From Israel National News, 20 October 2024, by Dr. Alex Grobman: …At the [post-war] Conference in San Remo, Italy in April 1920 [delegates pictured above], the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan met to define the precise boundaries of the lands they had conquered at the end of WWI. As part of a peace agreement, Turkey yielded jurisdiction over the land which it had ruled from 1517 to 1917, including the Holy Land. Israel and two dozen other countries were created from the states of the former Ottoman Caliphate. Former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold observed that in the last century, Israel is the only state established whose legitimacy was officially acknowledged by the League of Nations and the UN.  The League of Nations Mandate did not grant the Jewish people the rights to establish a national home in Palestine, it simply recognized the pre-existing right that had never been surrendered or forgotten. The Jewish people had been sovereign in their own land for a thousand years before many were forced into exile. The establishment of the State of Israel did not represent a creation ex nihilo. Israel was admitted to the United Nations as a full member on May 11, 1949. These rights were upheld by the UN under Article 80 of the UN Charter after the UN replaced the League of Nations. International law expert Nathan Feinberg, added, On July 24, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations recognized the existence of the Jewish people, its historical link to the land of Israel and its right to reestablish its ancestral home there. When the Muslims invaded Palestine in 634, ending four centuries of conflict between Persia and Rome, Israeli diplomat Yaakov Herzog noted, they found direct descendants of Jews who had lived in the country since the time of Joshua bin Nun, the man who led the Israelites into the Land of Canaan. This means that for 2,000 years, Jews and Christians constituted the majority of the indigenous population of Palestine, while the Bedouins were the ruling class under the Damascene caliphate. Israel’s formal acceptance as the 59th UN Member State on May 11, 1949 was consistent with the UN’s original core beliefs. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948 by the UN General Assembly, was issued in response to the “disregard and contempt for human rights”

He once pledged Gaza aid would stop if Hamas stole it. What happened? From WSJ, Oct. 16, 2024, by The Editorial Board: On Oct. 18, 2023, President Biden announced that humanitarian aid would move from Egypt to Gaza with Israel’s consent “based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas.” A year later Mr. Biden has reneged on that pledge, and he’s blaming Israel in the bargain. Mr. Biden’s words a year ago were definitive: “Let me be clear. If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people and it will end. As a practical matter, it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid.” Note that “it will end.” Instead the President has demanded that Israel transfer ever more aid, even as Hamas steals it to keep power over Gaza’s population. Israel’s Channel 12 News reported, with video evidence, that Hamas commandeered 47 of 100 aid trucks entering Gaza last Tuesday. This is Hamas’s lifeline. It keeps the war going. Israel lately had been squeezing Hamas in northern Gaza, trying to break its aid-grip on the people, but Vice President Kamala Harris came out against the effort on Sunday. She is grandstanding for anti-Israel voters in Michigan after Israel had privately agreed to relent. Earlier that day the Biden Administration had threatened Israel in a letter from senior U.S. officials Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin: Surge aid to Gaza within 30 days or risk a weapons embargo. The timing couldn’t be worse. Israel may soon retaliate against Iran for its recent missile attack, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei needs to know that America has Israel’s back. Instead Mr. Biden sends a more equivocal message: The U.S. will aid Israel’s defense but do its best to weaken Israel’s response to attacks. Hence the arrival of the Thaad missile-defense system in Israel this week—while U.S. officials leak that Israel agreed in exchange to spare Iran’s nuclear and oil assets. The Administration made its peace with Israel’s limited ground operation in Lebanon—while pressuring Israel to curb its attacks on Hezbollah leaders in the Beirut suburbs. The U.S. aid ultimatum is best understood in this light. The Biden team supports Israel, but not the moves that might deliver victory. The Administration suggests it could withhold offensive weapons from Israel—while maintaining missile defense. Under

Minister for the Arts Tony Burke appointed artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah a member of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia. Abdullah has accused Israel of committing genocide and apartheid and have included images of people burning, purportedly as a result of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza, calling on Israel’s opponents to ‘end this sickness’ and ‘end Zionism.’ Abdul-Rahman Abdullah is a visual artist based in the Peel region of Western Australia  At that time Mr Burke said Mr Abdullah’s appointment would provide the NGA with ‘authentic leadership’; which reflected ‘modern Australia.’ “It’s essential that our important national cultural institutions have authentic leadership that reflects their objectives, as well as modern Australia,” Mr Burke said at the time. “The National Gallery is one of our premier cultural institutions and I’m pleased to see it continue in safe hands.” In his temporary Instagram stories, Abdullah posted that “Israel is conducting a ­holocaust against the Palestinian people. End this sickness. End Zionism.” Another post stated: “End the genocide, end apartheid, end Zionism.” Another post depicts an Israel soldier holding a gun to the head of a Palestinian farmer in a field. Meanwhile a story posted this week depicts a fire with the words “patients still connected to IVs were burned alive after Israel launched missiles at Al Aqsa Hospital in Gaza”.

