by John Lyons
I spent the week investigating the claims and counter-claims of the army and the activists who had been in the flotilla. The army was making all sorts of assertions for which there was no evidence. Avital Leibovich held a press conference to be broadcast live on Israeli TV. Two Israeli soldiers who had allegedly taken part in the raid were presented to us – but we were told we could not name them, and they had their backs turned to us to make sure no one could identify them. They read a brief statement, and then the PR staff said there could be no questions. This was hardly a press conference – I stood up and made that point to the organisers.
Day by day, the various claims Israel had made disintegrated. The Australian was running my stories prominently through the week. But without telling me, Nick Cater had commissioned Abraham Rabinovich, a freelancer who lived a kilometre from me in Jerusalem, to do an ‘Inside Story’ for the Weekend Australian. It must have seemed strange to readers: all week they’d been reading how the Israeli Army’s assertions were coming under fire, but on Saturday all those claims I’d been deconstructing were presented on page one of the paper as fact.
I could see my posting disintegrating. I’d tried to resolve previous disagreements with Nick Cater without enlisting Chris Mitchell. I knew from my time as Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald that the last thing you want is to be constantly called upon to sort out problems. But now that I’d been sidelined from ‘Inquirer’, I needed to resolve this ongoing problem with getting my stories in. I let Mitchell know that, from my point of view, the exclusion from ‘Inquirer’ was just the latest in a long series of disagreements with Nick Cater.
As I’d found him to be ever since we’d first worked together in 1984, Chris Mitchell was rock-solid. He intervened and told Cater that excluding me from ‘Inquirer’ was not acceptable. When another senior editor of The Australian was coming to Jerusalem – on a lobby trip, ironically – Cater spoke to him about his ‘regret over the difficulties with your [my] stories and the intervention of Colin Rubenstein’.
When I returned to Australia at the end of my posting, I telephoned Cater and arranged to meet. He had left The Australian and joined the Menzies Research Centre. Over a pot of tea, I told him that as part of this book I wanted to talk to him about my experiences dealing with him from the Middle East. He told me he did not want to be interviewed for the book.
In April 2012 I was confronted with a new attack from AIJAC that typified the way they would try to undermine my reputation even when I wrote an article that was completely factual. My mistake on this occasion was writing about settlements, the one issue the lobby is most sensitive about.
I wrote that under Benjamin Netanyahu there had been ‘a major growth of settlements’. This was based on an official government figure: Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics had reported that settlements had grown 660 per cent in the first half of 2011. I was confident that ‘major’ was an accurate description; to me 660 per cent is ‘major’.
But for reporting something factual I was the subject of a new attack on AIJAC’s website. AIJAC set up a straw man: they attacked me for something that I hadn’t written. They claimed I’d stated that settlement growth was at record levels and ‘historically high’, then began a long demolition of that. I would never have used the expression ‘historically’ high. For a journalist reporting on Israel, repeated attacks by AIJAC, even if based on something you have not said, can be damaging.
When I drew the AIJAC attack to the attention of the Editor, Clive Mathieson, he contacted Colin Rubenstein to express his concern. Rubenstein privately conceded to Mathieson that the AIJAC blog post about me was wrong. He assured Mathieson that the matter would be dealt with – which both Mathieson and I assumed meant the item would be taken down. But we discovered the next day that AIJAC had simply reworded the post, turning it into a different attack on me that relied on a contributing blogger.
This brought a strong response from Mathieson. He wrote to Rubenstein:
You’ve made it clear to me in the past that you don’t agree with some of John’s analysis. That’s fine and I always take that on board. If your contributor wants to pick apart his analysis piece based on facts then that’s OK too. But in this case, the repeated attempts by your contributor to accuse John of fostering a ‘perception’ about something he has not written border on the malicious. I also note that the original AIJAC post, which you have conceded privately was wrong, has now been picked up and repeated by blogs. You and I both know that you can’t control blogs but this, without a public correction by AIJAC, exacerbates the unfair slur on John’s reputation.
