The Greens public infighting: my own observations

After watching the 7:30 Report, Lee Rhiannon has only herself to blame for the public attack by former leader Bob Brown on her including demanding her resignation.

I joined the Greens party 2000 and resigned 2006. Lee was the major reason why I resigned, as I became sure that the party has no vision and no agenda of socio-economic change as they claim by its charter and constitution. The party was talking about one issue: how to win more power. No discussion of how this power will be used to enforce 2 major parties to retreat and accept reforms that will achieve better equality in the society.

After joining the Greens party 2000, I quickly became friend of Lee.

Attending Greens events and meetings, there was one constant face I was seeing. And this person was always vocal on issues of social justice and equality. No matter the subject was, you cannot disagree with her. This was Lee Rhiannon, the MLC in NSW then.

She was very good organiser: she is everywhere, at all events, record details of everything and follows up on previous conversations. This is why she was successful in her empire-building inside the Greens and could sideline many of her rivals.

Contrary to what both Bob Brown and Lee Rhiannon claimed on 7:30 Report, it was very easy to notice the factionalism inside the party since Lee joined the party 1990. One of Lee’s strong supporters told me after 2001 Federal election that she voted and joined the Greens after Lee’s prominence in the party which “broadened the platform of the Greens from simply environmental party to inclusive party on wide-range of social-justice issues”. She in fact created factions inside the Greens to serve its agenda, as she has no credential or understanding of environmental movement and issues.

While I do not agree with Bob Brown’s conservative and pragmatic politics aimed at winning more votes only, but I do not agree that Lee is still Red Melon politician. She is using this rhetoric just to stay in politics. She had dream of becoming the leader of the Greens party, and this is why she stayed in parliament even after the resignation of party’s historical figures of Bob Brown, Christine Milne and Ian Cohen.

Bob Brown agreed with me that Lee is liability on the Greens in general, and in NSW in particular. Her style of breaking all rivals and enforce them to resign, had inherited her lot of enemies. Many of her enemies refused to help with her campaign in 2010 and this year. This is one reason of the low vote for Lee and her ticket.

But in addition to this reason, we believe that our repeated campaigns against her (and the Greens in general) had worked. Since 2007, the Greens popularity did not grow significantly in NSW. Despite the fact that the Greens grew significantly in ALL states, NSW is the only state that the Greens popularity had stalled.

I started to criticise Lee’s empire building and her vicious campaigns against all rivals since 2003. In 2003 state election, I resigned amid the NSW election as party spokesperson for Refugees and Immigration after she interfered with my portfolio. Since then, I became harsh critical of her style of destroying political rivals inside the Greens. In addition to her lack of commitment and vision on social justice issues.

Her undemocratic disgraceful attacks on her colleagues were documented by many of her rivals and activists on many issues.

The first colleague to suffer from her disloyalty was Ian Cohen, when she led vicious campaign to oust him by campaigning to enforce limited tenure principle. The same principle that she never respected.

She branded him with all bad names and descriptions: Zionist, regressive, dead-man walking and unGreen MLC.

In the process, she also opened fire on Inner-West Greens because the convenor of that group, Mersina Tonys-Soulos, did not accept to agree with her on many issues.

After conspiring against Inner-West Greens, Lee involved in bashing Blacktown newly formed group. Lee could not control that group as the convenor David Cunningham refused to back her attempts against Ian Cohen.

Then she conspired against me and group of progressive left members. This included many failed attempts to get rid of me and other progressive people. Most of us decided to leave as we lost the faith in the party and its lack of vision.

(I attach a letter of resignation of one of very respected activist because of her empire-building undemocratic practices to totally control the party)

Lee had shown no compromise in her bid to keep full control of the NSW Greens. Despite the fact that her rivals of other factions’ leaders agreement to play within the rules. She is the only one that crossed all red-lines in her cheap and personal attacks on rivals and her insistence to stay in politics as long as it takes until she could control Australian Greens.

I deeply believe that Lee has no chance to achieve her agenda. She thought that her support of young faces (who were never been Greenies too) will land her to the top job in the Greens. The other unGreen politicians (Adam Bandt, Di Natalie, Sarah Hanson-Young...) turned to be also careerists-opportunists that had their eyes on the leadership of the party.

I also disagree with Bob that Greens had made any significant gains in this election. The election was double dissolution election, where the Greens achieved no full quota in any state if it was normal election. No Greens party in any state got the 14.5% quota required in normal election.