From The Australian, 16 October 2024, by Joanna Panagopoulos Catholic Schools NSW CEO Dallas McInerney. Catholic schools are vowing not to repeat the mistakes of Australian universities in “refusing to confront” anti-Semitic activity on campus, amid a renewed focus to “quash bigotry through education”. CEO of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney said schools had chosen to “walk the other direction” to avoid the “utter failure” seen recently at universities amid an increase in “social-media fuelled” anti-Semitism among school-aged children. Mr McInerney said Catholic schools had increased the number of shared events and inter-school visits between Jewish schools and Christian and Catholic schools, adding that “education is the best antidote to bigotry”. …Catholic Schools jointly hosted a roundtable this week with the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism in Australia, Jillian Segal, and representatives from 3000 NSW schools, and the secretary of the Department of Education, Murat Dizdar. It heard that the increased prevalence of anti-Semitic events among school students had largely been fuelled by social media. With all school sectors present, Mr McInerney said “we wanted to send a powerful message, and by inference, say to the universities, we’re not going to make your mistake”, adding that higher education institutions had been “either incapable of or refusing to confront anti-Semitic activity in their institutions”. “We just cannot let our schools be the cultural flashpoint that the universities have become,” he said. Mr McInerney also criticised activist teachers such as those who wore keffiyehs into the classroom, saying “education is not there to indoctrinate, it’s there to enlighten”…

A boomerang was presented to Amir Maimon, Israel ambassador to Australia by artist Pastor Munganbana Norman Miller, co-founder of Indigenous Friends of Israel International, on the anniversary of October 7. This boomerang depicts the connection between Australian Indigenous people and Israel. The outstanding feature is Am Yisrael Chai which covers most of the boomerang because we know that Israel is fighting for its very existence, and we declare the nation of Isrrael lives and the people of Israel live. Am Yisrael Chai is written in Hebrew at each end of the boomerang as well. A boomerang comes back, and this boomerang also symbolizes a return to Judeo-Christian values and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Israel. There are dots which are typical of Aboriginal art, and they are in typical Aboriginal colours but others are added to represent Hashem’s rainbow covenant with humankind. The hands on each end are also typical. A central feature is the star of David and inside it is the number 76 representing the 76th anniversary of the modern state of Israel as I made and painted the boomerang in the 76th year. Psalm 76:1-2 is also featured on the boomerang: “A song. In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel. His tent is in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion. You are resplendent with light, more majestic than mountains rich with game.”

From Israel National News, 12 October 2024: Saudi Arabian Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Iran sent a message to Israel, via European countries, regarding the expected Israeli retaliation for Iran’s massive missile attack earlier this month. “…it will ignore a limited Israeli attack, and will not respond …unless it is subjected to an attack on its oil facilities or nuclear facilities.”

From The Australian, 11 October 2024, by Greg Sheridan: …Israel gets much moralistic grief in Western media and the Muslim world for its actions against Hezbollah and Hamas. Our own Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, keeps making speeches implying Israel is breaking international law. After condemning the Hamas terrorism against Israel on October 7 last year, Wong told the UN General Assembly that Israel had killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and “this must end”. …There was a lot more anti-Israel stuff in this speech, which is part of the pattern of the Albanese government effectively reversing Australia’s longstanding, formerly bipartisan support for Israel. …The implication in Wong’s words, and the words of so many Labor ministers, is that Israel is not waging a just war and is breaching the rules of war. Is this true? Is the war Israel is involved in a just war at all, and is Israel prosecuting it within the rules of war? No one in the ALP knows anywhere near as much about this as Mike Kelly. He was a career soldier for 20 years, becoming a colonel, then in the reserves. He was an army lawyer trained in the laws of war, in theory and practice. He served in difficult theatres including Iraq, Somalia, East Timor and Kenya, and completed a PhD examining the laws of war in military occupations. In 2007 he entered politics as Labor member for Eden-Monaro. …Kelly told me: “There’s no doubt in my mind – Israel has not breached the rules of law in armed conflict. There’s no evidence they’ve done so.” Kelly points to five factors in forming his judgment: the extreme difficulty of war in an urban environment; the way Hamas and Hezbollah have shaped the battlefield to maximise civilian casualties; the extensive efforts the Israeli military undertakes to avoid or minimise civilian casualties; Israel had to confront Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s total of 50,000 armed fighters in Gaza, a huge force; and the acute, urgent, existential threat Israel faces from the combined efforts of its enemies. Major General Jim Molan, who was our most experienced modern general in warfare, was part of a 2015 inquiry into whether Israel, in its campaign in Gaza in 2014, acted within the rules of law. The inquiry found Israel’s actions “lawful” and “legitimate”. Molan said at the time the Israelis “held off for as long as they could in the face

