When vying for a highly sought-after non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), a nation must take certain measurements in guaranteeing success. In Australia’s case, a strong US alliance, engagement with Asia, and leadership in multilateral organisations simply won’t cut it. Just ask Canada – who has stood successfully for a two-year stint on the Security Council once a decade ever since the U.N. was created in 1948 – until now.
Canada’s unprecedented failure to win a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council last month triggered a wave of analysis and soul searching in the country, where many see it as payback by Islamic states and their allies for the conservative government’s strong pro-Israel stance in the world body.
Like Canada, whose own Canadian Arab Federation urged all Arab and Islamic states to vote against Canada’s UNSC bid, Australia too has been warned by the Arab League over its support for Israel. However, unlike Canada, Australia has flip-flopped on some U.N. resolutions, changing its position from supportive to critical of Israel. Is Australia’s foreign policy on Israel so vulnerable that it’s determined by a gang of bullies at the Arab League? And how far is Canberra willing to bend in order to play on the world stage?
Australia has invested significant political, diplomatic and financial resources in its bid for one of 10 non-permanent Security Council seats for 2013. But the threat of the Arab League and its aligned nations indicates that it will be difficult for Australia to out-poll the European nations, which are regularly more critical of Israel.
Under the current Gillard government, Australia’s supportive stance for Israel is still uncertain. Today, it is Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper who has unquestionably emerged as Israel’s strongest supportive statesman, effectively assuming the role previously occupied by former Australian PM John Howard.
From 2006-2009 Canada held a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, sharing the table with Saudi Arabia, China, and Bangladesh. During that period, it clashed repeatedly with Islamic and other non-democratic members. Canada led a small group of mostly European democracies in the council (sometimes joined by others like Japan and Chile) seeking to counter the influence of Islamic states and their allies – usually without success.
On several occasions it voted alone against a resolution. A January 2009 measure condemning Israel for “grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” passed with a 33-1 vote, for instance, with 13 European and other democracies choosing to abstain rather than join Canada in voting no. PM Harper asserts that “when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack – is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.” Does Australia have that courage?
Canada also took an early stand on not attending last year’s controversial “Durban II” conference – an event used as an anti-Semitic propaganda exercise, focusing on Israel and the campaign against “defamation of religion.” It was later joined in that stance by Israel, Australia and several other democracies, including – at the eleventh hour – the United States.
The Security Council seat will be voted on by all 192 UN members. Although the Arab League represents only 22 of them, it often votes at the UN in alliances with the African Union and with the Non-Aligned Movement. Given the numerical preponderance of Israel-hating third-world nations in the General Assembly, Australia would be reluctant to put another nail in its bid’s coffin by outrightly supporting Israel.
Australia has now found out, while Canada has “the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the United Nations, or any other international forum, the easy thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of “honest broker.”” Canadian PM Stephen Harper recently said. “There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But, as long as I am Prime Minister, whether it is at the UN or the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are, in the longer term, a threat to all of us.”
It is time for Australia to bare its teeth and thrash about on the world stage – let Australia to take that stand, whatever the cost.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Man plans, G-d laughs
I've used that quip too many times this past month. How the world turns unbeknownst to us mere mortals.
Here I am, back again in Melbourne, barely nine months after I became an olah - a citizen of Israel. How things have changed since first stepping off that El Al flight, swarmed by Israeli tourists returning from their vacations in Thailand, and me clutching on to a number of bags, coats, and pillows, anxiously anticipating the mountain of paperwork and Israeli chutzpa about to bury me. Beginning at the airport.
But we shall return to that in another post, a post that will be dedicated purely to the aliyah experience and the subsequent adventures/mishaps/surprises/tedium/frustration/elation... I could go on.
However, today, being 'Chag HaSusim (Festival of Horses)' or Melbourne Cup Day in my hometown, and given the dreary greyness that has conquered November's skies, I feel like writing about Melbourne. And all things Melbourne. Why my relationship with this city and her inhabitants is so complex and confusing and ambiguous and lonely. Particularly, how on earth I managed to return oh-so-quickly to a place I thought I no longer called it my own. Well, not entirely.
It's November, the eleventh month, which makes it ten months after making aliyah, and nearly three month after becoming a married woman. Who woulda thunk it.