I think that the in-fighting will intensify until Lee will be convinced that she has no chance to win leadership post. But this will have great impact on the Greens. The Greens is deeply lucky party that there is no strong minor left party that could attract significant voters who are currently voting for the Greens as protest against Labor and Liberals. But the big changes resulted in this election is promising that another left alternative is possible within the next 3 years until the next election (if we go to full term).

Repeated terrorist attacks in Australia: I was right on terrorism...!!!

We, as citizens, have all rights to ask our authorities: why?

Why do we have this high radicalisation level? And why you cannot control it and cannot start successful de-radicalisation steps?

Before Khaled Sharrouf managed to leave Australia and reach Syria with no valid passport.

Before AFP admitted that they cooked the conspiracy with “community leaders” and foreign powers to ban me from entering Lebanon.

Before my local MP Jason Clare refused to meet me and other community members/victims of radicals’ attacks.

Before PM invited extremists to annual Iftar, while excluding anti-extremist campaigners from invitation.

Before authorities granted millions of dollars to extreme organisations to manage anti-extremism programs.

Before all this, I was trying to give our authorities the “benefit of doubt” for lacking any sense on these actions.

But the reality of things is very concerning. For me the real causes of radicalisation is very clear now.

When I was warning about growing extremism in the suburbs, the leader of NSW Liberal party was sending condolence letters to families of Australian terrorists killed in Syria.

When I was living in fear in my home, fearing attacks form radicals because of my anti-extremism campaigns; Labor leader was busy calling Syrian ambassador asking him to leave the country because Syrian army was fighting against terrorists including our own ones. Labor leader was busy supporting terrorists by calling on Al Qaeda affiliates to assassinate Syrian president as the only solution of growing terrorism in Syria.

When I was reporting to media about Wahhabi extremists’ crimes against Ali Ibrahim, Campsie police station officers were busy threatening me of legal consequences if I continued with these actions.

When I travelled to Syria in fact-finding mission and to promote peaceful solution for the conflicts, SBS and ABC were busy condemning me even before hearing what I will say about the situation in Syria.

When I was organising peace tours for journalists and peace activist to Syria, our security agencies were busy cooking conspiracies with foreign powers to cripple my ability to travel to Syria, through banning me from entering Lebanon.

When I was documenting Wahhabi crimes against local shop owners and peace activists, the Greens party politicians were busy calling for NATO to bomb Syria as the best available support for rebels-terrorists in Syria.

For all this, I feel very proud that I was right for the last 5 years.

I was right to consider Syrian “revolution” as Western conspiracy to get rid of unfriendly regime using terrorism.

I feel proud that I opposed this “revolution” and considered it to be the mother of all terrorist activities around the world.

And I am proud that I warned Australians that current authorities’ approach will not solve any problem. On the contrary.

Banning me from entering Lebanon, gave extremist “morale” boost that they still enjoy authorities support.

Refusing to grant our organisation a single dollar to manage anti-radicalisation program, is the wrong message to all directions.

Authorities insistence to invite extremists to activities and events on behalf of Australian Muslims, gives the extremists strong sense of power and influence.

In short, our authorities are on the wrong path and they need to change course. Before it is too late.....

The terrorist’s crimes our media did not expose: the magic of Syrian “revolution”..!!

Syrian “revolution” is an amazing phenomena. I can claim easily that what is before Syrian “revolution” is totally different than what is after it.

Before the Syrian “revolution”, Australian politicians were united against the word “revolution”. They were united against Egyptian revolution 1952, Palestinians revolution, Lebanese resistance, Iranian revolution, Chi Guevara anti-imperialist revolution, Nicaraguan revolution, Cuban revolution....

When Syrian “revolution” started, all our politicians quickly fell in love with this “revolution”. Not only this. Politicians volunteered to fundraise for this “revolution”. They risked their jobs by running election campaigns in support of it.

Many members of parliament refused to meet with constituents, victims of supporters of this “revolution”. Member of Blaxland and Watson, for example, refused to meet with Ali Ibrahim (shot in his legs by “revolution” supporters), Michael Naji (whose shop was burned), Ali Al Isawi (physically and verbally assaulted and lost his shop under gun threat by “revolution” supporters) and the writer of this piece who was verbally and physically assaulted for 3 years by hundreds of “revolution” supporters.

The effect of the magic of this “revolution” does not stop with politicians. It goes beyond.

