Anti-Israel Outburst at Mandela Memorial
The President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Sydney, Ray Jackson has stood by hateful and anti-Israel comments made at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Sydney last weekend.
More than 200 people attended the service at the University of New South Wales, including Federal Deputy Opposition Leader, Tanya Plibersek.
In his speech Ray Jackson made references to the “Palestinian struggle” and “Zionist Hegemony” which were met with boos from sections of the audience among which were members of the local Jewish community.
One woman who confronted Jackson at the memorial about what she deemed to be his “hate-filled speech” claimed she was subsequently abused by members of the audience.
“I was told that Israel is a racist state and that they wished for Israel to be pushed into the sea and me with it,” said Jenny Hillman, curator for Shalom Gamarada, an organisation which funds Indigenous students to study at the UNSW and offers residential scholarships and support.
“What was worse was that one of the people abusing me was a woman who said she was Jewish with holocaust survivors as parents. It was ugly and I think the sentiments were utterly despicable and were incited by Mr Jackson’s speech,” Jenny Hillman said.
Ray Jackson has told J-Wire he absolutely stands by his comments made at the memorial.
He said when he was invited to speak he chose to discuss his personal outlook on “Mandela as the freedom fighter and his very strong support of the Palestinian struggle.
“I am saying that the government of Israel is a zionist government but I do not think my comments on the day were inciteful. If members of the Jewish community were offended, I’m sorry but that’s not my problem.”
“Mr Mandela’s achievements were as a freedom fighter of people in struggle and that included the Palestinians, the Cubans and the Australian Aborigines,” He said.
“This is the side of Mandela that hasn’t been getting out. They were two classes of people in struggle working together: the black South Africans and the Palestinians.”
Ray Jackson said he was giving his own personal view and not an aboriginal view on the life of Nelson Mandela.
“Whilst he (Nelson Mandela) was into forgiveness and tolerance and Christ knows what else, there was another side of Mandela that has not been coming out since his death and that is his role as a freedom fighter.”
Jenny Hillman said she reminded Mr Jackson that Nelson Mandela was given his first job by a Jewish law firm and was hidden by a Jewish family from his apartheid captors and that his fight for human rights was supported by Jewish activists.
She said Mr Jackson needed to rethink his bias, and learn to stop inciting anger.
A spokesman for Tanya Plibersek said she had not been aware of Mr Jackson’s comments on the day as she had left the service early, however Hillman claims she was there at the time the comments were made.
Unfortunately South Africa has less than a 50:50 chance of avoiding the same fate of Zimbabwe . It’s just a matter of time . Corruption is already endemic and now that Mandela has departed the country will fracture . Time for the Jewish community or what remains of it to get out before the whole rotten edifice starts to implode
I say to Jenny Hillman, take note of the way in which Paul Winter attacks the racist argument head on.
It is no point in her babbling on emotionally saying she “reminded Mr Jackson that Nelson Mandela was given his first job by a Jewish law firm and was hidden by a Jewish family from his apartheid captors and that his fight for human rights was supported by Jewish activists.”
All this may be true but it is obvious that no one in that crowd could give a damn. This kind of argument will get Jews nowhere as they are not addressing and countering the particular abuse hurled at Israel and its supporters.
The lies and abuse need to be confronted head on to be anywhere near effective and there is no point going off on a tangent.
On a personal perspective, the US civil rights movement would not have got off the ground without the involvement of American Jews and look now where it has got them. Some of the worst anti-Semitic groups are blacks.
Maybe its time for Jews to only look after Jewish and Israeli interests and let the beasts of this planet tear each other apart in the way they usually do. In short we should step back or butt right out of world wide social issues. No one will help Jews or Israel and when the chips are down we will see we only have each other.
Since the Australian government had already conveyed its respects for Mandela, UNSW had no need to stage such an event. And if it did, it had no reason, other than to cause controversy, to have as a speaker someone who would politicise the event.