*****
And since first writing (and not completing) this post nearly a year ago, things have changed - I have changed - in a way that I could not fully appreciate back then. Persuaded to return to the land of plenty, I reluctantly made Melbourne once again my home. However now, seeing the economic difficulties of life in Israel, coupled with family commitments and a general negative feeling felt throughout the non-anglo sections of Israeli society, perhaps it isn't the right time in my life to be living there.
So, meanwhile, I'm kehilla shopping, apartment hunting, and trying to settle into a Melbourne lifestyle with my eyes firmly set on my real homeland - Eretz Yisrael. I shall return.
Here I am, back again in Melbourne, barely nine months after I became an olah - a citizen of Israel. How things have changed since first stepping off that El Al flight, swarmed by Israeli tourists returning from their vacations in Thailand, and me clutching on to a number of bags, coats, and pillows, anxiously anticipating the mountain of paperwork and Israeli chutzpa about to bury me. Beginning at the airport.
But we shall return to that in another post, a post that will be dedicated purely to the aliyah experience and the subsequent adventures/mishaps/surprises/tedium/frustration/elation... I could go on.
However, today, being 'Chag HaSusim (Festival of Horses)' or Melbourne Cup Day in my hometown, and given the dreary greyness that has conquered November's skies, I feel like writing about Melbourne. And all things Melbourne. Why my relationship with this city and her inhabitants is so complex and confusing and ambiguous and lonely. Particularly, how on earth I managed to return oh-so-quickly to a place I thought I no longer called it my own. Well, not entirely.
It's November, the eleventh month, which makes it ten months after making aliyah, and nearly three month after becoming a married woman. Who woulda thunk it.
*****
And since first writing (and not completing) this post nearly a year ago, things have changed - I have changed - in a way that I could not fully appreciate back then. Persuaded to return to the land of plenty, I reluctantly made Melbourne once again my home. However now, seeing the economic difficulties of life in Israel, coupled with family commitments and a general negative feeling felt throughout the non-anglo sections of Israeli society, perhaps it isn't the right time in my life to be living there.
So, meanwhile, I'm kehilla shopping, apartment hunting, and trying to settle into a Melbourne lifestyle with my eyes firmly set on my real homeland - Eretz Yisrael. I shall return.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Scrapbooking - diary entry number one, page one.
Written: About a month after I immigrated to Israel officially - February 2010
When an Australian Jew makes the monumental decision to make Aliyah, it’s extremely difficult for their family and friends to digest. Why on earth would someone choose to abandon their close-knit community, their hometown of carefree aspirations, their comfort zone, their ‘no worries’ commitments, and rebuild their life halfway across the globe? Rather than running away from the challenges and conflicts that hound our day-to-day Melbourne living, making aliyah is a life choice to run towards a place, an idea, a home that resonates in all aspects of our Jewish identity. “B’shana haba’a b’yerushalyim,” we have cried for over two millennia, and now in our shrinking global village, Jews have created for themselves the opportunity to live their lives in a land they can call their own.
Countless olim from Australia and across the world have described the magnetic pull they have felt from within to return to the Jewish homeland. Regardless of our home countries – from Iran to India, Uruguay to Belarus, Ethiopia to Romania, we are building our own community in our own state, communicating in our own shared language, and celebrating our festivals according to our religious and national calendar. We, Australians who choose to fly across two oceans to make aliyah, are consciously giving up our cushy Caulfield comforts and exchanging our affluent and easy lifestyles for the daily struggle of Israeli living. Why?
Aliyah flight: in transit
So it’s come to this. What an anti-climax. My body can barely hold the build-up of tension and stress and preparation and hype and tears and emotion and love and anxiety and-and-and-and…
I’m sitting here in Bangkok airport, splitting headache, overtired, exhausted, drained, and finally calm.
This is it. Aliyah, baby. It’s as if I never left. Twenty-five years of a strong Jewish identity is finally coming to its fruition. It’s as if the haze is being lifted from before my eyes. Shapes are regaining their focus, colours are intensifying, and while I have no place to call my own just yet, I don’t feel so rootless anymore.
