And what’s behind the Green-coloured window this week, children? Richard Di Natale’s statement on Jewish news website J-Wire, Tuesday:
In light of the recent report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which found a 9.5 per cent increase in total anti-Semitic incidents in Australia, I have a clear message: The Greens will not stand for discrimination or hatred.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry director Peter Wertheim responds on J-Wire, Tuesday:
I am sure you would unhesitatingly condemn as racist any assertion that the Palestinians are not an authentic people and are not entitled to the right of national self-determination. But when people on the far left, including some in your own party, make identical assertions about Jews, a kind of moral paralysis sets in.
The Australian Greens leader really has no shame. The Daily Telegraph, April 5:
NSW Young Greens is boycotting the country’s largest Jewish student organisation. In a move which the federal Greens failed to condemn, the NSW Young Greens told the Australasian Union of Jewish Students that it would have nothing to do with the student group’s Jewish events.
Di Natale needs a little lesson about anti-Semitism in today’s Australia. The Greens leader on J-Wire, continued:
The language we use matters.
Wertheim on J-Wire, continued:
No matter what criticisms you might have of the policies and actions of any Israeli government, and no matter how well-founded or ill-founded those criticisms may be, there can be no justification for denying our identity as a people, or our right of national self-determination … When you and the Greens finally confront this form of anti-Semitism, in addition to the older more familiar forms, you will earn our respect.
These remarks appeared as opinion in The Australian (Dec 7).
[Editor: Readers might like to refer to this recent story about anti-semitism from the Greens.]