sir Zelman Cowan would have considered themselves paid-in-hand chip labour. Have you any idea how many Jewish Doctors, Surgeons, Cardiologists, Dentists Pharmacists, QC's and Professors there are in this country? Are you aware that in colonial Sydney Town over half the publicans were Jewish? Or that the old Aussie expression "to put the Moz on someone" comes from Yiddish? Even the term cobber may possibly have Yiddish origins according to ANU linguistics department.

This sounds like successful integration to me, yet they have all retained a distinct Jewish flavour to their Australian life.

When my niece married a boy of Irish Catholic background all the guests joined in both sraeli circle dancing amd Irish jigs. Guiness was drunk by both sides. And they all loved it. And all have equal chance of being Prime Minister.

Logic, I am sick and tyred of tales surrounding “Australian multiculturalism” and so-called Jewish achievements in Australia: Jews are marginated humiliated hatred and not being employed in general fields such as engineering etc much more extensively than others non-Anglo-Saxes, non-Christians.

“When my niece married a boy of Irish Catholic background all the guests joined in both sraeli circle dancing amd Irish jigs. Guiness was drunk by both sides. And they all loved it. And all have equal chance of being Prime Minister.“ – so, will nephew’s kids be Jewish even formally? Assimilate or perish is not only Aussie way -The Myers is a classical stuff- of a Jewish existence.

Since Monash and half-ancient Nossak-any mainstream Jewish achievement upon last minimum thirty years could be mentioned locally? Lawyers and doctors on service of own community? And some exported to the USA or leaving for good to Israel – is it not example of waste opportunities in Australia? Although Thrope is from Greek background, he is the latest example of. With all his astonishing Olympic triumphs.

Leaving in your world of the White Australia priorities of the fifties hardly heard of the next – to – date latest achievement of an Australian democracy when parliamentarians have rejected a government proposal to raid houses and seize possessions of government subsidies recipients that is 2 million families.
So, police is overbusy with anti-terror activities and Centrelink case managers could not be prepared in short time – that is a reason only for!

But the most interesting is how some SBS ETHNIC radio programs provided this information where instead explaining that EVERYONE on hand-outs list can de facto be arbitrary placed into a suspect, raided and striped of goods those who “not sincerely looking for jobs ” were mentioned.

Both you and me live in different countries, while going to the same pool boxes on Saturday. Even we do, and what about Wong, Ivan, Abu or some other less white Australia's co-inhabitants?

How dare one judge prospective in the Middle East if consuming info from opposites only?

Maybe, www.arabsforisrael.com is of some reasonable interest

MichaelK

I hardly know here you are coming from or where you are going but you harbour a bitterness and I don't know why or by whom.

"Jews are marginated humiliated hatred and not being employed in general fields such as engineering etc much more extensively than others non-Anglo-Saxes, non-Christians."

I certainly don't feel marginalised or humiliated, and I am in fact an engineer. The culture of my ancestors certainly has not affected my career.

The many Jewish Doctors and Lawyers and some Judges are by no means ministering only to other Jews. Probably you don't recognise most Jews when you see them. A Doctor has no reason to anounce their religion to their patients. And contrary to some popular public opinion there is no such thing as looking Jewish. Did you know that Peter Sellers, Harold Pinter, Richard Rogers, Arthur Miller and Johann Strauss were Jewish?

There is some emigration of Australians to Israel but there is also professional movement the other way. It may well be that it is Israel which suffers the brain drain. Has anyone seriously studied it?

Excuse me for following up a sideline to the issue but you started this direction.

Not “a culture of my ancestors certainly has not affected my career” but my very biological background, of which appearance hardly contradicts you suggesting “no reason to anounce their religion to”, is an obstacle the most.

Speaking of a last war in Lebanon, Muslims would like to live worldwide not being treated like Jews in Australia –and this place is not Malaysia or Indonesia anyway, which helps me a little anyway.

So this conversation is hardly outside off topic.

"Muslims would like to live worldwide not being treated like Jews in Australia".

What do you mean?
How do you think Jews in Australia are treated?

Philip Mendes, though I might quibble with a few of the details, I largely concur with your analysis of the situation.

To your list of "Israeli negotiators and moderates", you can add the clearly stated views of former President Clinton, a number of his aides (most notably Dennis Ross), and even -- though it requires some reading between the lines -- some of the Palestinian negotiators. All understood that the plans put forward by Israel and the United States were serious and far-reaching, and that Arafat's refusal to negotiate or even to provide a counteroffer would have tragic consequences for years, and perhaps decades, to come.

I’m not going to comment on most of the deeply bigoted, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-Israel, anti-Arab junk here. (Did Chad really recommend “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? Is Leigh’s solution really the elimination of Islam? Did Eet really say “Israelis are dangerous because they like to portray themselves as just like us. They're not”??)

Just a few remarks:

Eet, Israel never tried to be “racially pure”. Thank God we’re not “just like” you. And BTW, you do kill children.

Bazz, et al., the problem is not “unsolvable” but any solution is necessarily imperfect and requires compromise on all sides.

Jan_Sydney, the American and Israeli proposal, rejected by the Palestinians, included a $30 billion fund for compensation, repatriation, resettlement, and rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees, who would have a right of return to their own state.

Yes, Keith, the borders proposed at Camp David were close to those of 1967; those proposed at Taba, even closer. See http://www.mideastweb.org/lastmaps.htm

No, Chad, Arabs & Jews were not living peacefully in Palestine before the Zionist movement. And to the extent that they were, this so-called “peaceful” era (under the thumb of Turkish colonial rule) could also be termed “before the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement”.