Colin Rubenstein replied that he remained convinced the new posting was fair but he would remove the reference to me in the interests of AIJAC’s relationship with The Australian.
Living in Jerusalem, one thing that surprised me was how something that could be reported freely in the Israeli media brought a fierce response from the Israeli lobby in Australia. I saw the government of Benjamin Netanyahu boasting about the swelling of settlements, and I saw this reported by the Israeli media. Meanwhile, AIJAC in Australia insisted that settlements were not growing.
Chris Mitchell would tell me when I was back in Australia: ‘I thought the reaction to some of your stories inside Israel was more rational than the reaction of the Israel lobby in Australia. Israel, as far as I could see, took your reports seriously and launched investigations. I found it odd that they could have a more open debate in Israel than in Australia. Of all the Jewish groups I found AIJAC the most hardline.’
The longer I was in Israel, the more I realised that key figures in the Australian Jewish community sat on the far right of the Israeli political spectrum. In Israel I was able to have meaningful discussions with key army or intelligence figures about the Palestinian issue. But with many of Australia’s Jewish leaders this was just not possible. It was almost as if they felt that, given they were not living in Israel, they needed to take a harder line than many people who were living there.
On 25 April 2012 – Israeli Independence Day – Sylvie and I were at a function put on for foreign journalists by an Israeli research group at Jerusalem’s Mamilla Hotel. We found ourselves talking to a senior Israeli Army officer. He happened to be extremely familiar with Australia, having visited several times and had had regular contact with the Australian Jewish community. Over a drink, this officer opened up. He painted an extraordinary picture of the Israeli lobby in Australia. ‘The Israel lobby in Australia,’ he said, ‘is the most powerful lobby in the world in terms of impact it has within its own country.’
I replied that surely AIPAC – the lobby group so feared in the US by aspiring members of Congress – must dwarf AIJAC, the equivalent in Australia. He insisted I was wrong.
I have looked at the diaspora in the United States, the UK, France and other places, and in my view, pound for pound, Australia’s Jewish community is the most influential in any country.
Firstly, Australia has the highest number of Holocaust survivors per capita outside Israel. This helps shape the political view of the lobby and that view is not really challenged by anyone. The lobby in Australia is small but united – it does not have the sort of competition AIPAC has in the US from J-Street. Groups such as J-Street have emerged and are now getting access to both the Congress and the White House. In Australia, while the Jewish community is small – 100,000 or something – it is extremely united.
The Jewish community in Australia is also very wealthy – look at the Rich Lists each year and you will see in the top 20 or so a strong representation of Jewish businessmen. And these are businessmen who strongly support Israel.
And then the community itself is much more strongly Zionist than in the US. It’s not as intermarried as the US Jewish community and about 70 per cent of Australian Jews have been to Israel.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Australia’s Jewish community numbers about 120,000, out of a population of 25 million. Most live in the big cities – about 60,000 in Melbour
ne, 45,000 in Sydney and 8000 in Perth. A leader of the community, Dr Ron Weiser, has estimated that approximately 10 per cent of the community – about 12,000 people – had made Aliyah and moved to Israel, while many others travelled there regularly. ‘The Australian Jewish community is one of the most pro-Zionist and Israel-connected in the world,’ he said.2
The high level of support for Israel in Australia’s Jewish community is often reflected by Australia’s politicians. I was invited to a lunch for Israeli journalists in Jerusalem. One had just been to Australia on an organised trip, and when we were introduced she said to me: ‘I love Australia! You guys talk Zionism better than we do!’
I asked her what she meant. ‘Everybody down there loves Israel. We met your Opposition Leader [Tony Abbott], who told us how much he loved Israel. We thought he was fantastic, but then we met Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard. She was even better. They were saying things you would not normally hear an Israeli say!’
The relentless efforts of the pro-Israel lobby have been reaping political benefits for hardline supporters of Israel.
