In May 2022 the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) passed a motion condemning Israeli apartheid and urging Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the “settler colonial apartheid state”. The University of Melbourne (UM) falsely condemned the motion as “anti-Semitic”, and under threat of Zionist legal action the UMSU rescinded the motion. Free speech faltered and falsehood triumphed at the UM, and potentially at all universities of Zionist-subverted Australia.
The core academic ethos of decent universities is reasoned opposition to falsehood, and respect for truth and free speech. In this matter the University of Melbourne (UM) has violated and betrayed these fundamental academic imperatives by falsely defaming all anti-racist Jews, and all anti-racist non-Jews critical of the appalling crimes of Apartheid Israel. Indeed this implicit false defamation of anti-racist Jews is anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, and this implicit false defamation of anti-racist Indigenous Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims is anti-Arab anti-Semitic. These key issues are succinctly outlined below.
(1). The anti-racism University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) motion.
The detailed UMSU motion – an expression of anti-racist opinion from Australia’s top university students – is set out below.
“The motion:
In the late 1800s, Political Zionism was born to establish a Jewish home in Historic Palestine, disregarding the Indigenous Palestinians living there. This colonial project has led to the establishment of the state of Israel, the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank through massacres, forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Israel has been deemed as a settler colonial apartheid state. It continuously denies the native Palestinians of their right to self-determination, freedom, dignity and equality. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
With the recent bombing of Gaza, Israel has carried out a police raid at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israeli forces have detained 500+ and injured 170+ Palestinians in Jerusalem since the beginning of Ramadan. These Palestinians were simply congregating and praying at the mosque, which is one of the few remaining public spaces for Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Students in Palestine and around the world have been key participants in the fight against the illegal occupation of Palestine, protesting, organizing, and creating a discussion on respective campuses. Many student unions and associations across Europe, North America, and Australia have formally endorsed BDS or some version of solidarity, it’s long overdue for a clear and firm stance by UMSU on these crimes.
Policy, UMSU stances and actions:
General Stance:
UMSU stands against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and condemns the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
UMSU supports the self-determination of the Palestine people and their right to engage in self-defence against their occupiers
UMSU deems Zionism as a racist, colonial ideology UMSU rejects Israel’s continued settlement, expansion, and annexation of Palestinian land
UMSU condemns the Australian government’s support for Israel and its ongoing crimes including occupation, settlement, expansion, and ethnic cleansing.
UMSU condemns any and all forms of antisemitism against students of the Jewish faith and stands in solidarity with Jewish students.
UMSU recognises that Israel’s actions are not representative of the Jewish community. Similarly, Israel’s crimes are its responsibility alone and not that of Jewish people worldwide.
UMSU strongly endorses that Judaism and Zionism are not to be conflated as one
Academic Boycott:
UMSU supports the academic boycott movement of Israeli institutions
UMSU calls on the university to participate in an academic boycott and cut ties with Israeli institutions, researchers, and academics that support the Israeli oppression of Palestinians
Divestment Actions and support:
UMSU calls on the university to divest from corporations complicit in and profit from the Israel apartheid
Direct the CEO to update the UMSU ethical register and boycott companies that support and profit from the Israeli apartheid in line with the BDS Australia organization guidelines.
UMSU publishes a statement prepared by the UMSU POC department and relevant student groups announcing this policy and its support for Palestinian rights.
To direct the General Secretary to update the UMSU stance booklet to reflect this policy and subsequent vote on it.
To direct the President and POC officer to send a letter of support to the Australian Centre for International Justice affirming UMSU’s support for Palestine on behalf of UMSU” [1].
(2). The false defamation of all anti-racist Jews and non-Jews as “anti-Semitic” by the University of Melbourne (UM).