From the Canberra Times – 8 October 2024, by Dr Colin Rubenstein AM, executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC): The first step to solving a problem is to identify its cause. In three speeches at the UN, Foreign Minister Penny Wong demonstrated how a failure to correctly identify the cause of a problem can lead to proposing measures that are counter-productive and cannot succeed. The Foreign Minister’s two main themes were a set timeline for the declaration of Palestinian statehood prior to the end of negotiations, and ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. The push for a timeline to fulfil the Palestinian aspiration for recognition might make sense if Israel’s behaviour was the obstacle to a peaceful resolution. However, recent history proves conclusively that Palestinian rejectionism is the actual barrier. …the PA has been encouraging terrorism through pervasive anti-Israel incitement and glorification of terrorists, and a “pay for slay” scheme, which provides generous financial rewards to imprisoned terrorists or their families if they’re killed. Abbas’ reaction to the October 7 atrocities was to extend the “pay for slay” scheme to those responsible. The PA is clearly not a peace partner. Even worse, the general consensus is that Hamas would overthrow it, as it did in Gaza, if Israel withdraws from the West Bank. This is clearly not a risk Israel can take – a terror entity in the West Bank, alongside the country’s core population centres, would leave Israel perilously vulnerable to the kinds of attacks we have seen from Gaza. …[Wong’s] push for premature recognition not only overturns decades of bipartisan agreement that the route to peace is direct negotiations between the two sides, leading to a compromise agreement and only then recognition, but it also rewards the recalcitrant party, thus encouraging further rejectionism. Furthermore, having this shift clearly prompted by the current war demonstrates to Palestinians that conducting mass terror attacks and then deliberately sacrificing their own civilian populations as human shields reaps huge dividends. Wong’s push for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon are also counter to what she says she would like to achieve. She has repeatedly, and correctly, said there is no role for Hamas in Gaza’s future, but a ceasefire now would leave it in power there. …The ceasefire push is understandably motivated by the tragedy of civilian deaths. However, Hamas and Hezbollah embed themselves among civilians in part because they know

(An edited version of an article, by Oved Lobel, Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) appeared in the Canberra Times, July 2, 2024. Excerpts are posted below. Follow the link for the full article.) The position of the most extreme anti-Israel activists, whether in the media, politics, international institutions or NGOs, regarding Israel’s war with Hamas has been based on two key planks: that the IDF is indiscriminately killing civilians and that Israel is deliberately starving Gaza’s population. For the first assertion, they rely on casualty statistics, including gender and age breakdowns, released by Hamas-run organs in Gaza. For the second, they depend on UN agencies for the numbers of aid trucks and projections of famine in parts of Gaza.Both planks have now collapsed. Multiple independent analyses of the Hamas-run Ministry of Health (MoH) casualty data have long since demonstrated that the casualty numbers contained statistical anomalies indicating they were clearly heavily manipulated if not outright fabricated. All concluded that both the topline number as well as gender and age breakdowns were completely unreliable. …The second plank completely collapsed in late May, when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) – the UN’s expert committee on identifying famine – released its review of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) analysis of the Northern Governorates of Gaza. Asserting that the analysis had made unwarranted assumptions and inexplicably excluded important sources of food aid – and that there simply wasn’t nearly enough solid data – the FRC said it didn’t find the FEWS NET analysis asserting Gaza was suffering famine “plausible”. A comprehensive FRC report published June 25 concluded that “the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring.” …It is abundantly clear that the problem in Gaza is not primarily enough aid entering the territory, but distribution, as it is in nearly every war zone. Due to mass looting, destroyed infrastructure, bureaucratic delays, logistical shortfalls, UN agency fears of deconfliction and the fighting itself, more than 1,000 truckloads of aid already in Gaza are currently awaiting pickup. …The most radical activists have promoted the most extreme fantasy to paint Israeli behaviour as genocidal based on bad or manipulated data supplied by Hamas and the UN. This data itself now points in quite a different direction. Follow this link to read the full article: https://aijac.org.au/op-ed/another-plank-of-the-extreme-anti-israel-narrative-collapses/