A very good attendance marked David and Perry's talks today, with the venue practically full. Trish introduced the meeting and Grant Salisbury and Jan Kalsbeek led worship to kick things off.
Tiong Ang briefly told us about an event in Singapore's history which showed and helped explain the close links Israel and Singapore have had. He read a letter of appreciation from the late Dr Goh, a former Singapore Cabinet Minister and deputy prime Minister(1973-84) - He read as follows
When the late Dr. Goh Keng Swee retired as Deputy Prime Minister , the only Chairmanship position he accepted was that for Rothschild Singapore merchant bank. He made it very clear that he accepted the position only because of gratefulness to Israel for the very survival and existence of Singapore. He emphasised that Singapore asked for help, and every country turned us down except Israel. Singapore had nothing, and everybody else was waiting for us to give up. We used to joke that we were buying second hand Israel weapons, even as we were unloading the AMX 13 tanks. But the truth is that Singapore, at that time, had no money. Dr. Goh made it clear that in spite of their own urgent needs, Israel mobilised all the help they could give to help Singapore start the SAF, MAS, EDB, GIC, etc in order for us to survive. We had nothing to promise them. But Dr.Goh wanted all of us to remember how much we owe to Israel. Those of us present at that board meeting with Dr. Goh were silent at his utter frankness. At this time of rising anti-semitism, it is good to be reminded of this special relationship Singapore has with Israel.
Perry and David alternated in presenting a discussion around IINZ (Israel Institute of NZ) and their work and the public discussion David had recently with John Minto (link to the video is on the IFG front page). Perry also backgrounded some of their recent travels in Eastern Europe. The talks were very informative and indicative of the depth of anti-zionism apparent in some NZ political circles, which unfortunately parallels negative developments overseas. Just as engaging (and probably longer) were the question and answer times after each talk. In all a most informative and valuable afternoon.
