Saturday, December 08, 2018

Open Letter to respected Academics at University of Sydney about Tim Anderson's sacking


Dear Esteemed University of Sydney Academics,

I am writing to you in reference to your support letter for Dr Tim Anderson.

In principle, your stand is quite admirable and this is what one would expect from academics rising to the occasion of supporting a colleague who is a victim of suppression of free speech and Palestinian rights.

However, as an Australian of Palestinian origin, I have during a lengthy period been the person organising or co-organising all pro-Palestine activities in Australia, and I assure you from a position of knowledge that Dr Anderson has never been an advocate for Palestinian rights. Furthermore, his recent online social media activities have proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is not an advocate of free speech either.

Allow me to begin with the latter. Myself, among other Arab pro-Palestine and Syria activists and their family members, have been systemically attacked by Dr Anderson and a group of supporters that he selectively chooses to send us intimidatory material, including death threats. He is clever not to directly be involved in order to avoid legal complications in Australia, but he is clearly complicit and the examples are numerous and we can provide the evidence.

On one occasion, Dr Anderson thanked a thug who lives in America for advocating lynching us and even commented to this thug that he was “Too Kind”.

On another occasion, he publicly defended his colleague’s right to vilify a journalist based on his Armenian ancestry, asking the journalist if he wanted another Armenian genocide.

On other occasions he endorsed and supported rumours about myself and other colleagues of threatening to murder people.

He used his friends on Facebook to befriend our family members so he could spy on us and gain access to private information and family photos.

His gang of thugs intimidated our friends overseas and coerced them to disassociate from us on the social media and threatened them with photos of their grandchildren, telling them that they know where the child lives.

He made personal accusations against me, naming me and calling me an Israeli, Mossad spy; which in my community is quite defamatory and damaging.

Some of us for our essential safety had to use pseudonyms, especially for activists who happen to be Muslims who wanted to de-bunk the ISIS ideology. These activists had entrusted Dr Anderson with this very privileged information. But, Dr Anderson flagrantly and repeatedly outed their names, their photos and published untruths about them in a seemingly deliberate attempt to have them targeted by the terrorists.

There are many such stories and they can all be substantiated with clear and solid evidence which we can provide to you upon your request.

Ironically, the reasons for Dr Anderson’s outrage and backflip against those indigenous Levantine allies was simply because they disagreed with his alleged approach to defending Syria and because he wanted to be the man in charge of the social media based activity.

So, I ask you esteemed academics, how is it possible Dr Anderson alleges to be a victim of an anti-free speech campaign conducted by the University of Sydney, when he, in fact, has been spearheading a vicious, dangerous campaign against me, my family, against many other indigenous activists who are Palestinian, Syrian and including their family members just because we disagree with him.

We now go back to Dr Anderson’s alleged support of Palestine. As mentioned earlier, all the pro-Palestine functions that I have personally organised over many years, were done long before I heard of the name Tim Anderson. His name in his alleged role in supporting Palestine is only recent and cannot be substantiated with any evidence at all. As a matter of fact, all that many Palestinian and Arab activists have received from him has been nothing but intimidation and threats.

Finally, as a secular Palestinian, I along with other like-minded Arabs, endorse a secular, all-inclusive Palestine in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, members of other sects, even atheists, as well as ethnic minorities, can live peacefully, side by side, all valued, protected and equal before the law. Dr Anderson’s recent endorsement of a public photo of his colleague wearing a badge that curses Jews, does not serve the Palestinian cause. That same badge calls for victory for Islam; a call akin to that of ISIS. The irony here is that on one hand Dr Anderson uses anti-Nazi/Israeli materials in his classes, and then at other times, conveniently adopts Nazi-like anti-Semitic approaches.

The question we ask here is; where does Dr Anderson stand on this all? As a matter of fact, where does he stand on all other pertinent issues mentioned above?

Dr Anderson does not behave, speak or write like an academic should. He is not a living example of an advocate for free speech and he is surely not a friend of Palestine and Palestinians. The University of Sydney has never in the past, to my knowledge, dismissed an academic because of their support for Palestine. I am not aware of any such dismissal based on suppressing free speech either. Among others, I have reported Dr Anderson to the University, voicing our concerns and fears. We believe that the University has taken into account all of this in reaching their decision against Dr Anderson and, once again, for the last time, as far as I can see, with the evidence available to me, and from personal experience, I cannot see how this decision was based on restricting free speech.

If our personal safety and the safety of our families and children mean anything to you, at a time when it is difficult to press charges against anyone who is protected by the anonymity of Facebook and Twitter, then we ask of you to take this into account and withdraw your public support of Dr Anderson because he has been capitalising on this flaw, using those weak spots to target, intimidate, smear and endanger us, all the while being untouchable.


Thank you,



Jamal Daoud
President of Social Justice Network, human rights campaigner and community leader




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