For the first time in Australian contemporary history, our law&order agencies stopped hunting the extremists, supporters of this “revolution”. Instead of spying on them and gather all information needed to arrest them and send them to jail, these agencies were siding with them against the law abiding citizens who fell victims of their violent activities.

And do not forget about our media. The media that was largely spreading Islamopghobic sentiments for the last 2 decades, suddenly became silent on Islamists’ crimes. The media that did not spare any minor incident involved or committed by Muslim or somebody looks like Muslim to stir Islamophobic sentiments, suddenly with the Syrian “revolution” magic became Muslim friendly.

Media had refused to highlight the sectarian tension created by radicals supporters of Syrian revolution against all rivals. We deeply believe that if media was actively talking about these crimes from early 2012, radicalisation would not have reached the current high and alarming level. Media’s silence on this tension and related crimes, enabled authorities to keep its complacency with supporters of this revolution.

Let me talk about recent example.

Recently, our media reported for one day only about shocking crime happened in Melbourne. Extremist Bassam Raad killed his wife and cut her body into pieces and dumped these pieces in the park. He savagely bashed his kids, threatening them not to talk about what they had witnessed. Our media reported this incident as an ordinary criminal activity.

Media did not tell us why terrorist Bassam committed this crime. Media did not give us any hint about the real story. We needed to count on Lebanese media to get the full story.

Al Jadeed Lebanese TV visited the family of his wife in Lebanon. The satellite TV got all details needed to disclose the real motives behind this horrendous crime.

Al Jadeed TV revealed that Bassam Raad is a well known ISIS member. He killed his wife after she refused to travel with him to Syria to join ISIS in killing innocent Syrians. There are conflicting reports that Bassam actually was one of the terrorists who returned recently form fighting in Syria. He came back to Australia to convince his wife to go with him to Syria.

Our media not only did not run the full story, but it refused to run proper full story.

After I became aware of the full story, I contacted many journalists who were cooperating with us in past on similar stories. I provided them with the full story, with supporting evidence from foreign media, including respected media outlets like RT, AL Jadeed TV, AL Mayadeen TV and others. For some reason, no journalist showed any interest in following the story.

The superficial reports ran by our media about these shocking crimes, stirred further Islamophobia. Australians had been fed again and again with Islamophpbic sentiments that Muslims are violent and can cut their wives into pieces for no reasons.

We believe that media lack of proper coverage aimed to protect Syrian “revolution” from further damage and exposure. The media refused to run real story to stop any linking between Syrian “revolution” and domestic terrorism, especially if we can get some confirmation that Bassam was in fact a returned terrorist.

Why does Syrian “revolution” enjoy such high immunity?

More to come on similar stories. We will not keep one stone unturned until we expose the reality of authorities and media’s complacency with terrorists....

To Syria with Love- Gifts for Victims of Terrorism

The 3rd International Tour of Peace is expected to arrive to Damascus mid September 2016. This will be the largest and hopefully most successful peace tour.

To show solidarity with Syrians, we organised participants to visit Syrian victims of terrorism. The visits will include visiting injured military officers. They will include visiting civilians /survivals of terrorist attacks.

To show respect, solidarity and support, we want to give the public the opportunity of sending “gifts” to Syrians, especially victims of terrorism. These gifts could include: greeting cards, warm clothes (jackets, shoes, boots, pants, socks...), money....

We can receive your donated gifts initially in Australia, Norway and NZ. We are talking to other participants in other countries if they want to be involved.

All items should be brand new. No personalised items to specific people. Gifts will be distributed randomly in presence of Syrian officials and media. Details with photos will be published on our website and social media pages.

You can express your interest by sending us email on info@socialjustice.net.au and then we advice you how to deliver your gift.

If you wish to be involved in this campaign, we welcome your expression of interest on above mentioned email.

Thanks for your support to Syria and Syrians.

2016 Federal election results: how our campaign impacted the voting!!

Our participation in this federal election was felt at all levels. We achieved this by spending only $500 budget which we used mainly for limited Facebook promotions. I will discuss in a separate article how we were able to be so effective with a small budget whilst enduring very high hostilities from all political parties.

With our campaign slogan “Vote For None”, we asked residents not to vote for any party.

