Contributed by supporters of Palestine

Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have poured into the streets night after night to protest the Netanyahu government’s failure to halt the bloodshed in Gaza.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., polls show that 6 in 10 Americans — including huge majorities of Democratic and independent voters — oppose continued weapons shipments to Israel.

Critics of what the Netanyahu led government of Israel has been doing in Gaza and now the west Bank. Critics are falsely accused of antisemitism and increasingly characterised as deserving to be suppressed. The shadowy American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which hands out money to buy support and interferes in political elections, must not be talked about. Major media organisations go along with all of it.

This is the story in the United States.

Despite this, polls show that 6 in 10 Americans, including huge majorities of Democratic and independent voters, oppose continued weapons shipments to Israel.

Australia faces much the same, even if not on quite the same scale. The pro-Israel lobby here mainly consists of the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Australian Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

The first two are peak organisations that make representations to Australian parliamentarians. The third is particularly active. It is a privately owned think tank, producing a magazine called the Australia/Israel Review, has close links with media in Australia and frequently hosts journalists, politicians, and senior public servants. More than 500 of them have been gifted tours to Israel. These tours have been called propaganda exercises for Israel and the Zionist cause.

Gifts like this are interference in Australian politics. They are meant to influence policy by way of getting supporters into office and pressuring others to comply. This and other forms of gifting are channelled through existing networks. But given the lack of transparency, no one has yet been able to determine just how extensive this is.  

Mark Liebler is the ongoing chair of AIJAC. He is the late brother of late Isi Leibler, who served for 10 years as the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, was the Chair of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Photo from The Australian: Mark Leibler

Mark has his own formidable list of credits sand influence. As a partner of the prominent legal firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, and as an expert on taxation, he has been able to forge important connections on the corporate world through his services, which includes how best to avoid paying tax.

Mark is also life Chairman of the United Israel Appeal of Australia and Governor of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. He is also a Patron of the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Friends of Tel Aviv University, of which he is also a governor.

He served 10 years as President of the Zionist Federation of Australia and for six years as President of the United Israel Appeal of Australia. He is a past Chair of the World Board of Trustees of Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal, serves on the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Mark Leibler has been personally close to a succession of Australia Prime Ministers. On the aftermath of Israel’s massive military invasion of Gaza, proved his capacity by managing to six former Prime Ministers to sign a letter condemning Hamas and effectively backing Israel attack on Gaza.

Image from ABC News/ AAP: Six former prime ministers signed Mark Liebler’s letter

Mark Leibler played a key role in the crudely violent response to the pro-Palestinian voices, and the reneging on an agreement on the terms for ending the encampment at Melbourne University and the charges made against students that followed. Mark happens to be a ministerial government appointee to the university’s Council, its governing body.

Although powerful, the Zionist lobby in Australia now faces formidable problems. Public opinion is no longer on its side. A sustained, large, and diverse movement in support of Palestinian rights is an effective counter force. Like citizens of the United States, Australians do not want our government to be involved on the attack on the people of Gaza and insist on official Australian support for an immediate ceasefire and the rights of Palestinians.  Failure to listen to this may cost the political establishment dearly at next year’s federal election.

Massive anti-government street marches and civil strife in Israel over increasingly angry demands for peace with the Palestinians and the release of remaining prisoners on both sides poses a crisis for Zionism. The movement of Jews against Zionism and an Israel existing on a foundation of racial segregation and discrimination is rising is rising in Australia and elsewhere.

More Australian Jews are speaking out. This is perhaps the most awkward problem for the Zionist lobby. In the face of these problems, it is becoming increasingly shrill, calling out everything as antisemitic and demanding ever more policing to silence voices. This poses a real risk to fundamental rights.

Behaviour of this sort also generates resistance, and this poses the biggest problem for the Zionists and their project for an expansionist apartheid state of Israel.

Just about everyone might get to see that there is nothing wrong with all peoples getting to live together as equals in a land they all call their own.