No Israelis here
An Israeli tourist has posted on Facebook that a retailer in Cairns has displayed a sign in its windows saying that do not serve Israelis.
Sign in a Cairns shop
Mohr Wenger wrote: “Yesterday I had a shocking experience and I couldn’t help but sharing… I was so overwhelmed that it took me nearly two days to write but I think it’s important people should know…
Travelling around Australia my friend and I thought it would be cool to have our nose pirced together,so we herd about a good place nerby and went their excited for our new jowl. After 10 minutes of waiting anxiously for the guy to get off the phone,we came up to him and asked him how much would it cost. The guy looked kind off confused and asked us where do we come from?
Israel.
At that moment that guy said he can’t pierce our nose because he doesn’t serve Israelis out of principal. He said he doesn’t agree with what our government does and there for we are not welcomed in his shop.
Principal? You can’t descriminate people out of principal. He even pointed out a sign that we missed saying “No Israelis served here”.
Mohr Wenger Photo: Facebook
A sign that means “I don’t want to listen, I don’t care who you are but if you are from Israel go away”. That’s sugarcoating antisemitism. That’s sugarcoating racism.
I remember learning about such things in history class but I never thought I would be in such a situation myself. Not alone at the other end of the world in the land of “no worries”.
By the way, when we left the shop he told us “no worries”. Well I didn’t, before I met you.
*I was so disturbed I couldn’t focus when I took the picture.”
Fairfax Media reports that Cold Steel Piercing in Cairns did not respond following attempts to talk to them.
Cairns-based Rabbi Ari Ruben told J-Wire: “Mohr is one of the Israelis that came to our Seder. A couple of Israelis here saw the sign and want to go tomorrow to confront him…and we’ll see if it’s still there tomorrow.”
The executive director of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim told J-Wire: “This is a disgraceful example of the childish spite and ignorance that underpins so much of the discourse in the bizarre universe of the anti-Israel movement. Yet it is also more sinister than that. It was not so long ago that signs in shops in Nazi Germany read “No Jews served here” and signs in retail establishments in some of the southern States in the US, and in some regional towns in Australia, read “No blacks served here”. I wonder how the owner of the shop would feel if he travelled overseas and was refused service in a shop with a sign saying “No Australians served here” and was told that this is because the owner does not like some of the Australian government’s policies.
What this shop in Cairns has done is in clear violation of the Racial Discrimination Act. If the two young Israelis who received this appalling treatment lodge a racial discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission, the ECAJ will provide them with every assistance.”
Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Australia’s leading civil rights organisation, Dr Dvir Abramovich said he was aghast and distressed by the reported conduct.
“The diseased clouds of bigotry and Israeli hatred have clearly darkened the skies of Cairns,” he said.
“This blatant act of exclusion stains our community and must be denounced vigorously by all leaders.
Such a shameful display of discrimination violates and betrays the Australian spirit of civility, inclusiveness and respect for people of all backgrounds and countries.
It also sends the wrong message to all potential tourists that there are those in our country who choose the path of exclusion … instead of extending a hand of friendship and putting out the welcome mat.
Does the owner refuse to serve people from any other nations, or just those from the only Jewish state on earth?
We call on the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission to investigate this outrageous episode and to take the necessary steps to ensure this type of stigmatisation does not happen again.”
The Israeli tourist will return home to her gated or walled off part of Israel I assume. No Palestinians served here?
Have you even been there Jackson?
The Israeli Arabs are treated better than some
Israelis! You clearly need to brush up on some facts
About the place!
It’s only their enemies who are walled off – the ones who
Keep firing missiles. I’m sure you wouldn’t like your enemies
Firing missiles at you over your garden fence!
Get real Mr Jackson- you need a history lesson!
The “gates and walls” Adrian are there (where they exist) because some of the Palestinians were unable to control themselves from murderous bomb and knife attacks of Israel’s civilian population. And it worked for many years. Today, the murderers have become more inventive in their evil. And “evil” it is however one looks at it.
Ask a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and there are a substantial number of them, to make a choice between Israeli citizenship and Palestinian citizenship! And the result .. For Israel ‘a substantial number’ For Palestine ‘zero’.
In Israel. Palestinians are very welcomed … but on the condition that they respect the laws of the land. Murderers, of any nationality are not welcomed, and strenuous efforts are made to exclude them just the same as in Australia.
What a disgrace.
Tourists refused service in a “tourist” town.
Maybe the local Chamber of Commerce should have a word with the owner of that business.
Perhaps that owner could be presented with a list of atrocious activities of each country our newspapers tell us on a daily basis. He would end up with very few tourist customers.
Then he could post a more inclusive ban in his shop window.
