There are some in our community who beleive that the NIF, not having a forum to advertise, espouse their duplicitous and dishonest policies towards Israel is a major impediment of free speech. These same people have tried to equate the NIF not having a forum as unfair and unjust, because a non left wing leadership group a.k.a The Australian Jewish Association does have a voice within our community and has not been banned from advertising in The Maccabean, school etc.

The NIF do not have or deserve a voice in our community, because they broke their social license. It is not possible to state you a pro Israel and then every action is anti Israel. A simple google search can reveal thousands of situations where the NIF should have known better, but instead chose a path of disrepute.

The AJA are a non left wing leadership group that started in response to a lack of leadership and representation by the incumbent representative of Australian Jewry, the ECAJ. The ECAJ have plenty to answer for, when it comes to how they beleive they represent the Australian Jewish Community, BUT they do not preach a mantra especially regarding Israel and then follow that up with contradictory actions. In contrast to the NIF they have a social license to operate, and so far they have not engaged in any actions that would undermine this position.

To those of you in Perth who aspire to be part of the wider leadership group in Perth, if you can’t tell the difference between the two groups and why actions were undertaken to limit the influence of NIF, you need to perhaps reconsider your position. There is no moral equivalence between the two organisations and continually stirring up a hornet’s nest is a waste of everyone’s time.

Our community has much larger issues to focus on, worrying about fairness and equality, when organisations such as the NIF, have breached their social licence to operate, is a time waster at best and demonstrates a lack of leadership at worst. Perth doesn’t need leadership that talks and does nothing. Lets’s work on our problems first before we start before we start trying to solve Israel’s problems…….