Our campaign, based mainly in NSW, was through our social media pages and accounts. We achieved the following results:

NSW recorded the highest informal vote nationally. Further, the informal votes in NSW were double than all the other states and territories, for the exception of NT. All states recorded between 2.5% - 3.2%, except NSW which recorded more than 6%.
We focused our campaign in South-Western seats where Labor had allied with Wahhabi extremists in a bid to win Muslim votes. In these seats, the informal votes were double or triple than other seats in the state. The average informal vote in the state was %6, but in the South-Western seats (Blaxland, Watson, Macmahon, Lindsay, Weriwa....), the informal votes were on average around %12.
Some think there was a swing towards Labor in the South-Western seats, but this was far from reality. The reason for this “swing illusion” was the re-distributions of seats, where more Labor voters were added. In reality Labor received less votes than in previous elections.
The Greens party achieved a very disappointing result in general. But in NSW the disappointment doubled. The Greens received on average around 11% in all states, except in NSW where they received around 7.5%.
The NSW Greens were lucky it was a double dissolution election, which enabled their candidate in NSW to hold on to her seat. The NSW Greens were once the strongest Greens party outside Tasmania.
The NSW Greens were the first Greens party to win a federal seat, outside Tasmania in 2001. Instead at present and after we started our campaign against the NSW Greens, it performed the worst among all Greens in Australia. The other exceptional results for the Greens was in SA, where Nick Xenophon did very good
Liberals did not benefit from our campaign against Labor and Greens’ alliance with extremists, since we advocated voters not to vote for Liberals because of their regressive and destructive policies.

Labor, Liberals and Greens are declaring victories.

Labor for achieving a small swing, ignoring the fact they ran a campaign against one of the least popular government in this country’s history.

Liberals are celebrating not losing the election.

Greens are celebrating for unknown reasons.

Informal voting, refusal to vote and voting for independents or other minor parties increased to a new record. The informal and no voting combined, accounted to more than 12%. Voting for “Others” was as high as 18%.
Despite this result, none of the major parties are ready to admit this reality.

We will continue to advocate people not to vote for any of the troika Labor-Liberals-Greens in the lead up of the Local governments election this coming September. We are very confident that more concrete results will be achieved in this coming election.

It seems that we will have new Federal election after the minority government will struggle to achieve any outcome.

The biggest message to major parties should be “your alliance with Wahhabi extremist groups will not help you win any vote, as they enjoy no big support among Muslim Voters.”

This alliance is and was a liability that will haunt the major parties for a long time.

My letter to Jason Clare on the election eve

Dear Jason Clare, MP for Blaxland

I recently received a lot of letters from your office. Some of these letters are electoral promotion materials.

I find it utterly disgraceful that you are asking me and local residents to support and elect you on the bases of your relations with extremists. You have quoted in one promotional leaflet that you enjoy the support of known extremists: Samier Danden(of the extremist organisaiton Lebanese Muslim Association), Ashraf Rifi (the Godfather of terrorists in Lebanon), Muslim Women Association and other extreme individuals and organisations.

What a farce and how arrogant of you sending me 6 letters in two weeks period during election campaign when in the past you never bothered replying to my letters and phone calls seeking help.

Many families including mine needed your help during a period of terror and intimidation campaign perpetrated by extremists. Some of these families lost everything and endured extortions, intimidations, Molotov bombs, verbal and physical attacks.

For years we made several attempts to meet with you. We wrote to your office, we emailed, we even called. Nothing was done and you ignored us every time.

I’m returning all your promotional material for recycle and I wish to have my name removed from your mailing list as I do not want to receive more junk mail.

And for the record, you did not get my vote nor you got a vote from my family and friends. We will not rest until we see you out of politics.


Regards,

Jamal Daoud

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.

The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!

(2) Advocating Limited Tenure but still in politics for 2 decades!!!

As Lee had clear vision that she cannot totally control the party until she gets rid of her main rival and historical champion of environmental movement Ian Cohen, she invented another campaign in the lead up to pre-selection campaign to select the lead candidate for 2003 NSW Election. She was desperate to get rid of Ian Cohen to have absolute monopoly on the party. This is why between 2001-2003 Lee campaigned very hard to convince the party to introduce another amendment to the party constitution to enforce “limited tenure” for its politicians.

If amendment adopted, Ian Cohen will be barred automatically from running for re-election.

The campaign was very vicious. It risked dividing the party. She wrote countless articles, organised forums and toured the state to convince party members to accept the amendments.

What she suggested was that politicians became corrupt with power. To solve the issue, the party should limit the time politicians can serve in parliament to one term in the senate (or LC) and two terms in the parliament (or LA). By limiting the time in office, politicians will not gain much influence and could not build empire using their title. They will also know that whatever they do, they cannot serve more than one time (maximum 8 years).