The University of Melbourne (UM) could have responded to the UMSU motion with politely expressed and reasoned argument. Indeed there is a line of reasoning (incorrect in my view) that says that Israeli universities as centres of scholarship, learning and scholarly debate should be exempt from BDS in the interests of collegial dialogue and support for anti-racist Israeli scholars. However the UM decided to ignore reasoned argument, and chose the appalling path of false defamation by implicitly labelling all anti-racist Jews and non-Jews as “anti-Semitic”. I sent the following personalized letter (with slight variations) to all of the senior management academics of the UM ( none of them gave me the courtesy of a reply):
LETTER. Dear Professor etc,
The University of Melbourne’s condemnation as “anti-Semitic” of its students’ support for boycotting Israeli institutions and corporations complicit in Israeli apartheid (reported in The Age, 4/5/2022, nationally in The Australian and internationally in the Jerusalem Post) is utterly false (this trashing the university’s reputation because there is zero tolerance for lying by all genuine scholars and institutions of learning), anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims critical of Apartheid Israel), anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jews such as myself who are morally compelled to speak out about Apartheid Israel’s gross human rights abuses and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide), and indeed falsely defamatory of all decent people around the world critical of Israeli apartheid and Israeli crimes against Humanity.
Israeli apartheid has been identified as such and condemned by leading human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli B’Tselem and Israeli Yesh Din) and by anti-racist humanitarians around the world (notably by Jewish and non-Jewish heroes in the boycott-led fight against South African apartheid, notably Ronnie Kasrils and Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu). Indeed the architect of South African apartheid, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, famously declared that “Israel is an apartheid state”. I and my non-European wife managed to overcome the White Australia Policy in the 1960s but had to strictly avoid egregious apartheid in South Africa, the US Deep South and Apartheid Israel.
Eminent anti-racist Jewish humanitarians variously associated with the University of Melbourne have spoken out cogently about the human rights of the Indigenous Palestinians and the evil of racist Zionism (for details and documentation see “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ ):
Sir Isaac Isaacs GCB GCMG (University of Melbourne graduate, eminent lawyer, barrister, politician, High Court Justice, Chief Justice of Australia, first Australian-born Governor General of Australia, and author of “Political Zionism: Undemocratic, Unjust, Dangerous”): “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism” and “The Zionist movement as a whole…now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world.”
Professor Peter Singer AC (University of Melbourne graduate, leading bioethicist, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor, University of Melbourne): “Petition Against the Right of Return to Israel on Behalf of Australian Jews, March 2010: We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians. Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands. We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed. Signed: Professor Peter Singer – Princeton University” (and also signed by numerous eminent anti-racist Jewish Australian professionals, scholars, and academics).
In pursuance of its fine reputation as Australia’s leading university as a supporter of honest scholarship, intellectual freedom, human rights and the advancement of Indigenous People, the University of Melbourne would be well advised to take its moral cues from eminent anti-racist alumni such as Sir Isaac Isaacs and Professor Peter Singer rather than from intellectually and morally challenged tribal fanatics who violate the exclusively Australian patriotic spirit of Section 44 of the Australian Constitution by fervently supporting a nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, grossly human rights-abusing, serial war criminal and democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel to the detriment of Australians, Australia and indeed Humanity.
As an anti-racist Jewish Australian scientist, writer and humanitarian activist with many family and collegiate connections to the University of Melbourne, I would implore you and your colleagues to get this fine institution to retract and apologize for this false canard of “anti-Semitism” that implicitly falsely defames anti-racist University of Melbourne students (among the smartest students in Australia) but also defames anti-racist Jewish, non-Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Indigenous folk who are morally compelled to protest the crimes of Apartheid Israel. From a personal perspective my concern as an anti-racist Jewish Australian scholar and humanitarian with a sole allegiance to Australia is not just the false defamation of all anti-racist humanitarians critical of the genocidal crimes of Apartheid Israel but also (to quote Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, page 9, 1961 edition): “Of the offence to me”.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya [contact details]”. END LETTER.
(3). Support for the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU).
