fbpx

Australian lawmakers support Israeli business

Australia’s foreign minister joined a Jewish legislator inside an Israeli business that was a target of a boycott call by pro-Palestinian activists.
[additional-authors]
July 14, 2011

Australia’s foreign minister joined a Jewish legislator inside an Israeli business that was a target of a boycott call by pro-Palestinian activists.

Foreign Minster Kevin Rudd was invited by Michael Danby, a Labor government lawmaker, to Max Brenner’s chocolate shop in downtown Melbourne on Thursday in what Danby described as “symbolic act” of solidarity with Israel and the local Jewish community.

Three policemen were injured during the July 1 demonstration against the Brenner store, part of an Israeli chain. Nineteen protesters were arrested.

Organizers said they had targeted Max Brenner because its Israeli parent company, the Strauss Group, engaged in “ongoing ethnic cleansing” by supporting the Israel Defense Forces. Strauss provides care packages and sports equipment to the IDF’s Golani and Givati brigades.

Danby, the new chair of Australia’s Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Committee, said Rudd was “shocked at the historical precedent of the protests against Israeli and Jewish shops.”

Rudd, who stepped down last year as prime minister, said, “I don’t think in 21st-century Australia there is a place for the attempted boycott of a Jewish business.” He added: “I thought we had learned that from history.”

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Who Knows?

When future generations tell your story and mine, which parts will look obvious in hindsight? What opportunities will we have leveraged — and decisions made — that define our legacy?

You Heard It Here First, Folks!

For over half a decade, I had seen how the slow drip of antisemitism, carefully enveloped in the language of social justice and human rights, had steadily poisoned people whom I had previously considered perfectly reasonable.

Trump’s Critics Have a Lot Riding on the Iran Conflict

Their assumptions about the attack on Iran are based on a belief in the resilience of an evil terrorist regime, coupled with a conviction that Trump’s belief in the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance is inherently wrong.

Me Llamo Miguel

With Purim having just passed, I’ve been thinking about how Jews have been disguising ourselves over the years.

The Hope of Return

This moment calls for moral imagination. For solidarity with the Iranian people demanding dignity. For sustained support of those who seek a freer future.

Stranded by War

We are struggling on two fronts: we worry about friends and family, and we are preoccupied with our own “survival” on a trip extended beyond our control.

Love Letters to Israel

Looking around at the tears, laughter, and joy after two years of hell, the show was able to not just touch but nourish our souls.

Neil Sedaka, Brooklyn-Born Hit-Maker, Dies at 86

Neil Sedaka was born March 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Mac and Eleanor Sedaka. His father was Sephardic and his mother Ashkenazi; Sedaka was a transliteration of the Hebrew “tzedakah.”

Letter to the UC Board of Regents on Fighting Antisemitism

We write as current and former UC faculty, many of us in STEM fields and professional schools, in response to the release of When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California.

Shabbat in a Bunker

It turned out that this first round of sirens was a wake-up call, a warning that Israel and America were attacking – so we could expect a different day of rest than all of us had planned.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.