The Australian Federal election at the weekend resulted in a landslide victory for the Australian Labor Party with incumbent Prime Minister John Howard not only losing power in Parliament but also losing his seat in the electorate of Bennelong as well. His campaign was not helped by a ridiculous and childish smear campaign conducted in one Sydney electorate in which flyers were distributed falsely linking the ALP with Muslim extremism. The ploy backfired and the story gained prominence in the Australian media.
A similar, childish and tacky attempt to discredit Labor was made by a lunatic fringe group, Australians for Palestine but this time the story gained little prominence in the media other than in The Australian - Mideast tension surfaces at Vic booth.
It seems that the AFP targetted Jewish ALP candidate Mark Dreyfus QC for his past association with the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council with a flyer that made no personal allegations about Dreyfus but described AIJAC "Australia's leading zionist, anti-Palestine lobby group". What these people really mean is that AIJAC openly supports a two State solution for the resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict as do both major political parties in this country. A vote against Dreyfus and for the Liberal candidate in this electorate would have been a vote for a party that supports the rights of both peoples anyway and therefore this pathetic attempt at grandstanding by Australians for Palestine was nothing if not idiotic.
A close look at recent AFP activities reveals that these people are more in synch with the view that Israel should be dismantled and replaced by a Palestinian State and in this regard they appear as isolated as Hamas, which has a different view of "democracy" to those we hold dear in this country. Back in Palestine, the local version of "democracy" involves hurling political opponents from rooftops and firing on crowds of your political opponents (both Hamas and Fatah are expert at that form of "democratic" exercise. Hamas itself calls not only for the destruction of the Jewish State but it also mandates the killing of Jews so it's not surprising that these AFP characters picked on a Jewish candidate.
The AFP also claims that it wishes to "dispel the myths and disinformation about Palestine in Australia" but their flyers fail to mention the fact that the Palestinians have had numerous opprtunties to make peace with the Jews from 1948 when they joined 5 Arab nations to wage war and drive the Jews into the sea to the meetings at Camp David and Taba in 2000/1 and through the Road Map in 2003. On the very eve of the latest U.S. peace initiative, at Annapolis Maryland, the friends of the AFP were hatching plans to disrupt the peacemaking -Ahead of summit, Hamas threatens to make deadlier Qassam rockets.
A similar, childish and tacky attempt to discredit Labor was made by a lunatic fringe group, Australians for Palestine but this time the story gained little prominence in the media other than in The Australian - Mideast tension surfaces at Vic booth.
It seems that the AFP targetted Jewish ALP candidate Mark Dreyfus QC for his past association with the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council with a flyer that made no personal allegations about Dreyfus but described AIJAC "Australia's leading zionist, anti-Palestine lobby group". What these people really mean is that AIJAC openly supports a two State solution for the resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict as do both major political parties in this country. A vote against Dreyfus and for the Liberal candidate in this electorate would have been a vote for a party that supports the rights of both peoples anyway and therefore this pathetic attempt at grandstanding by Australians for Palestine was nothing if not idiotic.
A close look at recent AFP activities reveals that these people are more in synch with the view that Israel should be dismantled and replaced by a Palestinian State and in this regard they appear as isolated as Hamas, which has a different view of "democracy" to those we hold dear in this country. Back in Palestine, the local version of "democracy" involves hurling political opponents from rooftops and firing on crowds of your political opponents (both Hamas and Fatah are expert at that form of "democratic" exercise. Hamas itself calls not only for the destruction of the Jewish State but it also mandates the killing of Jews so it's not surprising that these AFP characters picked on a Jewish candidate.
The AFP also claims that it wishes to "dispel the myths and disinformation about Palestine in Australia" but their flyers fail to mention the fact that the Palestinians have had numerous opprtunties to make peace with the Jews from 1948 when they joined 5 Arab nations to wage war and drive the Jews into the sea to the meetings at Camp David and Taba in 2000/1 and through the Road Map in 2003. On the very eve of the latest U.S. peace initiative, at Annapolis Maryland, the friends of the AFP were hatching plans to disrupt the peacemaking -Ahead of summit, Hamas threatens to make deadlier Qassam rockets.
The Australians for Palestine are no friends of the democratic process, nor are they even friends of Palestine.
1 comment:
Very good article. I have been making this point for years. "Australians For Palestine" is a euphemism for "Australians Against Jews and Israel". They actually don't care about the Palestinians and support Hamas over other groups.
They are the equivalent of CAIR in the US. Always protecting Islamic violence no matter what the reason is and then blaming this on the victims.
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