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Anti-Israel question writer not currently employed by ACHPER
August 27, 2019 by J-Wire Newsdesk
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Liberal Victorian MPDavid Southwick has announced in Parliament that ACHPER will not be employing the writer of the original false accusation against Israel, at least until the conclusion of the Independent Review.
Rabbi James Kennard
The writer for the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation Students gave an example of an answer on religious discrimination question which read “An example of an individual being persecuted for their religion could be the Arab families living in Israel who practise the Islam religion rather than the Jewish religion.”
This marks six weeks of campaigning by the principal of the Mount Scopus Memorial College Rabbi James Kennard who was alerted to the suggested answer by one of his students.
David Southwick
Rabbi Kennard said: “This completes the steps that I have been asking ACHPER to take and therefore I do not plan to comment further until the Review is completed, which ACHPER hopes will be by mid-September.
After six long weeks, ACHPER Victoria has finally confirmed that the allegation at the heart of this dispute – that Jews in Israel persecute non-Jews for their religion – is a lie. To accuse Jews of religious persecution – a crime of which Jews have often been the victims but never the perpetrators – is a heinous libel and one that should have been retracted within hours, not weeks.
ACHPER has also now confirmed that the disseminator of this falsehood no longer works for ACHPER, at least until the conclusion of the independent review.
I welcome these belated developments and thank David Southwick MP and Jeremy Leibler of the ZFA for their lobbying and political pressure which has brought about these results. Dvir Abramovich of the ADC has also been a great support.
Many questions remain. In particular, why the libel was not identified by the proofreaders; why there was such a lack of alacrity and urgency in responding, and whether these failures indicate a culture of institutional antisemitism. I hope that the promised review will answer these questions fully and that its findings and recommendations will be made public.”
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The libel was not identified by the proofreaders, I would say, because the proofreaders and so many others are completely ignorant of Jewish practice, tradition and ethics, and also of the history and realities of Israel. Not only are they ignorant, they are not interested.
This is the reality we face and we must do something about it on a big scale.
I wonder why the person who wrote the article has not been identified and the organisation left to bear the opporobrium???
The writer should be exposed but the question went through layers of approval under the auspices of the organisation and it should bear full responsibility for letting such a thing be published.