This Friday the Lebanese Muslim Association has organised an event titled, “From Iraq to Gaza: The Politics of Fear”. I’ll be speaking alongside many others.
Daring to be critical of the dominant narrative over Palestine or terrorism has upset Rupert Murdoch’s resident race-baiter Andrew Bolt.
There’s also a “story” in today’s Murdoch Australian that features a comical statement from the Zionist lobby, showing how they only want society to hold events that praise Israel under their terms. In other words, never. It’s no wonder they’re regarded as censorious… fringe dwellers. And thanks, Rupert, for calling me a “noted anti-Zionist author”:
Liberal MP Craig Laundy will pretty much front any public forum no matter who’s on the panel if it gives him the chance to discuss government policy and break down the “them and us” mentality he says is being perpetuated against the Muslim community.
The western Sydney member for the culturally diverse seat of Reid has been lambasted for agreeing to take part in a Lebanese Muslim Association event tomorrow titled… From Iraq to Gaza: The Politics of Fear,… which will also be attended by a number of anti-Israeli commentators.
The panel includes pro-international boycott, divestment and sanctions academics Peter Slezak and Jake Lynch and noted anti-Zionist author Antony …Loewenstein.
Also on the panel are interfaith activist Aftab Ahmad Malik, who is often highly critical of Israel, Labor MP Tony Burke and journalism academic Peter Manning.
Mr Laundy was a key voice …arguing against the Abbott government’s ultimately scrapped plan to overturn section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
“I knew Tony Burke was going, but I’ve never met the other …people on the panel. I don’t know their views on things and I don’t care,” Mr Laundy told… The Australian.… “They’re entitled to their view. I’m going to explain what we as a government are doing and why we’re doing it and to answer questions about it.
“When I’m invited to go somewhere and explain government policy I will do so.”
Last night a spokesman for the Executive Council for Australian Jewry told… The Australian… the forum had “questionable intellectual and moral credibility”.
“All the speakers are on record as taking a generally antipathetic view of Israel. Some of them have even called for its destruction,” AJAC executive director Peter Wertheim said. “The entire event is designed as an opportunity to polemicise against Israel and its western allies.”
Mr Burke told… The Australian: “It’s an important time for a constructive dialogue with the …community about events in these parts of the world.”
Mr Laundy, who said his …colleagues backed his move to speak at tomorrow’s event, said overall the reaction in his electorate had been mixed to the latest suite of anti-terror laws — which included requiring travellers prove their trip to designated areas in the Middle East was legitimate — but the dialogue needed to …continue.
“There is a lot of detail still to come and the job of a local MP is to front up and speak to a local community … to be that two way-conduit,” he said.
Mr Laundy said he “believes fundamentally in free speech”. “My argument on 18C was pragmatic — with rights come responsibility,” he said. “The people that argue against me over that, are now the same ones who want to persecute someone because of their religion. “They want to criticise me. I should have freedom of association on Friday night but they want to criticise me for doing my job as a local federal MP.”
Mr Laundy, who became the first Liberal to win his seat at the last election, said the message he was taking to the community was that “with rights come responsibility — practise your religion, live within the law”.
He condemned the actions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as nothing more than “sectarian terrorism”.