Decent anti-racists around Australia came to the support of the UMSU. Thus:
(i) An open Letter supporting the UMSU was signed by over 150 people including students, academics and human rights activists around Australia. This detailed letter said in part: “We, the undersigned staff members at Universities across Australia, support the University of Melbourne students who passed the recent motion ‘UMSU Stands with Palestine – BDS and Solidarity Policy’. We also support University students across the country who take a stance on Palestine in the face of an orchestrated campaign by Zionist groups who attempt to slander them for standing against settler colonialism, apartheid, and racism in Palestine. We call on the University of Melbourne and all Universities around the country to fulfil their duty and ensure the safety of students from harassment, intimidation, censorship and false accusations for their political activism…To that end, we call on the University of Melbourne and Universities across the country to :
- Actualise their duty of care towards students by ensuring that students who take a stance on Palestine are safe from harassment, intimidation, and false accusations for their political activism
- Maintain our universities as a place for critical knowledge production and political activism
- Embody decolonial values that not only acknowledge but also actively work to dismantle power dynamics between the oppressor and oppressed
- Reject the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism and treat the misrepresentation of Palestine activism as a form of anti-Palestinian racism” [2].
(ii). Emma Dynes and Bella Beiraghi (socialist writers): “The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) student council has passed a historic motion in support of Palestine. The motion, “UMSU stands with Palestine—BDS and Solidarity Policy”, was moved by people of colour officer Hiba Adam and seconded by POC council representative Mohamed Hadi. It argued that UMSU should “stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and condemn the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” and “support the self-determination of the Palestinian people and their right to engage in armed struggle against their occupiers”. It recognised “Zionism as a racist, colonial ideology” that should not be conflated with Judaism. UMSU is now committed to these political positions, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli institutions and is calling on the university to cut all ties with Israel… Criticising Israel, and its policies towards Palestinians, is not anti-Semitic. Israel is a settler-colonial state and a nuclear-armed imperialist power. Its founding in 1948 marked the beginning of the destruction of Palestinian society: more than 500 villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homeland on a day referred to by Palestinians as al-Nakba (“the catastrophe”)… Melbourne University student councillors are calling for more student unions to take the same pro-Palestine positions and pledge support to the BDS campaign” [3].
(iii). Associate Professor Jake Lynch (Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, and egregiously and litigiously persecuted by Apartheid Israel): “Rather, the [Zionist] tactic is to block discussion by equating such thoroughgoing criticisms with antisemitism. Central to this tactic is the definition of antisemitism circulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a German-based intergovernmental organisation whose avowed purpose is “to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, remembrance and research worldwide”. Crucially, the IHRA definition blurs the distinction between anti-Jewish racism and criticism of Israel. In accompanying examples, it is claimed to be antisemitic to label the Jewish state a “racist endeavour” even though, as recorded by Amnesty, the secondary status of non-Jews was built into it from the outset. Declaring Israel a “settler-colonial state” also falls foul of this clause. The phrase is included in the landmark pro-Palestine resolution adopted earlier this month by the University of Melbourne Student Union. It has a particular resonance in Australia: the Zionist view of Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a precise echo of the British colonialist concept of terra nullius, under which First Nations peoples were classed as “fauna” rather than human beings” [4].
(iv). I sent the following letter to The Age, Melbourne (Australia’s leading “quality” Mainstream daily print newspaper) (7 May 2022) but it was not published: “Melbourne University’s condemnation as “anti-Semitic” of its students’ support for boycotting Israeli institutions and corporations complicit in Israeli apartheid (The Age, 4/5) is utterly false (this trashing the university’s reputation because there is zero tolerance for lying by all genuine scholars and institutions of learning), anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims critical of Apartheid Israel), anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jews such as myself who are critical of Apartheid Israel), and indeed falsely defamatory of all decent people around the world critical of Israeli apartheid. Israeli apartheid has been condemned by leading human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli B’Tselem and Israeli Yesh Din) and by anti-racist humanitarians around the world (notably by Jewish and non-Jewish heroes in the fight against South African apartheid, notably Ronnie Kasrils and Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu). Indeed the architect of South African apartheid, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, famously declared that “Israel is an apartheid state”. I and my non-European wife managed to overcome the White Australia Policy in the 1960s but had to strictly avoid egregious apartheid in South Africa, the US Deep South and Apartheid Israel”.
