Australian politics and the Jewish community

The question of Jewish roof bodies speaking on behalf of the Australian Jews is equally complicated. Suzanne Rutland has noted that the existing groups often function more as a plutocracy rather than a democracy given that they have sometimes excluded minority groups. Nevertheless, the ECAJ, state boards and community councils can reasonably claim to represent the entire spectrum of Jewish political and religious positions whether they are speaking about Israel or anti-Semitism or on broader local issues such as Aborigines, refugees, or racial and religious tolerance. However, they need to have professional funding to do this job properly. It is incredible that the ECAJ seems to have only one full-time researcher.

The Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) also represents a range of Jewish opinion, but I personally feel that it should restrict its political interventions to Israel-related matters. This is partly because many Jews do not support the traditional Zionist objective that all Jews should immigrate to Israel and hence do not define themselves as Zionist. But it is also because a movement concerned primarily with the welfare of Israel, rather than Australia, may reasonably be seen as unrepresentative on local Australian debates. On the latter issues, the ZFA should simply defer to the ECAJ.

This brings me to the contentious issue of the private Jewish think tank AIJAC. There remains a fundamental structural question regarding AIJAC’s actions vis-à-vis the elected Jewish community bodies and representatives.

In some ways, AIJAC is similar to political party think tanks such as the Liberal Party’s Menzies Research Centre, the Labor Party’s Chifley Research Centre or the completely independent Centre for Independent Studies and the Australian Fabian Society in that it has the freedom to advocate radical views and agendas that might not be politically acceptable to the elected leadership.

However, there are two major differences between the Jewish community and political parties. First, political activists join parties out of support for an ideologically uniform position, whereas the Jewish community is politically and ideologically diverse. Second, the Australian community is generally aware that elected politicians rather than party think tanks speak on behalf of political parties. In contrast, many Australian policy makers and journalists seem to erroneously think that AIJAC is the official representative of the Australian Jewish community. This was apparent during the Hanan Ashrawi Sydney Peace Prize debate when a number of media outlets sought the opinions of AIJAC spokespersons rather than those of the elected leadership of the community.

So the challenge here is to AIJAC, the ECAJ and state councils and boards to establish formal protocols as to who does what and when. It will then be clearer to the ordinary rank and file of the community when AIJAC is reasonably claiming to represent the Jewish community and equally when it is not.

As to general principles for Australian Jewish lobby groups, I would conclude with the following:

• They need to be democratically accountable to the broader Jewish community, moderate in their politics, sober in their strategies and preferably modest, if not humble, in their claims of success. Vigorous and assertive argument is fine, but personal bullying and harassment is not;
• They should not promote or exploit rank and file fears about threats to the security and safety of Jews when such fears are not warranted; rather it is their responsibility to provide a dispassionate and balanced analysis of public issues and events and their implications for the Jewish community;
• They need to represent the full diversity of the Jewish community; and
• Lobbying activities need to target their actions and rhetoric primarily towards undecided groups outside the Jewish community rather than preaching to the converted within.