Ray Jackson showed disrespect for Mandela (and for UNSW) by making stupid and racist political comments. Mandela’s identification with “Palestinians” was on the basis of black “Palestinians” as opposed to white Israeli and damn the Ethiopians they brought home. Calling Israel a racist state, when it has Arabs in the Knesset at universities, in the police and the judiciary, is blind racist hate.
Mandela did nothing for the Zimbabweans or for any oppressed people on earth apart from South Africans. The reconciliation with whites was as much humanitarian as it was pragmatic; whites have managerial skills and are not riven with tribal rivalries.
Anyone who compares Australian Aborigines to South African Blacks is as off the planet as anyone who compares Israel to apartheid South Africa. Australian Aborigines have had billions heaped on them and only the politicised professional Aborigines have benefitted. For Jackson to ignore the Jewish involvement in the Aboriginal cause is to show ignorance and ingratitude; the Shalom Gamarada that UNSW help Aboriginals get educated, the Rona Tranby Trust assists Aboriginals, the late Ron Castan did legal work to advance Aborigines and Israel sent a team to teach Aborigines to raise children. Israel sends teams to Africa to teach the people there about health and farming, something that the ‘progressive” mohammedan nations do not.
Shame on Jackson and those who mouth empty baseless words in his praise.
Applying the term freedom fighter to “Palestinians” demean the term. They are a 1964 KGB concoction to counter the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. They want not a state, but the destruction of Israel and the humiliation of Jews who have dared to rise above their dhimmi status. For Jackson to prattle that
Three things come to mind straight away: how inappropriate and disrespectful Ray Jackson was to use the occassion to politicise an appreciation of Mandela; why UNSW put on the event in the first place, seeing that the Australian government had paid Australia’s respects to Mandela; why UNSW chose a speaker who would be controversial.
Now it is true that the great man was a supporter of the Fakestinians, that millenia old people minted by the KGB in 1964. It shows that the great reconciler of the races in South Africa viewed the Jewish/mohammedan conflict as one between blacks and whites. So, while Madiba spoke of reconciliation in his country, he ignored it on the favourite scene of “progressives” where the Jews are seen as white – even the Ethiopian ones – and the neighbourhood Arabs are seen as black. One can only wonder if the reconciliation was real or a realisation that whites were needed to manage the country.
Ray Jackson is somewhat confused if he associates the condition of Black South Afticans with the lot of Australian Aborigines. There was much harm done to them, but also a lot more has been done here than has been done in South Africa. And little of what has been done has helped the bulk of the Aborigines; the professional Aborigines have gained a lot for themselves in their wailing about how bad the whites are.
Perhaps the worst aspect of Jackson’s rant and continued offensiveness, apart from his ignorance, is that Australian Jews were and are in the forefront of advancing Aboriginal causes. The article mentions Shalom Gamarada which helps Aborigines get a uni education. Then there is the Rona Tranby Trust. The late Ron Castan was very active in the legal field in advancing Aboriginal Australians and an Israeli organisation sent some emissaries to assist Aborigines in child rearing. Now Jackson could not be unaware of all of these things, so the only answer is that he chose to identify with Blacks and it didn’t worry him one whit, that he was biting the hand that is feeding his people.
Oh, David and John, please don’t parade your ignorance. Jews were against apartheid in South Africa and at one time the only Jewish South African parliamentarian was Jewish. Calling Israel a racist state is malicious,false and stupid. Describing Madiba a freedom fighter is ridiculous when one remembers how little he did for the Zimbabwians. And most outrageously, is the referrence to Fakestinians as freedom fighters; that mob is pack of supremicist antisemites, who want nothing else other than to deny self-determination to the Jewish people, something to which Madiba was blind.
Hey, how did this get there?
It disappeared and I wrote another screed?
So just what did this Mr. Jackson say that has upset you so much?
You have got all these responses saying his “speech was hate filled”.
You have devoted a lot of words to this issue, but don’t show any proof, or allow any informed assessment for your readers.
Sounds to me like a beat up.
John , mate, spoken like a , honest true trooper, candid in accepting that you have questions about those complainin’.
