KEVIN Rudd will be “good for the Jews”, most senior communal leaders predicted this week, describing the new Opposition leader as a “personal” friend of Israel.

But others, including supporters of ousted leader Kim Beazley, have criticised Rudd’s “premature” ascent to the Labor leadership and have questioned the credentials of new shadow deputy Julia Gillard, who hails from what one analyst described as “the notoriously anti-Israel left faction”, and remains a virtual unknown in the Jewish community.

Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) president Philip Chester said Rudd, who has served as Labor’s foreign affairs spokesperson since 2001, “understands the issues” facing the Jewish community and Israel.

In a joint letter to Rudd, Chester and Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Grahame Leonard praised the new Opposition leader’s “personal and deep friendship with Israel”.

But among what is otherwise an unblemished record on Israel, Chester recalled his “disappointment” at Rudd’s comment in 2004 that Australia should have abstained, instead of voting against, the UN resolution on the International Court of Justice’s ruling condemning Israel’s security fence.
However, Chester added that in the years since, Rudd has “had quite a bit more exposure to the issues regarding Israel”, including trips to the Jewish State in 2003 and 2005.

Albert Dadon, chair of the Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange, accompanied Rudd on both visits. He said Beazley had lost too many times and had made too many mistakes.

“[Beazley] had plenty of chances. I believe it’s Kevin’s turn,” he said, adding that he had phoned to congratulate Rudd, a close friend, on Monday.

Herald and Weekly Times executive editor Alan Howe, who joined Rudd’s 2005 trip to Israel, praised the new leader’s “diplomatic firmness” in dealing with the Palestinians and was impressed with the way he carried himself in meetings with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.

But Member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby, a staunch Beazley loyalist and the only Jewish member of caucus, this week revealed his reluctance to cast his vote for Rudd.

“Voting against Kim Beazley was a very painful thing to do, but my first duty as a Labor member is to maximise our chance of success,” Danby said.

Rudd defeated Beazley in Monday’s ballot 49-39. It was the third time Beazley had contested – and lost – a leadership battle. Gillard, the Opposition’s health spokesperson, was elected unopposed to the deputy position.

Emeritus Professor Sol Encel, a research fellow at the University of NSW and the author of a chapter on “Jews and the Australian Labor Party” in Jews and Australian Politics, said that although Gillard comes from a “notoriously anti-Israel” left-wing faction of the ALP, she would be unlikely to “rock the boat as far as foreign affairs are concerned”.
In her defence, Dr Philip Mendes, who co-edited Jews and Australian Politics with Dr Geoffrey Braham Levey, believed Gillard’s position on the Middle East was “not typical” of her faction.

Chester said the fact he had “never heard her say a word about the Middle East” was no indication of any lack of support for Israel, but added that he was more comfortable with Gillard filling the deputy role having been to Israel, which she visited for the first time last year.

Among those Beazley supporters licking their wounds this week was Labor stalwart Saul Same, who said he was “devastated” by the result of the ballot. “I felt that Kim, without being heckled by his own people, would have won [next year’s] election.

“I could see Rudd filling that position [of Opposition leader] in time, but I wish he hadn’t been in such a hurry.”

Same said that Beazley’s two election losses, in 1998 and 2001, were strokes of bad luck, rather than a reflection of political weakness.

“First there was [the] children overboard [affair], then 9/11 in both cases John Howard has been very lucky.”

Chabad’s Rabbi Joseph Gutnick said Beazley, whom he counts as a personal friend, was a “great friend of Israel and the Jewish community”.

“His views on Israel were solid. He showed a real genuine interest [in Jewish issues],” Rabbi Gutnick told the AJN.

But Rabbi Gutnick, who publicly defected from Liberal to Labor in 1998 over what he perceived to be the government’s weak response to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, this week said he would “back John Howard” if an election was called.

Chester also praised Beazley’s emphatically pro-Israel views.

“We all laud John Howard and Alexander Downer, but Kim Beazley’s speeches were absolutely out of this world. I told him, ‘You know you could have opened the ZFA conference.’ He had such a personal, emotional connection.

“If we can get that out of Kevin Rudd, we’ll be lucky.

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