On a warm summer’s evening in Jerusalem, a who’s who of Australian politics arrived for a banquet at the magnificent King David Hotel. It was 27 July 2014, and the group included prominent members of the Liberal Party such as Christopher Pyne, the Leader of the House; Queensland Senator James McGrath; and Brian Loughnane, the party’s Federal Director. Key figures in the Labor Party were also arriving, including West Australian Senator Glenn Sterle, MPs Michael Danby and David Feeney, and former MP Mary Easson, a key player in shaping the Labor Party’s policy towards Israel. Australia’s Ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, had also come along. Excellent food was being served and fine wine was flowing. I spoke later to several people who were there.
The banquet was being sponsored by Elbit, one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers. They specialised in state-of-the-art bombs, mortars and cyber-warfare systems. One of their weapons, they have boasted on their website, had ‘unprecedented lethality’. On this particular night, business was booming because the Gaza War was in full flight. The Gaza Strip, an hour’s drive south of the event, was under attack. The strip is an area of 365 square kilometres, and the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) told me later that over the 50 days of the war there were 6231 targets in Gaza hit by Israeli bombs, missiles and mortars. This meant on average 17 bombs per square kilometre. Or, with 5000 people per square kilometre, one Israeli bomb for every 294 Gazans. (The GPO told me that during this same period there were 4594 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel.)
Bloomberg news reported that the war had pushed Elbit to its highest share price since 2010. It added: ‘Two Israeli civilians and 43 soldiers have been killed, while more than 1100 Palestinians have died in three weeks of fighting.’ Over the next three weeks, Israel would destroy 18,000 homes in Gaza, while Hamas destroyed one in Israel.
There is, of course, no such thing as a free banquet. Two days later, several members of the group travelled north to Haifa, Elbit’s corporate headquarters. A lunch was put on – but the group also had to sit through an Elbit presentation. Some of Australia’s most influential politicians sat listening while the company spruiked their products of war.
The banquet was one of the events on these regular trips for sympathetic politicians and journalists organised by Melbourne property developer Albert Dadon. Each December, a group was flown to Israel, the UK and Washington for the Australia–Israel– UK Leadership Dialogue. Dadon once asked me if I wanted to fly to London – with Sylvie – to be on a panel during his ‘dialogue’ about Israel. He seemed surprised when I said no. ‘Why would you decline an invitation like this?’ he asked.
I replied: ‘Because if I’m part of your club I cannot write about it if at some point I need to.’
I did, however, speak to the visiting delegation in 2009 at the request of one of my editors, after I had returned to Jerusalem from covering the 2009 Iranian elections, and attended some of the group’s functions as a working journalist. Dadon told me the decision to visit Elbit was his and that ‘no one has the choice as to where the Dialogue will open or close except for myself’. He added that it was ‘a fun trip for everyone’.
Over the years Dadon has hosted scores of politicians, including Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Peter Costello, George Brandis, Bronwyn Bishop, Mark Dreyfus, Michael Danby, Kimberley Kitching, Andrew Landeryou, Tim Wilson, Tim Watts and Bernie Rippoll. The most enthusiastic invitee is Christopher Pyne, who has taken seven trips to Israel, four of which were organised by Albert Dadon.
In 2010, over dinner in Jerusalem, Dadon began talking to his group about Morocco, his country of birth. ‘Who would like to go to Morocco?’ he asked the group. Several guests were delighted to accept the offer – including Christopher Pyne. Dadon’s secretary booked the flights. Dadon told me that the Government of Morocco had agreed to pick up the bill for all airfares, accommodation and other expenses while the group was in Morocco. Even years later, Christopher Pyne was not sure who had paid for that trip, telling me: ‘I understood the [Dadon] Dialogue covered the costs.’
Life was good.
Albert Dadon had undoubtedly been influential in shaping Australian attitudes in Israel. But how much of the reality of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict did he really know?