I take it that you encounter some challenges comprehending why “certain” people may detect kinda bias and “funny” mix-up of local Aboriginal issues with something goin’ on let’s say 20,ooo kays away, to a people, the palestininas who, because they have NEVER heard of Ausssie Aboriginees may not give a toss about them. I am not sayn’ that this means that this top bloke, Ray may not mention whoever he feels like, but let’s just stop for a moment and think: up there in Catherine, for instance, hundreds of Ray’s folk sniff glue, get drunk by the gallon, children skip school for generations, crime is ripe among his people, but top bloke Ray worries about people he NEVER set eyes on, NEVER bothered to study assiduously, unless he has a uni. degree in sociology specilised in the palestininas or has published qualified academic papers on any such subject. Not to say that the occasion had to do with a Sth African bloke, himself as far away with his own problems from the same palestininas as Ray and, no doubt, your good self, unless your real name is Yassir Braghouti El Hamas, which would not surprise me anyways.
Otherwise , I also posted furher down a tidy list of “whys” in relation to the very reasons blokes like your mate, Ray ,are incontestable, if you know wha’ I mean !!!
Good on Jenny Hillman for speaking out.This is one man with a twisted view of history.There are many Australian indigenous leaders who articulate there support for Israel and the Jewish people and know the facts.
What Ray Jackson doesnt talk about is the lack of democracy in South Africa under the ANC and the behaviour of South Africans towards some of there neighbours.
Who can forget the dispicable attacks by South Africans on Zimbabwean refugees whose only crime in coming to South Africa was trying to escape the despotic and murderous regime of that Tyrant Robert Mugabe.Zimbabweans living in South Africa, especially Limpopo and Gauteng provinces have been on the receiving end of xenophobia motivated
attacks.So much for the behaviour of the people who were once at the receiving end of Apartheid.They have now become the oppressors!
David, I fully agree with you.
ANYONE daring to disagree with Ray Jackson ought to be…… I can’t quite put me finger on it, but I know that, being Ray you cannot be wrong and any of his arguments is simply perfect. In addition, anyone disagreeing with Ray Jackson is the following:
– a racist
– a reactionary
– disrespectful racist reactionary
– an opressor racist reactionary disrespectful of brave activists
– a zionist opressor racist reactionary disrespectful of brave activists
I just hate myself for not being there listening to me mates Ray and Tania, who aparently was not there while making that fantastic speech. Anyway, the best thing coming out of it is that, as I said, I hate myself and that’s just as well because I am a bloody Zionist and I bloody well deserve it, for all the right reasons listed above.
Onya Dave mate and we love an cherish your opinion on this bloody Zionist site.
Let’s just remember, Ray knows what the hell he’s talkin’ about specially when it comes to Zionists, because Ray knows all about Israel ’cause Ray studied the stuff, has been there and stuff like that……….. The other one who knows all that stuff would be Tania, particularly because she hasn’t been anywhere by the looks of it and that’s what I like about her.
Ray Jackson’s comments are perfectly reasonable. People who disagree with him should ask themselves honestly which side they would have been on in the anti-apartheid debate.
It’s true that some of Mandela’s strongest supporters, and some of the strongest advocates for the end of Apartheid in South Africa, were Jewish. Those people were also among the strongest advocates for the end of the occupation and the rights of the Palestinians. J-wire is disrespecting those brave activists by pretending that they would disagree with Jackson.
I agree with David, Ray Jackson’s comments are perfectly reasonable, given that they were made in Nelson Mandela’s memorial. After all Nelson Mandela himself wasn’t just a “critic of Israel”, he was an enemy of Israel. He was a supporter of Israel’s worst enemies, those who profess hatred to it and who wish to “wipe it off the map” and exterminate all its Jewish population (such as the PLO, Hamas and Iran’s leaders). So let’s stop kidding ourselves, some people don’t like Jews and hate Israel. Grovelling and ingratiating ourselves to them will not change their mind. Good on Bibi Netanyahu for not going to Mandela’s funeral. It’s time we stood proud of who we are, it’s time we stopped humiliating ourselves and face that reality.