(4). The false defamation and intimidation of University of Melbourne students by Zionists and the Zionist-subverted University of Melbourne is unconscionable censorship within a university.
Over 20 years ago I presented a conference with detailed analysis of censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities that commenced: “The core academic ethos involves commitment to truth, reason and free speech and these elements are operationally intimately intertwined in the concept of academic freedom. Academic freedom is critical for scholarly interaction, application of the scientific method and dissemination of findings to academic scholars, professionals and the lay public. In a wider social context academic freedom enables informed, critical positive and negative feedback within organizations and society as a whole. Academic freedom is presently under attack in Australia and paradoxically this constraint is coming from within our universities. This situation must be urgently reversed”. I concluded with 8 useful suggestions, the last being: “viii. Finally, we should publicly insist that universities that constrain free speech are not fit for our children” [5, 6].
(5). The false defamation, anti-Jewish anti-Semitism and anti-Arab anti-Semitism by the University of Melbourne in the present episode soils the University of Melbourne (UM) and damages all Australian universities.
The World University Rankings 2022 ranked the UM 33rd in the World [7] but this is inconsistent with a university that falsely defames and intimidates its students (students who are generally acknowledged as the smartest in Australia). The UM is regarded as the equal top Australian university with the University of Sydney. However this appalling self-soiling by the UM damages the reputations of all 43 Australian universities – if the top university grossly misbehaves like this, how do the lesser institutions behave? This has serious financial implications for Australian universities and indeed the Australian economy.
Thus in the pre-Covid year of 2019 the so-called Education Export industry serving students from overseas was worth A$ 37.6 billion, more than the annual Australian Defence budget [8]. Indeed the Covid pandemic showed up the best and the worst of Australian universities. The best was the huge medical mobilisation to deal with the pandemic, and world-leading research on vaccines as cogently described by Professor Peter Doherty [9]. However the worst was the malicious sacking of 40,000 university staff, the outrageously bad treatment of overseas students, and the revelation of how half a million university students were being ripped off by the Australian Government with the complicity of “management academics” (described as “refugees from scholarship’ by my late father and resolute defender of academic freedom, Dr John Polya [10, 11]).
The neoliberals assert that universities are expensive institutions, and that students should accordingly pay for the tuition that will enhance their future earning prospects. However a reductio ad absurdum here would be that all children should be heavily taxed from birth in direct proportion to the IQs, wealth and socio-economic status of their parents. Further, all nations need to have a complement of expert scholars and scientists for a variety of economic, health, national security and national prestige reasons – but one must ask why impoverished, circa 20 year old undergraduate students should have to pay for this expert complement that disproportionately and immediately benefits the mature adult population and the richer and older citizens in particular. All education can and should be free. All university education can and should be free. All education can be free as empirically exampled by the over 2 dozen countries from rich to poor that have made it so. All education should be free to help achieve the social humanist goal of maximizing the happiness, dignity and opportunity of all people and the society of which they are a part [12-16]. On-line lecture-based courses (e.g. the Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCS from top American universities) can be delivered and learning examined for 1% of the cost of on-campus courses – yet during the Covid Pandemic Australian and overseas students were forced to study on-line but were charged at the on-campus rate.
(6). The UM’s false defamation, censorship, intimidation, bullying, anti-Semitism, deception and betrayal of its staff and students is just the tip of the iceberg – a public inquiry is urgently needed into Australian universities.
