Liberal party and extremism game: relations with LMA as example!!

Historically Australian Muslims had always been Labor voters. Right up until 2000, more than 90% voted Labor without any second thought. Whatever the Labor policies, the majority of Muslims would vote for them.

In 2001 we started campaigning in Labor held areas. We wanted to expose how the Labor party had veered away from many social commitments so important to Muslims and new migrants in general. We asked voters not to vote for Labor in that election.

The Labor party under Kim Beazley found common ground with John Howard’s Liberal government on the issue of boat people. Both parties shared repressive measures and attacks against refugees, boat people and migrants in general.

Our campaign was very successful and saw a large section of Muslims voting for The Greens instead.

At that time the major sell point for The Greens party was the support for refugees. The Greens also seemed to support Palestine against the Israeli aggression and were against racism and Islamophobia.

It was very easy to get Muslims to give their vote to The Greens instead of Labor.

The Liberal party understood very well that it did not benefit from Labor’s loss of votes.

At the end of the day, the Liberal party had worse policies on issues important to Muslims, Arabs and new migrants. The Liberal Muslim members were isolated in the community and were never respected. In the seats with a high Muslim population and migrant voters, the Liberal party had a very low presence.

Political strategists from the Liberal party came up with a Machiavellian idea: the need to divide Muslim and migrant communities by making them turn against each other. By achieving this “divide and conquer” strategy, they started getting votes from Muslims.

Liberal members, in these already divided communities, will use the approach “Labor is as bad as the Liberals so why not vote Liberal for a change”.
The right logic should be instead “If Labor and Liberals are equally bad why not vote for independents or other minor parties?”.

The majority of Labor Muslim members are progressive. They are well-educated and secular. Among them also are socialist or nationalists. These Muslims resisted the Liberals’ bid to infiltrate and recruit them.

It is at this stage that the Liberals resorted to recruit extreme elements among Muslim communities.

The recruitment of extremists will achieve many goals:
- Extremists who are rejected by their own communities because of their extreme ideology will welcome anyone who is willing to give them a voice and a space to breath in the public life.
- The supporters of these extremists don’t follow any logic or facts and will blindly follow their “imams” even if this means voting for anti-Muslim politicians.
- Extreme elements are usually recruited from jail systems. These individuals will serve as “muscle” and will be used to intimidate and silence opponents who dare question the benefits of voting an anti-Muslim party.

The Liberals started this evil agenda by infiltrating the Lebanese Moslem Association. This association survived financially on community donations. The Liberal government of John Howard promised millions of dollars in funding in return for abandoning the alliance with Labor.

The deal was sealed between the LMA and Liberal government in 2005.

The first demand from the Howard government was to sack the entire board of directors and appoint a new one headed by a Liberal member.

As soon as the money started to flow in, the new management abandoned all past commitments and practices.

For the first time in a decade, the LMA invited to speak at their Eid celebration, Phillip Ruddock the most anti Muslim politicians around.

Mr Ruddock gave a fiery speech accusing the Muslim communities of “extremism” and demanded the communities to accept Western values.

The LMA board went even further by appointing a Liberal member of Auburn council as president, (Tom Zreika). The new president acted as a member of the Liberal party and not as a director of a Muslim organisation.

He was part of many Liberal conspiracies against moderate leaders who opposed the Liberal party’s extreme policies.

The first task was to oust the spiritual leader of the community and organisation: sheikh Taj AL Din Al Hilaly. At some stage Mr Zreika went as far as contacting ASIO to complain against Sheikh Taj’s support for the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance.

Meanwhile the money continued to flow to LMA.

To silence all the clever, educated and moderate voices in the area who opposed the alliance with the extreme racist Liberal party, the LMA adopted an extreme version of Islam.

Before the alliance with the Liberal party, the LMA was an organisation known for its corruption and tribal nepotism. After the alliance with the Liberals it became notorious for extremism and radical views.

In the 2011 NSW election, the LMA shocked many with their vocal and public support for Liberal candidates. The LMA premises became the headquarters for the Liberal party election campaign. The same Liberal Party that continued attacking Muslims. The then Minister for Immigration Chris Morrison made many comments during the election campaign stating that Muslim migrants are unable to integrate in the society and should be banned from migrating to Australia.

