Program notes for Melbourne Writers Festival session implies an obscene falsehood

The taxpayer-funded festival is parroting the propaganda of extremists – that Palestinians are as indigenous to Israel as Aboriginal people to Australia.

Those stones don’t lie. I stood last week at the exact spot in Jerusalem that proves the activists who’ve hijacked the Melbourne Writers Festival are fools or frauds.

I’m talking about the pro-Palestinian activists who last week made their deputy chairman resign in protest by turning her festival into a hate-Israel circus.

These haters scheduled a session that comes with program notes implying an obscene falsehood: “Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity has a long history, a relationship that is more vital than ever in the movement to resist colonialism and speak out against atrocities.”

Colonialism? And so the taxpayer-funded writers’ festival now parrots the propaganda of Palestinian extremists – that Palestinians are as indigenous to Israel as Aboriginal people to Australia, and both face a common white enemy of settlers. Invaders. Colonialists.

A session’s program notes discusses ‘Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity’. Picture: Valeriu Campan

In fact, the so-called Palestinian “embassy” in Canberra published a paper which couldn’t be clearer about that: “Israel and Australia were both founded on the destruction of the existing native population, replacing this population with a new, European one.”

But like I said, the stones don’t lie, even if activists do. And they say that linking the Aboriginal and Palestinian causes like that is a hoax, and anti-Semitic.

Where I stood last week was in front of the famous Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.

It’s the last scrap that remains of the great Second Temple of the Jews, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, nearly 2000 years ago. Jews have prayed there ever since – when they were allowed – because it’s the closest they can get to the Holy of Holies, the room that supposedly once held the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments.

The famous Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. Picture: AFP

That room was said to be in the First Temple, built at that site probably around 3000 years ago but torn down by Babylonians in 586BC.

But if you’re at the Western Wall, look up. You’ll see what Muslim conquerors from Saudi Arabia built on top of this Jewish site “just” 1300 years ago – the golden-domed al-Aqsa mosque.

The stones tell us Muslim Arabs colonised a Jewish sacred site that was thousands of years older than their imported new religion.

So what came first? The Jewish foundations or the Muslim mosque built on top of them?

A question, then: if Australia’s chic writers really want to support the indigenous people of Israel, why don’t they support the Jews? The answer seems ugly.