There is a lot wrong with Australian universities that is due to philistine neoliberal governments, the corporatizing of universities, and fundamentally due to failure to face realities. (lying by omission)[15, 17-25]. Over 20 years ago Professor John Scott, an excellent former vice-chancellor of a big Australian university, commented: “The prime roles of a university are threefold: to teach, to conduct research and to provide service, including constructive criticism, to the community. The teaching role has been severely threatened. Fundamental research is now difficult to conduct. Critical comments by university staff have been censored. It is time that governments recognised that universities are not just an expensive luxury, but a highly important part of our national activity” [15]. Things have got a lot worse since then. Back in the 1950s and 1960s Tasmanian, Australian and British Commonwealth academics vigorously protested the dismissal of one (1) professor of philosophy (Professor Sydney Sparkes Orr) from the University of Tasmania [10, 11], but during the Covid Pandemic the Australian Coalition Government and university bosses sacked 40,000 university staff [26]. The UM’s false defamation, censorship, intimidation, bullying, anti-Semitism and egregious deception and betrayal of its students, staff and the public is just the tip of an iceberg, this suggesting that a Senate Inquiry or a Royal Commission is urgently needed into Australian universities.
(7). The Zionist-subverted UM examples the new academic anti-Semitism against anti-racist Jewish scholars and anti-racist non-Jewish Semitic scholars in the Zionist-subverted West.
In 1956 the US intervened to stop the UK, France and Apartheid Israeli invasion of Egypt, but by the middle of the 1960s Apartheid Israel with US and French help had acquired nuclear weapons, and the US became increasingly Zionist-beholden. The battle for American Independence was lost with the assassinations of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy who had both unsuccessfully sought to have Zionists declared to be agents of a foreign power. Indeed at an Israeli Cabinet meeting in October 2001 a furious Ariel Sharon berated Shimon Peres, saying: “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it” [27, 28]. Although Jews represent about 2% of the US population, 30% of President Joe Biden’s cabinet are Jewish Zionists, and the remainder are “moderate” Christian Zionists (as opposed to the fanatical, Biblical literalist, Evangelical Christian Zionists supporting Trump, guns and the right to life of unborn embryos but not of the right to life of pregnant American women in danger or the right to choice of all women) [29].
War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate. The West rightly condemns the war criminal Russian invasion of Ukraine but largely ignores 3 decades of increasing US provocation in the area [30, 31]. The US- and Zionist-beholden Western Mainstream overwhelmingly ignores the US invasion of 52 countries since WW2, continued US bombing of half a dozen Muslim countries (with Australian complicity via the key Pine Gap electronic spying base), and egregious Zionist war crimes and genocide in Palestine over 74 years [32-34]. As a UK or US lackey Australia has invaded 85 countries [32], has been associated with all post-1950 US Asian wars (atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation), has been enthusiastically engaged in the genocidal, post-9/11 US War on Terror (over 30 million Muslim deaths from violence and deprivation) [32-34], and has violated all 81 Indo-Pacific countries over the last 80 years, with this involving covert regime change in 6 countries (Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, Australia and Fiji) [35, 36]. In that light, the racism and anti-Semitism of the UM simply reflects the reality of Australia as a US- and Zionist-subverted state [37, 38].
A US- and Zionist-subverted Australia has followed America in persecution of anti-racist scholars. There is a fervent movement by racist Zionists to attack the free speech of anti-racist Canadian, US, UK and Australian academics and students. In a notorious case, the anti-racist Jewish American scholar Professor Norman Finkelstein was driven out of De Paul University through a Zionist campaign [39]. Likewise Oberlin College persecuted anti-racist African-American Professor Joy Karega for criticizing Apartheid Israel (particularly upsetting for me because Oberlin was famed for its progressive and liberal history, and my late uncle, Professor George Lanyi, was a professor there)[40]. In Australia, academic Dr Sandra Nasr was threatened and censored for comparing Biblical genocides and the present-day Palestinian Genocide [41]. The right-wing extremist Coalition in Australia planned to punish academics and others supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and its supporters [42], noting that many anti-racist Jews support BDS [43-46]. Associate Professor Jake Lynch (Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney) was egregiously persecuted and unsuccessfully prosecuted by Apartheid Israel) [46].