The LMA created also many fake organisations in the Inner-Western suburbs in a bid to see Labor lose all seats. Despite all this Labor held on to all their seats even if the LMA was declaring the opposite.

During the Syrian crisis the role of the LMA become more vital and devastating. 80% of Australian terrorist who went to Syria were of Lebanese background. Most of these terrorist at some stage were linked to the LMA.

The LMA mosque became a platform for brainwashing and recruiting radicals. At the Imam Ali mosque, managed by the LMA, every Friday prayer was a call to fight. This mosque saw some fiery speeches full of hatred and every time calling to support the “mujahidden”. Many moderate Muslims stopped attending the mosque in disgust. These hate speeches only ceased in 2015.

Millions of dollars continued to pour in under Labor and Liberal consecutive governments. This money was coming in at the very same time the LMA was exposed in the media for issuing extreme fatwas asking Muslims not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas and for holding and broadcasting lectures by terrorist Anwar Al Awlaki.

So far we know why Liberals strongly support the LMA, but what about Labor?

Labor lost its way long time ago and over the years it has got closer to the Liberal party policies and for this reason it lost many votes.

The Labor party for fear of losing more votes has resorted to endorse candidates from the LMA claiming they represented all Muslims.

I am very sure that regardless of where the LMA will stand, any change of Labor policies towards the left, will see a surge of Labor popularity.

In conclusion,

Liberals have succeeded in dividing Muslims by supporting extremists and using them as tools for blackmail, intimidation and threats. This has resulted in some Muslims voting for the Liberal party, despite the fact that the party stands vocally against Muslims interests: against refugees’ rights, against Palestinian rights, support of racism and Islamophobia.

But what was the cost of this dirty game?

3 terrorist attacks, 6 foiled terrorist attacks, high tension in the community and the highest radicalisation level in Australian contemporary history.

To think that some red-necks still vote for Liberals... in addition to some sections in the Muslims community.

#vote_Liberals_Last

Why is the government funding only extremist organisations to fight extremism?!!

The article in The Australian “$10m for PM’s Islamic guests” (22 June 2016) has revealed that extremist organisations received more than $10 million in government funding. Unfortunately this report has come a little too late.

This report is the first one to be published since the start of the Syrian crisis and the subsequent significant rise of radicalisation.
Despite inundating media outlets about the apparent complacency of our authorities towards extremist and growing radicalisation, media ignored such information.

The article in The Australian however falls short of telling the full story.

After the Lindt Café terrorist attack, Abbott’s Liberal government consulted with “representatives” of the Muslim community on how to deal with out-of-control radicalisation and the possible imminent threats of terrorist activities in Australia.

Surprisingly, the PM office chose to invite mainly extremists to these consultation rounds. The logic behind this was not clear for us: how would extremists help in fighting extremism? Not only, but it became even more unclear and a little “insane”, when after such consultations, the government announced it would increase the funding for projects to fight extremism.

The government allocated more than $50m for these projects.

Once the funding was made available we expected the government would allocate funds to organisations that were not involved in extremist activities.

The NSW Liberal government also announced increased funding for de-radicalisation projects through different departments, including Multicultural NSW.

Since I am a very well-known Anti-extremism campaigner both on a local and national level, I expected that my organisation, Social Justice Network Inc, which runs many anti radicalisation campaigns, would have been one of the first to receive funding.

We expected to be invited for consultations in regards to the allocation of such funds but we were wrong. This however didn’t deter us from applying.

Social Justice Network applied for a small sum of $25,000 which would have helped cover a project we were running. We conducted several meetings and discussions with community members of different faiths/sects. The aim was to consult with different leaders from Sunni, Shia and Alawi faith to discuss and find a solution to the current tensions in the community.

We also hosted an Iftar. Unfortunately we can’t continue without some funding and all we needed was a small contribution from Multicultural NSW to help continue in our efforts.

The project was rejected for no valid reason despite our well documented solid track history in fighting extremism. We put a lot of effort to start the project and asked for a small amount of money. We received a letter advising us the application was rejected. No valid reasons were given.

Multicultural NSW would not even consider the project due to us not providing a financial statement. Usually financial statements are required only from organisations that received prior funding in order to prove how the funds were spent. Since this was our first request we genuinely believed this was not necessary in our case.

Instead of helping organisations complete their applications, like on many other occasions, Multicultural NSW was quick to reject ours without any warning and without requesting further information or documents.

