The Zionist Federation of Australia rejected the NTEU motion.
ZFA President Jeremy Leibler said, “The NTEU has packed lies, half truths and obfuscations into a motion that is specifically designed to reduce understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to increase the exclusion and danger that Jewish Australians are facing on campus.”
Mr Leibler continued, “While spurious and easily disproven allegations about Israel are offensive and highlight the wilful ignorance of NTEU members, the real harm in this motion is the denial of Jewish indigeneity – indeed, Jewish connection – to the land of Israel. Far from being a colonialist endeavour, Israel is the self-determination of its indigenous inhabitants. Describing Israel as practising colonialism, apartheid and genocide is a deliberate tactic designed to seek to ostracise anyone who supports Israel’s existence. It is a deliberate tactic designed to exclude almost every Jew in Australia.”
Mr Leibler rejected the motion’s paragraphs on antisemitism. “That the NTEU has the temerity to define and tell the Jewish community what is and isn’t antisemitism is deeply insulting. The definition the community overwhelmingly endorses is the one also endorsed by the UN, by the EU and by Australian federal and state governments – the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.”