(8). The UM, the IHRA, and Zionist threat to Australian free speech, universities, other institutions, and Australian democracy.
The UM’s false defamation of anti-racist critics of Apartheid Israel as “anti-Semitic” simply examples a crude and false abuse routinely employed as a key weapon in the racist Zionist tool box [46]. Anti-racist Jewish American scholar Professor Bertell Ollman: “An all out struggle against Zionism by Jews, therefore, is also the most effective way to fight against real anti-Semitism. Furthermore, if Zionism is indeed a particularly virulent form of nationalism and, increasingly, of racism and if Israel is acting toward its captive minority in ways that resemble more and more how the Nazis treated their Jews, then we must also say so. For obvious reasons, the Zionists are very sensitive about being compared to the Nazis (not so sensitive that it has restrained them in their actions but enough to bellow “unfair” and to charge “anti-Semitism” when it happens). Yet, the facts on the ground, when not obscured by one or another Zionist rationalization, show that the Zionists are the worst anti-Semites in the world today, oppressing a Semitic people as no nation has done since the Nazis” [44]. The horrible reality in awful theory and in appalling practice is that Zionism is genocidal racism of the kind practised by Western European colonial powers until the “winds of change” in Africa in the 1960s. Zionism is Nazism without gas chambers but with high technology militarism, war crimes, apartheid subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and 90 nuclear weapons.
There is already massive Zionist subversion of Australians, Australian institutions and Australian democracy [38, 47, 48]. However these appalling realities are ignored by traitorous and mendacious Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes in Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australia that is second only to the US as a fervent supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of the crime of apartheid. Thus Ali Kazak (a Palestinian diplomatic representative to Australia and the South Pacific):“There is nothing ASIO [Australian Security and Intelligence Organization] suggests any Chinese lobby of doing that the Israeli lobby has not been doing for over 30 years. Any Chinese lobby is child’s play in contrast to the well-established Israeli lobby. No country has more interfered, spied and endangered Australia’s security, sovereignty and the integrity of its national institutions than Israel and its powerful lobby… As a result of the Israeli lobby’s influence, Australia has joined a group of banana republics such as Micronesia, Costa Rica, Palau and the Marshall Islands, continuously opposing UN resolutions condemning Israel’s occupation, violations of international law and human rights, racial discrimination, the building of Jewish colonies and the Apartheid Wall, which further isolates Australia from the international community at the UN and other international forums” [49].
Presently spearheading Zionist subversion of Australia is the false definition of anti-Semitism purveyed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) of which Australia is a member. The IHRA members are all European, most support nuclear terrorism, some have been involved in colonial and imperial war atrocities, and some were involved in WW2 Nazi atrocities. The IHRA is anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming Palestinian, Arab and Muslim critics of Apartheid Israeli crimes), anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish critics of Apartheid Israeli crimes), and holocaust-denying by ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed by violence and deprivation), namely (deaths from violence and imposed deprivation in brackets) the WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed), the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death for strategic reasons by the British with Australian complicity in 1942-1945), the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35-40 million killed under the Japanese, 1937-1945), and indeed ignoring and hence denying about 60 other horrendous genocides and holocausts) [50]. Over 40 anti-racist Jewish groups worldwide reject the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and oppose the false equating of anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel [51].
Summary and conclusions.
The anti-racist University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) motion is accurate, dignified, humanitarian, and serves the interests of University of Melbourne (UM) students, the UM, UM alumni, Australian universities, Australian university students, Australia, universities and students in general, and Humanity. In stark contrast, the false defamation by the UM of the anti-racist UMSU students as “anti-Semitic” damages the reputation of the University of Melbourne, its students and staff , and indeed of all Australian universities.
