Pro-Israel lobby appoints first campus watchdog

Pro-Israel lobby appoints first campus watchdog
Brendan O'Keefe, The Australian, April 16, 2008
Joel Burnie, 23, the first campus co-ordinator to promote Israel and Jewish culture, doubts there is systematic academic bias against Israel.

"I'd like to do some proper investigation to see if there is a systemic problem but I do not believe there is," said Mr Burnie, a Monash University arts-law student. "(But) we need to make sure that all academic opinions are being expressed equally on campus."

The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council has appointed him inaugural (part-time) student program co-ordinator for universities across the country. It's a joint venture with the US campus movement StandWithUs, which advertises itself as "the next generation of Israel advocacy".

Australian academe was a "rogues' gallery of anti-Zionists", Ted Lapkin, former AIJAC director of policy analysis, wrote in Quadrant magazine in 2006.

Asked if his role had been created to counter anti-Israel bias or anti-Semitic activity, Mr Burnie said: "This position has not been created out of an emergent necessity." Rather, he would be "an on-campus advocate for Israel and Jewish culture". "The role involves promotion of Israeli culture and promotion of Israeli speakers that may come out to Australia. It will give students access to these people so they can listen and be educated."

AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein said in a statement that the Burnie appointment represented a "serious effort to increase understanding about the Middle East at Australian universities".

"It demonstrates that AIJAC and SWU appreciate how important campuses are in shaping public opinion," he said.

SWU president Esther Renzer welcomed Mr Burnie's appointment on standwithus.com, saying: "When Jewish and non-Jewish students are presented with a comprehensive and balanced picture of Israel, they understand that what they might read in the newspapers, or hear on radio, or see on television, is not always true or fair."

Last year Mr Burnie was national president of the Australian Union of Jewish Students.

He said would continue the inter-faith work he did through that organisation, talking with Muslim and Christian student groups. In his five years on three campuses, he had found relations between students to be "quite healthy".

"People can interact socially; I don't think there's too much of a problem," he said.

"But we need to help students become better informed about what is a complicated situation (in the Middle East)."