Arabist lobby

Mr Danby (Melbourne Ports) (6.10 pm)—I grieve for the state of Middle Eastern studies in Australia, and the effect that some poor judgments and poor teaching have had on policy decisions as it affects decision making in Australia. This particular issue has been brought to mind by recent criticisms of the pro-Israel lobby in Australia, by some critics who are perfectly free to make their criticism, but who have argued that that lobby has distorted Australian debates. As I recently commented to Jon Faine, an ABC host in Melbourne, it is interesting to reflect on the fact that the ABC is far more balanced now than it was in the past, perhaps because of well-justified past criticisms of the ABC’s inadequacies. I can only praise Matt Brown and Mark Willacy, who are ABC reporters, and Tony Jones, who have been very fair on this very difficult issue over time. I think it is partially reflective of the public pressure that has been put, particularly on the ABC, to adopt a balanced stance over time on this issue.

We have seen that public and political pressure have a good effect on public affairs reporting in Australia, where you get both sides of the argument being put. Unfortunately that is not the case in academia. This was crystallised by what I regard as an out-of-touch remark from a serious academic, Dr Andrew Vincent from the Macquarie University Centre for Middle East and North Africa Studies, on Melbourne radio. He is the only person I know outside the Muslim Reference Group who joined them in demanding that the Prime Minister delist Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Frankly, I do not know where Dr Vincent was coming from, but if you look at the content of some of the commentary he has been making over the years, if you look at the nature of the speakers who are asked to speak to his faculty, if you look the views of his colleague Dr Amin Saikal you would think that only one view was being put in these august academic institutions.

In the Sydney Morning Herald in January 2003, Amin Saikal, who is at the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, accused Israel of using disproportionate force to contain what they call terrorism, including suicide bombing. I do not think many people outside the august halls of academy at the ANU regard suicide bombing anywhere as anything other than terrorism, and something that all decent people would be opposed to. I know Dr Saikal is opposed to terrorism. He is a very learned man, but the impression that suicide bombing was some peculiar thought of the Israelis as being a form of terrorism is something I know is shared by all Australians and by most countries around the world. Dr Saikal has also said that he believes:

Iran has developed a sort of democracy which may not accord with Western ideals, but provides for a degree of mass participation, political pluralism and assurance of certain human rights and freedoms …

Let’s get this straight. In Iran there is mass persecution of minority religions, whether they are Zoroastrian or, in particular, the Baha’i faith. Let’s not have any equivocation or shilly-shallying about this: the torture of and the attitude towards the Baha’i in Iran are a disgrace to any country. Any objective analyst would cry out on behalf of the persecuted Baha’i of Iran.

Dr Saikal’s comment about ‘certain human rights’ also seems very peculiar to me in the context of the decision at the last Iranian elections to exclude 1,000 candidates, including some hundreds of sitting members of parliament, from being able to contest the elections. With that decision I think you can understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, why the current Iranian government has adopted such an extreme international posture in calling for the elimination of certain countries. Recently, at the Islamic conference in Malaysia the Iranian president canvassed the elimination of Israel. The Supreme Leader of Iran has talked about the idea of a nuclear exchange between his country and Israel, saying: ‘We could eliminate all of the people of Israel; we would take tens of millions of casualties but we would survive.’ What a bizarre and monstrous idea to openly canvass the prospect of nuclear war. The democracy lacking in Iran is something that we should certainly be very critical of, despite the shoddy excuses of Dr Saikal.

Let me turn to some of the extreme statements of Dr Vincent, who leads the other Middle Eastern faculty that seems to be quoted a lot in the Australian media. He wrote in the Macquarie University News, the university’s own publication—and I am indebted to Ted Lapkin for bringing this out:

The Israelis quite possibly murdered Yasser Arafat.

This is one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories, which one reads only in the far left and conspiracy press around the world. That a serious university newspaper would publish such nonsense and that a serious university faculty teaching our students Middle Eastern studies would propagate this stuff is staggering and something that they should be held to account for. In 1990, I remember, because I complained about this a lot myself at the time, Dr Vincent argued that Saddam Hussein had a legitimate case for his expansionist designs. It is no wonder that the New South Wales Department of Education and Training has decided to stop the distribution of this faculty’s education program through New South Wales schools because of its incipient bias.

In the context of the recent war in the Middle East, speakers at Macquarie University this year have included the Syrian ambassador, Robert Fisk, Peter Rogers—a former Australian ambassador to that part of the world who touched me up quite unfairly in the Australian Book Review recently—and Sheikha Lubna al-Qassimi, a United Arab Emirates minister. All of these people seem to be putting only one side of the debate. Their cover story would be that there was a single Israeli legal scholar, Professor Eli Salzberger, an academic lawyer who is not political and does not speak about anything to do with the politics of the region, would be regarded by the faculty as some kind of balance. Professor Vincent’s course has also entertained Uri Davis and Ilan Pappe, who are well-known people with extreme views on this issue. To me Macquarie University is not providing balance to its students by having speakers, academics and propagandists, on one side of the argument.

All of this would be of rather minor concern except for the effect on public policy in Australia that this has in the long term. It leads to a distortion of Australian public policy. We are going to see that soon—and I know it is a long bow to draw, but I am going to draw it anyhow—with the Cole commission. The Cole commission will bring down some very grave findings about how Australian policy concerning that part of the world is made. Let me say nothing more about the decisions of the inquiry than this: I believe that over many years a lobby has existed in this country that has led to serious looting, almost pillaging, of Australian taxpayers’ money to provide effective subsidies to countries in that part of the world which we knew at the time would never be repaid.

Australia has given money in taxpayer–funded wheat subsidies to the Saddam Hussein regime for years when we knew that that money would be used to feed the Iraqi people, yes, but it would enable the Iraqi government, who would never repay the money, to spent hard currency on armaments. This is the result of endless one-sided propaganda by university faculties producing graduates who move into the Department of Foreign Affairs and other organs of this government with a one-sided view of the conflict in the Middle East. We need to have a balanced view on the issue of the Middle East. As pressure has been on the ABC, so should it be on these faculties of Middle Eastern studies.