The false defamation by the University of Melbourne of the UMSU motion as “anti-Semitic” requires retraction and apology because it implicitly falsely defames all anti-racist critics of Apartheid Israel as racist and as “anti-Semitic” in particular. Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can, (b) demand apology and retraction by the University of Melbourne, and (c) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters.
References
[1]. “Motion: UMSU stands with Palestine – BDS and solidarity policy”, Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Australia, May 2022: https://bdsaustralia.net.au/letter-of-solidarity-to-melbourne-university-student-union/ .
[2]. Jordy Silverstein and Jeanine Hourani, “UMSU stands with Palestine: an academic solidarity statement” , Overland, 2 May 2022: https://overland.org.au/2022/05/umsu-stands-with-palestine-an-academic-solidarity-statement/ .
[3]. Emma Dynes and Bella Beiraghi, “Historic pro-Palestine motion passes passes in University of Melbourne Student Union”, ”, Red Flag, 9 May 2022: https://redflag.org.au/article/historic-pro-palestine-motion-passes-university-melbourne-student-union .
[4]. Associate Professor Jake Lynch, “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”, Green Left, 17 May 2022: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/anti-zionism-not-antisemitism .
[5]. [Gideon Polya “Current academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities”, Public University Journal, volume 1, Conference Supplement, “Transforming the Australia University”, Melbourne, 9-10 December 2001: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/57092/20080218-1150/www.publicuni.org/jrnl/volume/1/jpu_1_s_polya.pdf ] .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Current academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities”, Free University Education: https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/academic-censorship .
[7]. Times Higher Education, “The University of Melbourne”, 2022: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/university-melbourne .
[8]. Statista, “Export income from international education activity in Australia from financial years 2013 to 2019 ”, Statista, 2022: https://www.statista.com/statistics/977688/australia-export-income-from-international-education-services/ .
[9]. Peter Doherty, “An Insider’s Plague Year”, Melbourne University Press, 2021.
[10}. John Polya and Robert Solomon, “Dreyfus in Australia”, Fast Books, 1996.
[11]. W.H.C. Eddy, “Orr”, Jacaranda, 1961.
[12]. Gideon Polya, “Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) (Distance Learning, DL) to maximize Deep Learning”, Free University Education: https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/accredited-remote-learning .
[13]. Gideon Polya, “Free University Education”: https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/home .
[14]. Gideon Polya, “50 Reasons For Free University Education As We Bequeath The Young A Dying Planet”, Countercurrents, 19 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/50-reasons-for-free-university-education-as-we-bequeath-the-young-a-dying-planet/ .
[15]. Gideon Polya, “Crisis in our universities”, ABC Radio National, Ockham’s Razor, 19 August 2001: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/crisis-in-our-universities/3490214 .
[16]. Gideon Polya, “Free University Education Via Accredited Remote Learning – All Education Should Be Free For All”, Countercurrents, 31 January, 2016: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya310116.htm .
[17]. Richard Hil, “Whackademia”, University of New South Wales Press, 2012.
[18]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Whackademia” reveals parlous state of Australia ‘s censored, under-funded & dumbing-down universities”, Countercurrents, 14 December 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya141212.htm .
[19]. Richard Hil, “Selling students short. Why you won’t get the university education you deserve”, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2015.
[20]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Selling Students Short” By Richard Hil – Neoliberal Corruption Of Corporatised Australian Universities”, Countercurrents, 29 May, 2015: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya290515.htm .
[21]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Transforming Universities in the Midst of a Global Crisis”, Routledge, 2022.
[22]. Richard Hil, Kristen Lyons, and Fern Thompsett, “Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good”, Routledge, 2021.
[23]. Gideon Polya , “Book Review: “Australian Universities. A Portrait Of Decline” By Donald Meyers”, Countercurrents, 4 February 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya040213.htm
[24]. Donald Meyers, “Australian universities. A Portrait of Decline”, AUPOD, 2012.