Dadon and I had never met back in Australia, but in late 2010 he phoned to say he was going to arrive in Israel a few days before his annual December ‘dialogue’ and wanted to catch up. He asked me for suggestions about what he could do before his guests arrived.
I suggested he should travel to Hebron with Sylvie and me and take a tour with Breaking the Silence. This is a group of serving and retired Israeli combat soldiers who have provided testimony of what they have done or witnessed in the West Bank or Gaza, in the hope that the Israeli public will realise that an occupation is, by its nature, destructive.
I told Dadon that in Hebron he’d see the conflict up close. ‘Is it safe to go?’ he asked.
‘Sylvie and I would not be going there with you if it wasn’t safe,’ I replied. ‘We have no intention of making Jack an orphan.’
And so it was that Dadon agreed to come to Hebron on 6 December 2010. Sylvie and I jumped into our car and picked him up at his Jerusalem hotel, then picked up Mikhael Manekin, a former Israeli Army officer and member of Breaking the Silence. I drove and Dadon sat next to me, with Sylvie and Mikhael in the back. The drive to Hebron took about 45 minutes. Along the way we saw two completely different mindsets: that of Dadon, a supporter of Israel who lived in Australia, and Manekin, a supporter of Israel who lived in Israel.
Dadon peppered Manekin with questions; it soon became clear that he was checking Manekin’s credentials. There was a distinct undertone of: ‘If you are going to be part of a group that criticises Israel you need to have earned the right to do so.’ I looked in the mirror at Manekin and detected a certain bemusement. It was, indeed, a bizarre situation: Dadon – a Moroccan-born French-speaking property developer from Melbourne – checking the credentials of a Hebrew-speaking Israeli-born Israeli who had been part of the Israeli Army and still served in its reserve forces.
As we drove into Hebron, Dadon asked why there were so many Palestinian women walking up the hill on either side of us. ‘Because they’re not allowed to drive on this road,’ I answered.
Dadon was stunned. Despite having hosted dozens of conferences about Israel, it was clear he had never experienced the reality of the occupation. Hebron was having exactly the same impact on him as it had on me all those years ago. After walking around Hebron for a while, Dadon wanted to leave. I told him that he hadn’t seen the worst of it – including the sections where the Palestinians’ front doors had been sealed by the army. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘I’m upset that all this is being done in my name.’
On the drive back to Jerusalem, Dadon was silent for a while. Finally, he said: ‘John, there are two people that you should bring to Hebron for one of thes
e tours with Breaking the Silence – Michael Danby and Itamar Marcus.’ Danby was the Federal Labor member from Melbourne and a strident supporter of Israel, and Itamar Marcus was the publisher of Palestinian Media Watch. ‘It might change Michael’s view and Itamar’s presentations,’ he said. Dadon would tell me later: ‘[The trip] opened my eyes. This is the dark side of a society that you don’t want to face but when you face it you come out more informed. What I saw that day was not Jewish.’
Without realising it, when Dadon said that what he’d seen in Hebron was ‘not Jewish’, what he was saying was that the occupation of the West Bank was not Jewish. Israeli lobby groups realise that Hebron is a public relations disaster so like to portray it as an oddity, but what happens in Hebron is exactly the same as what happens throughout the West Bank.
Five days later I was in Cairo, covering a visit by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. At a news conference, he spoke about his desire for Iran to agree to regular international inspections of its nuclear facilities. An Egyptian journalist asked: if Iran and other nations had to agree to inspections, why shouldn’t Israel? Rudd remarked that he could not dispute the logic, and agreed that all countries with nuclear weapons should have to submit to regular inspections.
My ears pricked up. I knew Israel preferred that nobody even referred to their nuclear weapons, let alone talked about inspections. In fact, under Israel’s archaic military censorship system, the Israeli media are not even allowed to report on Israel’s nuclear weapons unless they are drawing on foreign media sources.
So after the news conference I asked Rudd if he could elaborate on his comments. He told me: ‘Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all States in the region should adhere to the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection.’
