Reflect for a moment, as you read this piece, what is happening in Gaza.

The wanton and totally unwarranted killing of Gazans by Israel’s IDF (which can now definitely and justifiably said to be the most immoral army in the world!), principally women and children continues – daily! The wilful destruction of Palestinian culture, be it libraries, schools or universities. The wholesale destruction of mosques. In effect, the destruction of most buildings and homes, rendering them uninhabitable. Preventing drugs and all manner of medical supplies and life-supporting equipment from entering Gaza. The catalogue of what Israel is “doing” goes on and on…..

That governments around the world, including that of Australia, have effectively been mute in failing to call out Israel’s conduct is shameful. More insidious and disgraceful is that so-called leaders of the Jewish community — think, the ECAJ, the Zionist Federation, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Magan David Adom, the Anti-Defamation Commission, B’nai B’rith — and the various synagogues, rabbis and communal organisations around the country, have been singular silent in making any comments about what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank. From being shrill, loud and offensive, bullying and threatening as part of the Israel lobby, to a man and woman their silence has been deafening with respect to Israel and Gaza.

The two Jewish politicians in the federal Parliament — Josh Burns MP (Labor) and Julian Leeser (Lib) — who have a high profile, have been no better. Yes, the occasional comment about how bad things are in the Middle East and calling for peace there, but anything, specific to Gaza or the West Bank, in relation to what is happening on the ground in Gaza being done by the Israelis? Not a word!

Take what Josh Burns MP said in an op-ed piece of his published in The Guardian on 9 July relating to anti-semitic incidents in Melbourne….

“There must be a space for legitimate criticism of the Israeli Government, to voice the need for Gazans to receive aid, to end hostilities and work towards a lasting peace”.

And this:

“…..we can hold empathy for the unimaginable suffering of the Palestinian people, while caring for the safety of the Jewish community in Australia.”

Not a word of sympathy, concern or empathy for the plight of Gazans from Burns. Not a call to Israel to stop what it is doing in and to Gaza and its peoples. And not even an adverse comment about how the Israel lobby disgracefully bombarded the ABC (after all, our public broadcaster paid for with your and my tax dollars and for whom Burns should stand up) about Antoinette Lattouf being employed by the broadcaster.

Mark Leibler, chairman of the unelected AIJAC, when speaking at a function in honour of his firm’s birthday, was reported in jMedia.online on saying this:

“My sense of the ties between my Jewish heritage, the centrality of the state of Israel, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions and cultures grew even stronger through my former articled clerk and great friend, Noel Pearson.

“Noel has often described our two peoples as sharing a ‘land-based identity’ – historical and spiritual.

“Noel also says that Indigenous Australians can and must resist victimhood, as the Jewish people have done, even in the face of persistent racism and victimisation.”

Substitute the word Israel for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and one would have expected that Leibler would be out there expressing horror and condemnation of the genocide, ethnic cleansing and racism by Israel in what it has wrought, and continues to do, in Gaza and the West Bank.

These so-called leaders of the Jewish community stand condemned for their shameful silence, apart from their hypocrisy and double-standards.

Fortunately a growing number of Jews abhor and condemn their so-called leaders for their silence and effective complicity in what Israel is doing, and are signing up with the Jewish Council of Australia as the appropriate voice for those Jews who say what Israel is doing is not in their name!

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.