THE latest version of the dangerously ignorant Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions campaign against Israel ignores key facts and deliberately pushes falsehoods to stir up moral outrage.
The most disturbing part of this campaign is that despite claiming a desire for a two-state solution, it seeks to demonise the only honest broker in the debate.
Far from the rosy picture of humble activists painted by human rights lawyer Greg Barns in his Talking Point column last week (Mercury, April 14), the recent protests in the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip is just the latest form of aggression against Israelis.
For many years, the Gaza Strip, governed by the internationally recognised terror group Hamas, has fired rockets and dug tunnels into surrounding Israeli villages in an effort to bring forward terror on local communities.
Worst of all, these acts are supported by the Palestinian Authority’s Martyr Fund, a fund that financially rewards families of martyrs on the basis of how many Israeli soldiers and civilians they maim or kill.
The latest protests and, as Mr Barns puts it “using homemade rockets, burning tyres and other primitive weapons” while dressed up as pushing some progressive agenda in the hope that Left-wing academics from as far as Australia fall for the con, is just the latest in a long line of aggression instigated by Hamas who constantly demonstrate no qualms with using young children as human shields in an effort to push their political agenda.
Indeed, since 2001 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into neighbouring Israeli villages killing literally dozens of Israelis and unleashing psychological terror on residents. The terror is so extreme that, when I visited last year (and no, not funded by the Israel lobby as some like to claim) I was told by a working mum that as soon as children learn to walk, they are taught to run when the sirens ring — what a horrible and unjust existence, yet Mr Barns remains silent.
Read the article by Josh Manuata (federal president of the Young Liberals) in The Mercury.