[25]. Gideon Polya, “Impact of the Defence Trade Controls Bill on academic freedom:, NTEU, 14 October 2012: http://www.nteu.org.au/article/Impact-of-the-Defence-Trade-Controls-Bill-on-academic-freedom-13461 .
[26]. Juliet Fuller, “Savage job cuts in SA – University of Adelaide”, NTEU, 12 October 2021: https://www.nteu.org.au/sa/article/Savage-Job-Cuts-in-SA—University-of-Adelaide-23008 .
[27]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel buries serial war criminal & genocidal racsit Shimon Peres”, Countercurrents, 1 October 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/10/apartheid-israel-buries-serial-war-criminal-genocidal-racist-and-nuclear-terrorist-shimon-peres/ .
[28]. Kevin Barrett, “Buying Sharon – and “We Jews control America””” , Veterans Today, 11 January 2014: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/01/11/burying-sharon/ .
[29]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist-subverted America: Jewish Zionists are one third of the Biden cabinet”, Countercurrents, 27 January 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/01/zionist-subverted-america-jewish-zionists-are-one-third-of-the-biden-cabinet/ .
[30]. Ramzy Baroud, ˜”Not a Justification but a Provocation”: Chomsky on the Root Causes of the Russia Ukraine War”, Countercurrents, 25 June 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/not-a-justification-but-a-provocation-chomsky-on-the-root-causes-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/ .
[31]. Gideon Polya, “West rightly supports Ukraine but ignores brutally occupied Palestine”, Countercurrents, 1 March 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/03/west-rightly-supports-ukraine-but-ignores-brutally-occupied-palestine/ .
[32]. “Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ .
[33]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9/11Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.
[34]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2021.
[35]. Gideon Polya, “AUKUS & Quad In Context: Australia Violates All Indo-Pacific countries”, Countercurrents, 9 December 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/aukus-quad-in-context-australia-violates-all-indo-pacific-countries/ .
[36]. Gideon Polya, “Australia violates all Indo-Pacific countries”, Stop state terrorism, 9 December 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/2021-12-09-australia-violates-all-indo-pacific-countries .
[37]. Gideon Polya, “US- & Zionist-subverted Australia & sorely oppressed Indigenous Palestinians”, Countercurrents, 22 June 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/us-zionist-subverted-australia-sorely-oppressed-indigenous-palestinians/ .
[38]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15 .
[39]. “Norman Finkelstein”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein .
[40]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist-subverted Oberlin College trashes academic free speech and suspends Professor Joy Karega”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/08/zionist-subverted-oberlin-college-trashes-academic-free-speech-and-suspends-professor-joy-karega/ .
[41]. Gideon Polya, “Academic Free Speech Under Zionist Attack At Notre Dame Australia And LSE, UK”, Countercurrents, 16 December 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya161215.htm .
[42]. Jake Lynch, “Coalition plans to punish those who boycott Israel”, The Drum, ABC, 25 June 2013: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-25/lynch—bds/4778144 .
[43]. “Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.
[44]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .
[45]. “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .
[46]. Jake Lynch, “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”, Green Left, 17 May 2022: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/anti-zionism-not-antisemitism .
[47]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide, 2010: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli .
[48]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On Australia And The World For UK , Israeli And US State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 11 December, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .
[49]. Ali Kazak, Why should Israel’s Lobby have different standards?”, Independent Australia, 9 November 2017: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/does-the-nation-have-a-new-white-australia-foreign-affairs-policy,10913 .,
[50]. Gideon Polya, “Nuclear terrorist Australia, UK & US AUKUS Alliance threatens Humanity”, Countercurrents, 4 Ocrober 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/10/nuclear-terrorist-australia-uk-us-aukus-alliance-threatens-humanity/ .
[51]. Jewish Voices for Peace, “First ever: 40+ Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel,” 17 July 2018: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2018/07/first-ever-40-jewish-groups-worldwide-oppose-equating-antisemitism-with-criticism-of-israel/ .
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2022) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008). He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ .
