On May 10, 2013, Israel and Australia issued stamps commemorating the liberation of Beersheba by the Australian Light Horse Brigade.
Yuval Rotem, then Israeli Ambassador, spoke of the ‘special relationship forged between friendly Australian soldiers and Jewish residents’ and despite the distance, ‘we operate on the same foundation of values’.
He is wrong on two counts.
In 1917 about 90 per cent of Palestine was Arab so it is very unlikely that the residents were Jewish.
The Zionist bombing of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel killing 91 and injuring 46, the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians and Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine are not consistent with Australian values of a ‘fair go’, a love of freedom and egalitarianism.
In 2012 there was a re-enactment of the charge of the Light Horse Brigade displaying Australian and Israeli flags, even though Israel was not established until 1948.
November 2 marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration which established a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine in exchange for Zionist influence bringing the US into WW1 supporting Britain.
Read the letter by Gareth W R Smith, Palestine Liberation Centre, Byron Bay in the Echo NetDaily.