The campaign built momentum, but most of the party members were not ready to enforce historical figures (Bob Brown, Ian Cohen....) into early retirement. Few inside the party knew the real agenda behind the suggested amendment.

For me, it was fair. I supported it in principle. But actually later on I opposed the agenda behind it. Lee was using argument of the need to stop building empire to build her own empire. That was not right.

Despite her high profile campaign, many time with leaks to media and other parties’ rivals, she failed to introduce the amendments before the pre-selection process started. Ian Cohen, and despite the bruises of the campaign, was determined to run in the election. He and his faction realised Lee’s real agenda of empire building. And they were determined to abort it. They were besieged, as Lee started to use abusive and humiliating phrases by accusing Ian and his faction of being not ready to share power. At some stage she accused them of standing against progressive changes.

Despite all these attempts, Lee and her faction failed to introduce these constitutional changes before the due date for pre-selection process. Another round of failed attempts to sideline Ian Cohen and his environmental faction.

All party members were waiting to see how Lee will react after her failed attempt. They were waiting to see if she will pursue the campaign to introduce Limited Tenure principle after Ian’s survival.

To the surprise of all, Lee totally abandoned the idea after her failure to introduce amendments to bar Ian’s re-election. Many thoughts that she will honour her principle of limited tenure and will self-impose the idea on her career. Many thought that she will retire after the end of her term in parliament on 2007.

Lee, who fought very hard to arguing that long-time in politics corrupts politicians and so there is desperate need to impose limited tenure, she refused to honour this commitment. Instead of retiring after serving 8 years in politics, she still serves in the parliament for two decades. And still seeking re-election for another 6 years.

How can Australians trust such politician that lied about almost everything, including stabbing her own party’s politicians in the back?!!!

Will you support such politician?

Memoirs of a victim of Wahhabi violence

1) When security agencies siding with extremists!!!

After my recent bad experience with AFP, who conspired with the Lebanese authorities to ban me from entering that country, memories of early bad experiences with security agencies came flashing back.

Australians need to understand where all this radicalisation came from. In the next few weeks I will highlight my experience of the possible reasons.

On 21 August 2012, upon receiving a message of my friend Khaldoun, I shared a link on Facebook. The link was about the first Australian who had died in Syria fighting alongside terrorists. At the same time his supporters here in Australia (all extremists) were spreading lies and hailing him as a hero aid worker.

Within minutes of me posting the link calling this man for what he really was, a terrorist, I started receiving hundreds of abusing and threatening messages. At that time, we were amid council election and I was running for a spot on Auburn council. The other major parties were running Lebanese background locals as leading candidates. Both originally from Al Minieh in the north of Lebanon.

Surprisingly, I was the only person who was receiving abusive and threatening messages. Khaldoun, a well-known active community member, never received similar threats.

Once the threats become serious I reported them to Auburn police station. I was sure the police would take such threats seriously especially the death threats and the threats to kidnap and rape my children.

All these threats came after I “dared” criticise a well-known radical extremist. This whole saga was about terrorism links and radicalisation in our society.

Instead, every time I attended Auburn police station to report such threats I was treated with utter contempt.

On 27 August 2012 while walking along a main commercial strip in Auburn, I was surrounded by a group of extremists who blocked my path outside Al Bukhari bookstore. These individuals started shouting, pushing me and threatened to kill me. I didn’t want to escalate matters by calling on friends and supporters to come and assist me, instead I opted to take refuge into Auburn police station which was situated less than 50 metres away from where this serious altercation was taking place.

Again the police took my statement.

I thought this time it would be different since now the threats and abusive language had progressed into physical attacks. I decided to escalate the matter to someone higher than the police.

I collated all the statements I had given to the police, I attached the recording of one of the threatening messages and I wrote a detailed account of what was going on. I sent everything in an email addressed to both the NSW Minister for Police and my local Labor MP and minister for Internal Affairs.

Given the seriousness of all that happened I was convinced that I would promptly receive some kind of communication from either one or both these offices. To the surprise of my family and friends I heard nothing!

I decided to follow up with a phone call to my local MP’s office Jason Clare and the office of the Minister for Police. Both staff members who answered the phone suggested I go to my local police station. The staff member at Jason Clare’s office even volunteered to give me the number of the police hotline.

Still dumbfounded by the lack of support from authorities I started contacting several journalists with whom I had worked together in the past. Again I was surprised by the lack of interest in such a story especially when it had been all over the media about the death of the Australian terrorist.

The only journalist who was interested was Dan Box from The Australian.

After The Australian published “Syrian conflict fires local Muslim strife” (30 August 2012), things moved very quickly.

On the same day, 30 August, I received a phone call from Auburn police station asking for a meeting to discuss things. I was so angry and disappointed from both police station and the minster that I refused to meet with them. A friend at the station called again and urged me to come to a meeting. I agreed to meet with them at around 2 pm.

At the meeting there were three people: agent of Anti-terrorism task force, commander of Flemington Area Command and community liaison officer.

The polite atmosphere did not last long. Surprisingly, the agent from Anti-terrorism taskforce accused me of provoking the extremists with my comments about Mustapha Al Majzoub and my referral to him as terrorist. Following is what was said in that room between myself and the taskforce agent.

Jamal: but he is a terrorist.

Agent: how do you know that he is terrorist?

Jamal: from the reports on your desk

Agent: what? How do you know?

Jamal: so you and your minister think that I am an amateur activist who has no information or networks?

At this stage, the language of the debate had changed.

Agent: but we are concerned about your safety

Jamal: good, my safety does not mean that I should be silenced or my democratic rights violated. I have the right to express my thoughts freely and enjoy the safety and respect. If others do not like my comments or articles, they can resort to legal system, not to bullying and assaults.

Agent: but we are dealing with organised criminal networks.

Jamal: this is your job to insure safety and security among our society. If I can’t express my opinion then I might as well move to Saudi Arabia or Qatar. If my migration was about improving my financial situation only, I will be better off working in Saudi Arabia.

The meeting was concluded with the promise of action to end the campaign of threats and bullying against me.

I was asked by the anti-terror taskforce agent not to leak to the media about the details of this meeting. I assured the agent that this will remain between us as long as they would help improve the situation.

The meeting was the first serious meeting with some officials to communicate my concerns.

Surprisingly, following the meeting, I ceased to receive threats. No more sms, minimal Facebook abusive comments, no further phone calls and no more confrontations in the streets. Even on Election Day, we did not experience any serious incident.

Relating to AFP saga of conspiring with foreign power against well-respected community active member, the lack of police actions against extremists’ threats, assaults and violence have very serious meaning.

I hate to conclude that our security agencies directly or indirectly, actively or subtly publicly or secretly were responsible somehow of radicalisation reaching this serious level never seen in Australian history.

No clever person can be convinced that within less than 5 years, radicalisation in this country could have reached this level without the help or inaction by our authorities.

Authorities need to come and tell my family why they ignored our suffering for years.

It is still vivid in my mind the day I was accused of “asking for it”. It was my fault that extremists were threatening to kill me only for expressing an opinion (which turned out to be true anyway).

Despite all that has happened to me and my family, despite our authorities conspiring against me siding with the extremist, despite been let down by our security agencies, despite all this, I am still proud to be in the frontline of fighting against radicals.

In the next article: when authorities recognise and award extremists for spreading extremism...

I do not support Syrian “revolution” and I vote

Mid September 2014 the media was overwhelmingly reporting about Australian Border Force (ABF) detaining senior extreme preacher in Australia. There is no doubt that many of Australian terrorists currently fighting in Syria is a direct and indirect result of the work of this preacher. Despite this, his brief detention and interrogation at the airport was reported with a language of deep surprise and condemnation even from very conservative Murdoch media.

The media was also quick to report on the Sydney young man who is suing the government for being detained at Sydney airport and prevented from flying overseas.

But surprisingly, there was no media coverage of detaining me for around 2 hours and the subsequent farce of AFP conspiring with foreign authorities to ban me from entering other countries.

The media was very interested in the fact that Australian security agencies were doing their job (incompletely) by interrogating very extreme preacher, who was then allowed to travel freely to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But it did not interest them that a very well-known anti-extremism campaigner was detained at Melbourne airport and interrogated for possible links to ISIS and then was banned from entering other country under request from AFP.

The media was very outspoken that security agencies suspected that Al Qaeda supporter was interrogated at airport for possible links to terrorist organisations. But media was deadly silent and did not react when security agencies detained and interrogated (and then conspired with foreign authorities to restrict movement) very well-known anti-extremism campaigner for possible links to ISIS.

Media until now is deadly silent after we provided them with documents indicate strongly that AFP conspired against community leader and very well respected anti-extremism campaigner!!!

