AIJAC

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC^[1]), is a lobby group based in Melbourne, Australia. It is active in lobbying the Australian government on issues of concern to Australian Jews and advocating on behalf of Israel. The organisation is directed by Dr. Colin Rubenstein, who was previously a political science lecturer at Monash University.

The organisation publishes a monthly magazine, Australia/Israel Review^[2] or AIR (formerly titled The Review), featuring articles on issues of concern to the Australian Jewish community. Current and archived issues of the magazine are available on the magazine's website, and the organisation also distributes news and alerts to subscribers by email.

AIJAC is formally associated with the American Jewish Committee.

Political activities

In 2016, AIJAC accused then senator Nick Xenophon of being "highly and one-sidedly critical of Israel" during his time in the Australian Senate.^[3] The organisation also criticised the Australian Greens for trying to make Israel the "sole-aggressor" against Palestine.

In 2018, AIJAC lodged a complaint with the ABC regarding an online article which claimed that Hamas was declared a terrorist organisation because of it activities against Israeli "occupation" of Palestine. The ABC complaints unit agreed with AIJAC that Hamas's status was not, according to the Australian Government, based on any occupation.^[4] Dr. Rubenstein said:

"The ABC news coverage of events in Gaza and Israel’s south on... July 15, was indeed problematic, setting out the Israeli attacks against Gaza without providing adequate context of the reasons for these strikes... However, we note that the reports... on that night’s ABC TV news and the following morning’s ‘AM’ program on ABC radio were a significant improvement... We hope that the latter two reports are indicative that future ABC reporting on Israel will endeavor to be professional and fair, as it has sometimes failed to be in the recent past."^[5]

References