During Tuesday night’s ABC show Recognition: Yes or No? Stan Grant weighed in on his Aboriginal identity after 200 years of European settlement, citing Israel as an example Australia could follow for its cohesion and equal society. Israel, being itself a European settlement, was absolutely the last example expected for supporting the rights of Aboriginals’ recognition in Australia.
He said: “I have been to Israel and I have seen the sense of Jewish belonging whether you are an Ethiopian Jew or a Russian Jew or an American Jew, with a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship.”
Grant astonishingly fails to mention my people, the Palestinian people, who have resided under Israeli occupation or tutelage since (similar to Australia) mainly Europeans established a state on their lands 68 years ago. The use of Israel as an example for a place where “a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship” is flawed and simply unfactual.
Read the opinion piece by Anas Iqtait in The Age.
Here is the video of Stan Grant making the remarks which have so upset Anas Iqtait.
[Readers have been invited to submit comments but none have been published by The Age. The email address of Anas Iqtait is anas.iqtait@anu.edu.au if you would like to communicate with him about his article.]