TOURISTS NOT SERVED HERE. Better still CUSTOMERS NOT SERVED HERE.
Then he could get on with his life of bigotry offending everyone equally.
You are so right Roy Sims! Can you imagine the number
Of (real enemy) customers he serves? People from countries
Who REALLY have a hatred from anyone White, religious
Etc! Bigoted indeed! He won’t be in the TOURIST industry for
Very long after word gets around!
Bs it’s not anti Semitic
1) she’s not the govt
2) he’s not anti Syrian. Look what that govt is doing
Bigot city. As are his defenders. I call a horse a horse
Why do Jews get this? Because of an old illness
Called anti Semitism
Let him donate all his extra money to terrorists. Yeah like Israel is so unethical. It’s a democracy. No Israeli Arab wants to leave. No Arab country will take Palestinians. They turned down an offer to receive over 90% of the land they wanted. Israel withdraws West Bank hamas moves in fires missiles. People pick on Israel because there are so few Jews it’s easy. Same bds supporters care less about genocide in Syria.
Obvously female genital mutilation, child bride marriage verging on
Paedophilia,sanctioned wife bashing, and beheading does not bother this person .
But the one and only Jewish homeland does.
And Samuel Terry has the gall to say–not Antisemitism!!!…Really?
Are the same standards here applied to Jews/Israel as any one other group on the planet Earth?
Russians//Chinese/Ukrainians/Iranians/Pakistanis?Gazans?Islamic State/………
Part of antisemitism Mr Terry is the constant and predictable cry of…”I am not
an antisemite!”
Any business has the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
You’re in good form s usual…https://www.business.gov.au/info/plan-and-start/start-your-business/what-is-customer-service/refusing-service.
Excellent point and Apartheid is a very good reason.
And you too! Don’t just follow the uneducated, ill-informed
And herd-like group of anti-semites. Read some reliable
Literature from reliable academic political sources which
Highlight the fact that Israel behaves its way to success
For many reasons – one day you may be mighty thankful she
Didn’t cave in to her enemies. Read!
Don’t expect anything intelligent from Allison Carmichael. She spouts apartheid, genocide, child-killing Zionists at every opportunity on her hate-filled Facebook and Twitter sites. She even claimed in one exchange that Israel was killing 720 Palestinians for every ONE Israeli killed. I’ve never known anyone quite so dumb as to accept every electronic intifada and pro-Palestinian broadsheet just on face value.
Af for ‘aparheid’, I pointed out that between 1972-1991, almost twenty years, Israel and the neighbouring West Bank and Gaza were completely open territories, no barriers or checkpoints. Then the wave of suicide bombings came and the barriers started appearing. It isn’t the Israelis who practice apartheid, but the Palestinians (or at least some of them)… who can’t bear the presence of Jews amongst them without killing them. If it wasn’t for this habit of Palestinian jihadism and ‘martyrdom’, the barriers would not exist.
But without them, I fear Israel and the West Bank would be no better than current-day Syria.
1. Refusing to serve someone on the basis of their citizenship is wrong. Now let’s get to the nitty-gritty.
2. This tourist is clearly a Jewish citizen of Israel. Btw, there’s no such thing as Israeli nationality; in Israel, nationality is classified according to religion (such as Jewish) or ethnicity (such as Arab), and people who live there permanently are considered citizens.
2. Roughly 20% of the population is non-Jewish. For this reason alone it’s ridiculous to refuse service to someone from Israel in the belief that this registers opposition to Israel’s abuse of Palestinian rights.
3. Approximately 50 laws distinguish specifically between Jews and non-Jews, and that’s just within the Green Line (Israel has no borders either, as it has always refused to accept limits upon its territorial ambitions).
4. Opposition to an ideology such as Zionism or a political system such as Apartheid
Surprising and difficult. The man, however, makes it quite clear in Mohr’s account, that he objects to the actions of the Israeli government. That does not constitute “anti-semetism”. Nor is it “racism”. But then, Mohr may be an ESL student…
Regards.
Israel is made up of many religion and racial groups.
Why her? Did she write policy?
Why Israel? Worst country? Go visit.
Then be gay next door see what happens to yoh
Mr Terry .. no matter Mohr’s status – in my eyes ANY sign like that constitutes
Anti-Israel, anti- Jewish and anti establishment. That’s all tantamount to antisemitic and
Racist! What else is it? A xmas greeting? Welcoming? Affable? The man who wrote the sign
Dislikes Jews! Is the Pope catholic?
You may be able to get him under Section 18C!
HARRASMENT is the very least of his troubles!
Disgusting behavior !
“Get him” that sounds vindictive Erica. Just dont go to the shop if you are not happy.
Also Erica Israelis are not a single religion or race so 18C would not apply and they are not being harassed either by a sign.