Sydney University Disruption: B’nai B’rith has its say
The president of B’nai B’rith NSW has written to Sydney University in the wake of the protest which disrupted a lecture being delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp.
President Ivan Kaplan wrote to Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence:
Dr Michael Spence
The University of Sydney,
SYDNEY NSW 2006
Dear Dr Spence
I write in response to the deeply disturbing events of 11 March 2015, in which an address by Colonel Richard Kemp was not only disrupted, but members of the audience were subjected to vilification and attack. Our universities should be places of open discourse, where all views are able to be discussed and debated in a civilised way without vilification or aggression towards those holding opposing views.
B’nai B’rith, as the oldest community service organisation in the world, has as one of its main guiding principles the acceptance of Jewish people of all streams and shades of belief, coming together in a spirit of goodwill and understanding. This idea of pluralism also underlies the ethos of our universities. Any attack on these principles undermines the whole basis of academic teaching and enquiry.
In the case of the recent attacks against Col. Kemp, orchestrated by Assoc. Prof. Jake Lynch and Dr Nicholas Riemer, B’nai B’rith NSW welcomes the investigation that your University has promised, and urges you to ensure that the inquiry is both impartial and broad-ranging, with terms of reference including other similar recent incidents involving Assoc. Prof. Jake Lynch.
Furthermore, and without preempting the results of this specific inquiry, we urge you to commit to restoring a genuine climate of free debate at Sydney University in which all can participate and attend without fear of intimidation.
Perhaps Jack Lynch prefers a teaching method where Palestinian children are made to carry miniature replicas of AK 47s ,wearing headbands with hate slogans and are being exposed to hate speech against Israel in particular and Jews in general to the program developed by Dan Avnon for both Jewish and Arab children.
No doubt the very antisemitic Lynch and his mob would be in awe of such teaching methods. What a sad, sick irony. Peace studies at Sydney University. I’ll bet everything I own Lynch wouldn’t dream of setting foot anywhere near the civilian communities in the hot spots where Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS and other barbaric animals hide their weapons and fire their arsenal from behind helpless and brain-washed school children and their repressed mothers who have no aim in life but to want all Israelis dead. What bigotry, Lynch. Your tax-payer funded job is tenuous. Its just a matter of time before your not-so-passive aggression, your mis-guided and ill-informed hatred (yeah, right, peace studies) for the Jewish people exposes a shame you will live to regret. GET A REAL JOB, LYNCH. Read some reliable Literature. Speak to people who matter. And if you can’t do that, go and live in the Middle East. You can teach your peace studies there. Shame on you.
This man NEEDS to be exposed for the racist and antisemitic bigot that he is. Dan Avnon came from Israel in the name of peace. Mr Lynch needs to be sacked, charged with racism and NEVER allowed to teach again. Every university campus in Australia needs to be warned about this man. He CANNOT be allowed to teach our young students who need to know the TRUTH about the crisis in the Middle East.
I fully agree this man has no right to teach his bigotry and racist beliefs and Australian tax payers should not pay his salary .He must go
It would be surely incumbent the University of Sydney vice Chancellor S Spence how he gave Jake Lynch the authority to ban an Israeli Jew from Sydney University premises?! Dan Avnon merely wanted to help Jewish and Arab children with research work!
Worse: it was the Zelman Cowen scholarship Lynch had ostensible control over!
It is known the the much – beloved late Governor – General was indeed Jewish
THE AUSTRALIAN
DECEMBER 12 2012
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/academic-defends-stance-on-israel/story-e6frgcjx-1226531652010
”THE head of the University of Sydney Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies has defended his refusal to assist an Israeli civics teacher who has designed programs for Jewish and Arab children with research work in Australia.
In a stinging critique of Australia’s foreign policy, Jake Lynch said the centre boycotted Israeli institutions “because of the deficiencies of official foreign policy and diplomacy by Australia and other influential states”.
He said supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel sent a “message of unacceptability for Israel’s expansionist policies and militarism”. “The message has not been clear enough from many governments, including Australia’s, and that has contributed to the problem,” Mr Lynch said.”
The Australian revealed yesterday that the centre had rejected a bid by Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon, credited with developing and implementing Israel’s only state program in civics written for joint Jewish-Arab high school students, for assistance with research on the basis of the policy.