28th March 2013
Dr Dan­ny Lamm and Peter Wertheim, the Pres­i­dent and the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry, sharply crit­i­cized the call by the Aus­tralian Jew­ish Demo­c­ra­t­ic Soci­ety for a boy­cott of prod­ucts from the West Bank, describ­ing it as “a mis­guid­ed and emp­ty ges­ture that will be com­plete­ly reject­ed by the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, and by fair-mind­ed peo­ple every­where.”
Accord­ing to Lamm and Wertheim, “the AJDS has suc­cumbed to the myth that set­tle­ments are the major imped­i­ment to Mid­dle East peace. That notion has been thor­ough­ly dis­cred­it­ed, as has the idea that a boy­cott of any kind can make a con­struc­tive con­tri­bu­tion to peace between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans.”
Asked whether the AJDS should remain for­mal­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, Lamm and Wertheim said, “the AJDS cam­paign is repug­nant to the strong anti-BDS poli­cies of every Jew­ish com­mu­nal roof body in Aus­tralia, and to the ECAJ plat­form of sup­port for Israel and its legit­i­ma­cy as the State of the Jew­ish peo­ple. In those cir­cum­stances, it is hyp­o­crit­i­cal for the AJDS to main­tain its affil­i­a­tion with the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of Vic­to­ria. If the motive for con­tin­u­ing that affil­i­a­tion is to pre­serve the appear­ance that the AJDS is a legit­i­mate part of the main­stream Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, then its behav­iour is also mis­lead­ing. The AJDS should not remain a part of the JCCV while it pur­sues poli­cies that are so fun­da­men­tal­ly at odds with those of the JCCV and the ECAJ.”

Con­tact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au