As you can read from article published in The Australian, governments and funding bodies were providing extremist organisations with large grants and funding. Some of these organisations well-known for their extreme actions receive annually millions of dollars. Some of this money was used to broadcast live lectures of terrorist Anwar AL Awlaki and other preachers of hate.

After rejecting funding for our project, we sought help from our local MP. We contacted Greg Laundy, Liberal MP for Reid, and visited him at his office. I explained to him our concerns about authorities’ complacency towards extremists’ activities and funding. We asked him to help us secure some funding for other Anti-extremism projects. Two years have passed and we are yet to hear the outcome.

Wondering where all this extremism come from? Some of the answers to this question can be found in The Australian.

We hope that our authorities change their course of action before a major terrorist attack occurs.

#Vote_4_None

The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!

(4) Open war on Ian Cohen

After Lee Rhiannon and her faction of mainly ex-Stalinists opportunists realised that they lost their plot to deny Ian Cohen the platform to run for pre-selection, they understood that they were left with one option only. The only option is to campaign against Ian in the election in a bid to see him lose, and so enforce his retirement with deep humiliation. In 2003, the Greens were standing on 7-8% in all opinion polls. Ian needs only 4.5% to win. Maybe less with some good preferences.

To see Ian lose was very difficult shot, for many reasons:
- It is very difficult to cause total collapse of Greens popularity, to this low point.
- Any attack on Ian, means attack on the Greens party... the party that Lee represents in NSW LC.

Despite all these, Lee and her faction did not hesitate to gamble with everything to achieve her dream of absolutely controlling the NSW Greens. I was told by Ian Cohen at later stage that Lee had the dream to destabilise Bob Brown’s leadership by challenging him, to replace him in Greens leadership.

Lee faction’s tactics are very simple: attack Ian on personal level by claiming that he is personally a very conservative person that is not compatible with the image of the Greens as progressive party.

The attacks were comprehensive and vicious: there was an all-out-war against him. They did not leave any personal level they did not expose or demonise. Lies, fabrications and sometimes true personal incidents.

The levels of attacks were:
1- Old man with no energy: dead man walking
2- Ian’s marital status: and his different relations with different women.
3- Ian’s background as former citizen of “Israel”

1- Despite the fact that Ian and Lee were born in the same year, Lee spread euphoria against Ian that he is old politician, lost his energy and became very exhausted. The attack had several goals to achieve. Lee did not only want Ian to lose his popularity and so lose in the election. She wanted him to come out of the election with deep scars, possibly deeply depressed and humiliated. By achieving this, even if Ian wins the election, he will re-consider his career on the long run. And this is what she wanted to achieve, as she was almost sure that Ian will win in the election.

Lee and her faction were very vicious in their attack on Ian’s mental status. There is no doubt that the campaign left its toll on Ian’s mental status. But more importantly, by the end of the campaign the party was deeply and bitterly divided. Ian was left with deep scars on his credibility and morale. Lee used all kind of lies and deceptive claims against Ian. And Ian and his faction would not forget this to Lee and her faction.

2- Lee spread roumers that Ian is treating women very badly. The roumers, that were communicated to me personally by Ian’s ex-girlfriend and strong supporter of Lee: he was cheating on her, treated her badly, no respect ....

3- As I said that even before the pre-selection process was concluded, I was approached by Geoff Ash and John Kaye asking me not to vote for Ian because he is Zionist. After he was pre-selected, I, with other party candidate, were approached again and were asked about what we think of Ian’s running for election. We (both of us are Muslims) were asked about Muslim and Palestinian communities’ opinion of Ian Cohen running for election. John Kaye asked us “did you hear any communities’ criticism of Greens decision to run “Zionist Jew” for NSW?”... I personally felt that John was directing us to attack Ian among Muslim and Palestinian communities on this particular issue.

Lee tactics did not work. Ian won election. He served in NSW LC for full term. He did not retire until he enforced Lee faction to agree to have balanced parliamentary team. He retired only when he secured 2 of his faction members (Jan Barham and Cate Faehrmann) to be MLCs in 2011.

