Following the recent controversy over Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies and its simulation programs, Director Andrew Vincent responds in this week's Australian Jewish News (February 9):
HEAVY-HANDED BOARD
"The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has been successful in pressuring the NSW Department of Education to cancel Middle East simulations for high school history students (AJN 27/1). These simulations had been run with the help of the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at Macquarie University, of which I am the director.
"The simulations for high school students have been popular among students and praised by teachers and parents alike for helping students understand the issues in an imaginative and highly-effective manner. We have not received a single complaint about the conduct of the simulations from any student, parent or teacher. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies action will be seen by many as heavy-handed and unfair. It has stifled legitimate discussion of the issues in the Middle East.
"I would urge the Board of Deputies to take great care in this matter. Australians expect open, fair debate of issues such as the Middle East. Just because my centre examines all points of view does not mean we have an 'anti-Israel bias', as claimed by Michael Danby MP. Of the 10 speakers we had on campus last year no less than three were Israelis. Only one was an Arab.
"In my opinion, one of the best speakers we have had was Professor Eli Salzberger from Haifa University. We invited him at the suggestion of the Jewish chaplain at Macquarie. That’s hardly displaying an anti-Israel bias.
"In its haste to push a pro-Israel line and stifle debate, the Board of Deputies has needlessly limited the educational opportunities for NSW high school students. It is also wrong to smear this centre with the label 'anti-Israel bias' when it is patently untrue."
Dr Andrew Vincent
Director, Centre for Middle East & North African Studies
Macquarie University, NSW
HEAVY-HANDED BOARD
"The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has been successful in pressuring the NSW Department of Education to cancel Middle East simulations for high school history students (AJN 27/1). These simulations had been run with the help of the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at Macquarie University, of which I am the director.
"The simulations for high school students have been popular among students and praised by teachers and parents alike for helping students understand the issues in an imaginative and highly-effective manner. We have not received a single complaint about the conduct of the simulations from any student, parent or teacher. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies action will be seen by many as heavy-handed and unfair. It has stifled legitimate discussion of the issues in the Middle East.
"I would urge the Board of Deputies to take great care in this matter. Australians expect open, fair debate of issues such as the Middle East. Just because my centre examines all points of view does not mean we have an 'anti-Israel bias', as claimed by Michael Danby MP. Of the 10 speakers we had on campus last year no less than three were Israelis. Only one was an Arab.
"In my opinion, one of the best speakers we have had was Professor Eli Salzberger from Haifa University. We invited him at the suggestion of the Jewish chaplain at Macquarie. That’s hardly displaying an anti-Israel bias.
"In its haste to push a pro-Israel line and stifle debate, the Board of Deputies has needlessly limited the educational opportunities for NSW high school students. It is also wrong to smear this centre with the label 'anti-Israel bias' when it is patently untrue."
Dr Andrew Vincent
Director, Centre for Middle East & North African Studies
Macquarie University, NSW
8 Comments:
I was not personally involved in these simulations. I joined the board well after it started. I do support them, however.
The 'evidence' presented of its bias will be the usual Zionist apologia. In short, humanising the Palestinians is a crime, and danger, best avoided, in some views.
I'm told the simulations will continue in some way.
This battle has a long way to run.
I did two of these sims when I was at Club Mac and they were A LOT of fun. I can't see where the JBD is coming from here. I mean, sheesh, the guys playing Mossad ALWAYS had the most fun throughout the sim and everyone involved came away with a greater understanding of the major issues affecting the Middle East.
Thats interesting. So a government department agreed with the Board of Deputies yet it is somehow the fault of the Jews yet again.
Surely it is Andrew Vincent who has been condemned for putting together an unsuitable program and is now looking for someone to blame.
Typically he has misrepresented the issue as saying that it was a "stifled legal discussion" when in fact it was considered an unsuitable and biased simulation.
Playing the numbers game ie how many jews vs how many arabs is completely off the point as we have demonstrated that you can be a jewish arab apologist. It has no bearing whatsoever on whether the program is biased. The Education department clearly agreed that it was.
addamo I don't quite understand what "unquesrionabel merrits" means.
It is self-evident that had the program been meritorious and balanced it would not have been banned. Vincent is responsible for putting together an inappropriate program. It was the decision of the education department not the Jewish community.
addamo, I don't think that you understand what 'denial' means. If you did you would see that the facts speak for themselves and it is you who is in denial over them.
addamo are Jews only correct when they are condemning other Jews? What is your evidence that the Education Department erred? Surely you are just offended by this decision.
addamo, I am basing my assumption on the fact that the public service banned the program. It does not hold that if the organisers didn't get complaints then it was not flawed. There are many people to complain to beyond Macquarie.
It is your view that there has been "ample input" from Israel's political reality. Indeed this comes back to ALs appointment as "a Jew" when he does not represent Israel's own view of its political reality. Have you entertained the possibility that Dr Vincent has deliberately chosen people who similarly show anti-Israel bias?
What is your evidence that the Education Department is biased, beyond your supposition?
I ask the question about your position because it seems that you condemn whatever the Jewish community do on every occasion. The only Jews you seem to support are the ones who are against mainstream opinion. Does that not indicate something about yourself?
Danby is completely transparent about his position. He is a committed Zionist. He represents both his electorate (who continue to elect him) and the Jewish community. Many other members of parliament have special interest groups. He is not an appeaser, he is a committed Jew. You don't seem to understand that Danby is not beholden to anyone. Many of us wear several different hats in life and it is your preoccupation with Jews doing this which to my eyes and ears seems sinister.
' yet it is somehow the fault of the Jews yet again'
Oh go and take a pill or something.
The Jewish lobby wherever it exists does itself and Israelis a great disservice because it refuses to countenance open, transparent discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
No doubt sourced in cultural paranoia and a high level of denial, it takes the position that ANY criticism of Israel is to be quashed no matter how true it might be.
There's a knee-jerk reaction here which comes from a religion and culture sourced in a belief of 'rightness' and by extension, 'superiority.'
I am sure many Jews and Israelis know when they are doing something 'wrong', but, when it comes to Israel they do not care because the only thing that matters at the end of the day is the welfare of Jews. That's what their religion teaches and that is what the culture believes because of the levels of paranoid and dysfunctional thinking developed over years of diaspora and persecution.
The Jewish/Israeli response is not rational and that is why it is so hard to resist. They play the 'holocaust card' and while it has lost some of its tune, it still resonates with many people.
But, as history shows, truth will ultimately out and the 'holocaust industry' has become so debased that in time it will be meaningless.
At which point Truth will still be waiting.
The saddest thing about all of this, is not so much what it does or does not do for students but what it does in terms of the continuing debasement of Israeli and Jewish culture.
Any culture based on lies, denial, distortions and corruption of truth is doomed.
And nobody wants that apart from a few nutters.
In the best of worlds Israel survives, on original borders, as the sort of nation it would wish to be. Not as a debased pariah in the world.
Heh. The General Assembly. The most ignored forum in international diplomacy - for good reason.
It would be interesting to compile a dossier of all the wacky resolutions it's come out with over the years.
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