My first Shabbat as an Olah Chadasha
Overtiredness racked my body and denied me sleep during the first few days of my arrival. I had been awake for more than eighty hours and I couldn’t get my mind to quieten down once I lay my head against the pillow. I had to will myself to sleep during that first Shabbat. Soulful melodies ushered in my Sabbath prayers, and as I walked home from shule that night, I felt awash with renewal by my first Tefillat Shabbat (Sabbath prayers) in Israel – as an Israeli.
I can now call myself an ‘Israeli’, a citizen of the State of Israel. I have the right to vote for and complain about my government. The streets of Jerusalem, the beaches of Tel Aviv, the hills of Haifa – they belong to me, and I can settle wherever I please within the borders of my land. I never felt the same passion, the same sense of belonging, upon celebrating the ‘land girt by sea’ as part of Australia’s national anthem. My life played to the tune of Hatikvah. The Partisan Song is an anthem of my past in blood-soaked Europe. Advance Australia Fair – a place of refuge and childhood and family and friends and joy and love. But throughout – Hatikvah, a song of hope, of returning to the land of our nation after thousands of years, fills my heart with pure energy and emotion as it moves me to tears. Hatikvah, a haunting melody which conjures images of sacrifice, hardship, renewal, birth, stability, home, belonging, language, prayer, family, and heritage, is our anthem, no matter where we live.
When an Australian Jew makes the monumental decision to make Aliyah, it’s extremely difficult for their family and friends to digest. Why on earth would someone choose to abandon their close-knit community, their hometown of carefree aspirations, their comfort zone, their ‘no worries’ commitments, and rebuild their life halfway across the globe? Rather than running away from the challenges and conflicts that hound our day-to-day Melbourne living, making aliyah is a life choice to run towards a place, an idea, a home that resonates in all aspects of our Jewish identity. “B’shana haba’a b’yerushalyim,” we have cried for over two millennia, and now in our shrinking global village, Jews have created for themselves the opportunity to live their lives in a land they can call their own.
Countless olim from Australia and across the world have described the magnetic pull they have felt from within to return to the Jewish homeland. Regardless of our home countries – from Iran to India, Uruguay to Belarus, Ethiopia to Romania, we are building our own community in our own state, communicating in our own shared language, and celebrating our festivals according to our religious and national calendar. We, Australians who choose to fly across two oceans to make aliyah, are consciously giving up our cushy Caulfield comforts and exchanging our affluent and easy lifestyles for the daily struggle of Israeli living. Why?
Aliyah flight: in transit
So it’s come to this. What an anti-climax. My body can barely hold the build-up of tension and stress and preparation and hype and tears and emotion and love and anxiety and-and-and-and…
I’m sitting here in Bangkok airport, splitting headache, overtired, exhausted, drained, and finally calm.
This is it. Aliyah, baby. It’s as if I never left. Twenty-five years of a strong Jewish identity is finally coming to its fruition. It’s as if the haze is being lifted from before my eyes. Shapes are regaining their focus, colours are intensifying, and while I have no place to call my own just yet, I don’t feel so rootless anymore.
My first Shabbat as an Olah Chadasha
Overtiredness racked my body and denied me sleep during the first few days of my arrival. I had been awake for more than eighty hours and I couldn’t get my mind to quieten down once I lay my head against the pillow. I had to will myself to sleep during that first Shabbat. Soulful melodies ushered in my Sabbath prayers, and as I walked home from shule that night, I felt awash with renewal by my first Tefillat Shabbat (Sabbath prayers) in Israel – as an Israeli.
I can now call myself an ‘Israeli’, a citizen of the State of Israel. I have the right to vote for and complain about my government. The streets of Jerusalem, the beaches of Tel Aviv, the hills of Haifa – they belong to me, and I can settle wherever I please within the borders of my land. I never felt the same passion, the same sense of belonging, upon celebrating the ‘land girt by sea’ as part of Australia’s national anthem. My life played to the tune of Hatikvah. The Partisan Song is an anthem of my past in blood-soaked Europe. Advance Australia Fair – a place of refuge and childhood and family and friends and joy and love. But throughout – Hatikvah, a song of hope, of returning to the land of our nation after thousands of years, fills my heart with pure energy and emotion as it moves me to tears. Hatikvah, a haunting melody which conjures images of sacrifice, hardship, renewal, birth, stability, home, belonging, language, prayer, family, and heritage, is our anthem, no matter where we live.
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