But the campaign had negative impact on the Greens unity, until now. The party had two factions that are fighting to break each other at all levels. In 2010 federal election, Ian’s faction refused to help Lee in her election campaign. NSW candidate, not other than Lee herself, got the least votes among Greens candidates for the senate. All candidates got around 13% of primary vote, where Lee got less than 10%. She nearly lost in that election, when all other candidates won comfortably, most of them on primaries.

I need to mention here that in writing my notes here, I am not siding with Ian against Lee on any ideological issue. On the contrary. I had always trouble with Ian’s conservative views. But Ian was always ready to share power, respect others’ views and respect any deal he makes. Lee, on the other side, was lying at all levels. She will pretend to be progressive, when in fact she has no commitment towards any social justice issues and had no achievement in her long political career. She is not a politician that could be respected. And she is power-thirsty, with no willing to share power.

The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!

3) After failure of adopting Limited Tenure: Do not vote for Zionist...!!

After Lee and her faction failed to enforce the Greens to adopt Limited Tenure to oust Ian Cohen automatically, Lee resorted to new tactics. She was desperate, as she knew that without outsing Ian, he will win any pre-selection campaign.

Lee and her faction started to campaign to change the pre-selection process. She initiated new campaign to embarrass Ian to enforce him to retire.

The idea was to change the pre-election ballot papers to include new box: “I dis-endorse the candidate....”.

Her dumb idea was simple: If Ian cannot be ousted by Limited Tenure principle, then Lee would conduct vicious campaign against him to get large number of Greens members to dis-endorse him. Even if the campaign will not get the required percentage to enforce Ian’s disendorsment, he will feel embarrassed and ashamed from high percentage of people disendorsing him.

She was successful in introducing new process for pre-selection of leading candidates. The new box was listed on all ballot papers. The job of starting vicious campaign of Ian’s character assassination and demonisation started in full swing.

Lee and her team started the cheap campaign against colleague. The team responsible for manufacturing and spreading dirt about Ian was mainly managed by her partner Geoff Ash and her puppet the late MLC John Kaye. The couple was very active on managing networks of Greens members supporters of Lee to spread all kind of dirt on Ian.

Strong supporter of Lee, tried to convince me not to vote for Ian and tick the box of disendorsing him because he is “dead man walking”. She had brief relation with Ian, and started to spread horrible stories about him.

Other Lee’s supporters started to spread all kind of dirt on Ian, from “dead man walking”, “deeply exhausted”, “old man that cannot achieve anything anymore”, “conservative”, “regressive”, “had no commitments to social-justice issues” and other accusations.
Lee and her team did not spare any dirty trick in their bid to make Ian look evil.

I was personally approached by Lee’s team, as I was representing the hard-left faction inside the Greens. Lee would have trouble to convince members of her dirty attacks on Ian, if I continued my silence on these campaigns. At many stages, I refuted these claims.

Lee’s special aids, Geoff Ash and John Kaye, met with me on at least two occasions. Their message was direct. I should join the campaign, as I should have personal problem with Ian.

Geoff Ash and John Kaye put it straight to me “how would you support Zionist Ian”.

John Kaye and Geoff Ash were very clear that Ian was extreme Zionist and all what I am hearing from him about supporting Palestine state are lies. John Kaye, and in his bid to convince me to vote against Ian and participate in the campaign to demonise him, told me that Ian is attending Zionist synagogues after each speech at pro-Palestinian rally to apologise for the supporting words on the need to establish Palestinian state. He even showed me articles on Australian Jews News newspaper of Ian’s attending synagogues.

Lee and her team were very desperate to get rid of Ian. They knew that he is the last obstacle for them to totally control the NSW Greens party. By enforcing Ian’s early retirement, Lee’s faction would easily control the Greens parliamentary team and other executive committees.

While I did not vote for Ian, because I deeply believed in power-sharing, I refused to buy Lee and her factions’ lies. And I did not participate in the campaign to demonise him.

Lee’s campaign to get enough disendorsing votes failed miserably. And Ian won pre-selection easily.

To date, I did not believe how Ian remained calm on these back-stabbing from supposedly colleagues and comrades in the same party fighting for the same vision.

Not only this. Ian and his faction (based around Byron Bay and NSW North coast) were still cooperating with Lee and her faction. They did not return the fire when Lee ran for pre-selection in 2006 (for 2007 NSW election).

Of course Lee and her faction did not give up, after Ian’s securing pre-selection for 2003 election. The dirty campaign against Ian continued.