We in Australia must be truly blessed to have 170 Eminent Australians who have put their names to an anti-Israel petition which is addressed to our Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Now that’s a lot of eminence for one petition.

I was so intrigued by their self-description of Eminent Australians that I went in search of their names. I had to know who are these people who are defined in the dictionary as being above all others and even exalted?

So I phoned “The Australian” newspaper in Canberra and spoke to the journalist who broke the news. She told me that the person who had organised the petition, Ned Curthoys, had specifically told her not to give out all their names.

Now that is amazing modesty, isn’t it? We have so many Eminent Australians who don’t want their names to be publicised and yet they are quite eager to petition the Deputy Prime Minister to stop her from visiting Israel. Why? Because they support the Palestinians in Gaza and resent any politician visiting Israel.

Apparently, Curthoys, himself, heads the Committee for the Dismantling of Zionism. The reporter failed to mention this important fact. This dismantler of Zionism is a minor academic at the A.N.U and prides himself on being Jewish but anti-Israel. We all know what that means.

Here are the few names that the reporter was allowed to publish and they don’t seem very eminent to me:-

Greens MP Ian Cohen who is Jewish and Lee Rhiannon, John Pilger and his Jewish disciple, Antony Loewenstein, Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes, Jewish Australian writer Sara Dowse, sociologist Raewyn Connell, Associate Professor Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict studies at the University of Sydney, and retired CSIRO scientist Bill Snowden.

Also on the petition is Van Thanh Rudd, the artist son of the Prime Minister’s brother, Malcolm. Our Prime Minister must be so proud of his “eminent” relative.

But where are the other 160 names? Shouldn’t we be able to judge how eminent they really are? So far I can’t say I’m impressed by this collection of Arab supporters and I bet the Arabs aren’t either.