- "You have taken on the most implacable,
arrogant, cruel and powerful lobby in the country." -- media warning
to Australia Labour Member of Parliament
-
- A scathing attack on "the Jewish
lobby" was launched by Australian Federal Labor MP Julia Irwin.
-
- She charged "the Jewish lobby"
with being responsible for a "code of silence" forbidding parliamentary
debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and quoted an email from an
unnamed "senior media commentator" warning her: "You have
taken on the most implacable, arrogant, cruel and powerful lobby in the
country", and advising that she would be "singled out for vilification
and, if possible, political destruction".
-
- Asked why the commentator she quoted
was anonymous, Irwin told the Australian Jewish News she had promised not
to reveal the name because the commentator had "felt the full force
of the Jewish lobby's fury a long time ago and had gone through hell".
"Anyone speaking or writing publicly on the Middle East can expect
to be subjected to personal attacks and to have assumptions made about
their reasons for raising the issue," she said.
-
- Irwin -- who moved a private member's
motion attacking Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading
to a vociferous debate -- told Federal Parliament she believed her motion
had broken a taboo on discussing the conflict.
-
- She said she had received "hundreds
of messages", mostly attacking her, following the extensive media
coverage of her motion, the debate it provoked and the attempt by fellow-Labor
(and Jewish) MP Michael Danby to have the motion withdrawn. Her attack
brought a swift response from Executive Council of Australian Jewry president
Jeremy Jones, who accused Irwin of "conjuring up the bogeyman of a
powerful Jewish lobby [that] might appeal to antisemites, but certainly
not to any reasonable observer".
-
- "She is acting to protect herself
from the criticism she deserves," Jones said. "She puts her ignorance
[on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] on display and then complains about
people who might point out her ignorance. "This would be pathetic
if it was not coming from a member of parliament." South Australian
Liberal MP Chris Pyne, chairman of the parliament's Israel friendship group,
(no such Islamic lobby exists in australia despite thouands of Muslims
living there and hundreds of mosques) said Irwin's comments, like her motion,
were "simplistic and embarrassingly naive". Danby dismissed Irwin's
comments as uninformed, misleading and unimportant.
-
- He said Labor's policy was clear: it
supported Israel and its right to exist and right to defend itself, and
unreservedly condemned suicide bombings. Hundreds of party activists have
lodged a complaint against the MP applying enormous pressure for her de-selection.
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- Liberal MP Peter King, who represents
the Sydney seat of Wentworth, said Irwin had placed on the parliament "a
despicable slur about Australia's Jewish community". He said Opposition
Leader Simon Crean could not continue to ignore such attacks from within
Labor ranks and should immediately repudiate them. Irwin, speaking in the
House of Representatives "Grievance debate", when backbenchers
have 10 minutes each to raise matters of concern, said she felt "the
taboo on discussing the issue in this parliament has been broken".
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