Not only this. Until now, I cannot find a solicitor to act on my behalf to sue the government and enforce them to release full documents. So far, I contacted 5 different solicitors; many of them are very vocal against authorities “violating” rights of known extremists/possible terrorists under the slogan of “defending civil liberties”. None of them agreed to represent me against AFP.

It is very clear the reason for all this. I am proud that I was against the so-called Syrian revolution form the beginning. And this is the real reason behind all this.

Immediately after the authorities started to talk about local terrorism related to Syrian “revolution”, I was contacted by ABC journalist. Immediately she said “you were right on every word you said for the last 4 years”.

This admission did not change much of rhetoric on Syrian “revolution”. The ABC until now still thinks and promotes that what is happening in Syria is revolution and not regime-change conspiracy using terrorist organisations.

While I will write later more extensively about the Syrian “revolution” and how Australian authorities and media risked to compromise our national security supporting this terrorist phenomenon. I want to send simple message here: I totally oppose Syrian “revolution” and I vote.

Wait for our documentary on the issue... Soon...

#AFP_Disclose_Documents

The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!

(1): Early start

Many progressive or disgruntled voters are thinking to vote for the Greens in the next federal election this coming July, as they are so dissatisfied with the two major parties. They intend to do so based on progressive rhetoric of the Greens party for the last few years, especially when it comes to refugees rights, Palestinian rights, anti-war and public services and assets. What they do not realise that the Greens, while talking nice on many of these issues, but are totally agree in actions with the two major parties on these issues. Not only this. The Greens party in fact has more destructive attitude and agendas than the two major parties, but try to hide them behind progressive rhetoric.

One of the most controversial Greens politicians is Lee Rhiannon. She built an image totally opposite to its real personality and commitments (or lack of commitments).

In the next few weeks, I will record my personal experience with this opportunist politician. I will mention facts, dates, events, discussion exchanges and my own observation and assessment. The rest will lie in your hands for final decision if this politician deserves your vote in the coming election.

I joined the Greens late 2000, after becoming very angry form Labor under Kim Beazley’s leadership that showed no real opposition to destructive conservative agendas of John Howard. I was new to this country, after migrating from Jordan 4 years earlier.

Attending Greens events and meetings, there was one constant face I was seeing. And this person was always vocal on issues of social justice and equality. No matter the subject was, you cannot disagree with her. This was Lee Rhiannon, the MLC in NSW then.

She was very good organiser: she is everywhere, at all events, record details of everything and follows up on previous conversations. This is why she was successful in her empire-building inside the Greens and could sideline many of her rivals.

Immediately after few months of being active in Greens politics, I noticed the heavy division inside the party. Despite the popularity of Lee Rhiannon inside the party, but she could not overcome her weaknesses. The major weakness she has was that she is not real Greens. She was never in environmentalists business.

Lee Rhiannon was member of Stalinist party and had close relations within the former Soviet notorious secret intelligence KGP (as later become much known).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lee and her family became not only politically orphaned. But they also lost the platform they fought for decades. They were lost. This is why she started looking for another platform and another career. And she found this within the Greens party.

When I joined the party in 2000, the party was so small that they were struggling to continue party registration every year. The membership was very little. So they were desperate for any political activists to join. This is why Lee was welcomed.

Soon, she was successful in building her own faction inside the Greens: faction of ex-Stalinists who lost platform after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The other powerful faction was the faction of true environmentalists lead by Ian Cohen in NSW (and Bob Brown federally and in Tasmania). Ian Cohen, conservative but deeply honest and environmental-principled activist, was the first Greens to win a seat in NSW Legislative Council. He was historical figure for Greens movement in NSW (and the country). He was unopposed leader of NSW Greens party, until Lee Rhiannon appeared and joined the party.

The other faction was faction of extreme Zionists based around Eastern suburbs in Sydney. They always advocated that the Greens should focus solely on environmental issues and avoid any action about other social justice issues.

Lee Rhiannon and upon her joining the Greens, and because of her lack of environmental credential and expertise, started immediately advocating social justice issues. She wanted to gain a spot in NSW Legislative Council. This is why she devised, adopted and advocated phenomena of “Affirmative Action” as form of positive discrimination action to increase the representation of “marginalised groups” in the society. And because she does not fit any true marginalised group, she convinced the party that the main marginalised group that is underrepresented in our decision making bodies are “the women”.

Her strategy was simple and clear. She is woman and she will be benefited from any positive discrimination act to promote women to the parliament. Her appeal was easy to convince the party. At the end of the day, it was a party with no deep understanding of any social justice issue. Party that focuses on environment, and lack any understanding of socio-economical inequalities and marginalisation.

As a champion of the newly introduced regulation in the constitution, Lee won nomination to lead the ticket of candidates for the 1999 NSW state election. And she won a seat in LC. Lee knows very well that despite the fact that she lead a campaign on social justice issues to win her nomination, she actually won her seat on environmental issues and she was elected by environmental voters. She won only around 2% of NSW voters.

Lee Rhiannon realised her weakness: Greens party was true environmental party with no commitments and no literature about social justice issues.

To survive this weakness and to build empire inside the party, she needed to destabilise the powerful environmental faction under the leadership of Ian Cohen. She could achieve small fraction of this by introducing to the party’s constitution the principle of “Affirmative Action”. That was tiny victory that did not affect the popularity of rival faction. On the contrary. The rival faction welcomed this amendment and embraced it quickly, especially that the women were already heavily represented inside the party at all level. The issue was just a platform for Lee to win prominence and exploit the amendment for her own agenda.

This is why she started to invent campaigns that mainly target rival factions within the Greens, instead of targeting the rival political parties.

Now they want to topple Albanese: do not be deceived by the Greens

I joined the Greens in late 2000, just before the 2001 Federal election, and in no time I surprisingly had become their spokesperson and delegate for national and state councils. I was also in charge of committees to draw policies.

I soon discovered the reason behind my super quick advancement in the party.

The Greens party was and still is at present day, the most racist party in Australia when it comes to internal multiculturalism. This is the reason why my career advanced so quickly, the Greens wanted to “use my face and name” so that they would be seen multicultural and at the same time cover their racist culture.

After years inside the Greens, I came to understand that all their official talk about progressiveness and commitments were just mere talks only to achieve one goal: power grab only.

The reason I joined the Greens was to achieve socio-economic structural changes to our society. I joined because I believed their slogans of “clean politics” and “alternative voice” which Greens held high at all their rallies, meetings and forums. Sadly, within a few years, I discovered the true nature of this party.

Many other genuine progressive activists who joined the Greens for the same reason I did, soon came to the same conclusion:

The party was saying something and practicing the opposite.

The party that was calling for the abolishment of mandatory detention system, has in reality no commitment towards the suffering of refugees. Up until 2004, ALL Greens politicians admitted to me they never met any asylum seeker who had come by boat. They never visited detention centres. Basically the Greens were commenting on high-profile matters without even having a clear understanding of the issue. All they knew was that by commenting on such matters they would get more media coverage and gain more votes.

During rallies and elections forums they voiced their opposition to Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet up until 2005 they did not have an official policy on the matter. I was actually shocked when Senator Kerry Nettle admitted to me after her win in 2001 that she never heard about Palestine and knew nothing about the issue. She asked me to provide her with literature about the conflict to educate her and her staff about it.

On school funding the Greens official policy is to fund only public schools, however they quickly came to the defence and rather loudly demanded that the government continue the funding of a private Islamic extremist school. At the end of the day the Greens basically endorsed wasting our public money on private schools.

The Greens never had a policy on Multiculturalism prior to me working with them. After much pressure from my side the policy was adopted around 2005. But the Greens hierarchy refused to honour this policy and did not implement any item on its agenda. Until now, the non-English speaking representation in key positions is close to Nil.
My time with the Greens was very disappointing and disheartening by the end. It was actually a bit of a shock to discover that while the official talk was to work in achieving socio-economic changes, the reality instead was “how to win more votes”. There was at no time any real evaluation of what was or could have been achieved.

The Greens repeated attempts to make deals with the right-wing Liberal party controlled by neo-liberal elements was the final straw for me and in 2006 I resigned.
So much for all the talk on “clean politics” and being a progressive party!

Here we have a party that embraces and encourages democracy whilst at the same time makes deals with a right-wing government in order to suffocate that same democracy by changing the senate voting system.

The Greens are also negotiating intensively with the conservative Liberal party to swap preference. This will enable the current government to stay in power for another term and allow the same conservative agenda of attacking our Medicare, tertiary education, Welfare system and humanitarian intake.

“Actions speak louder than words” is the perfect quote for the Greens party.
The Greens have made a lot of noise on “clean politics”, “socio-economic changes”, “refugees rights”, “public money for public services” and “progressive politics”.
But in reality, the actions and achievements are completely the opposite.

In order to stay in power, they would rather see Tony Abbott as PM.
They also wish to see a continuation of “boat people” suffering, more cuts to our public education and health. All this for one reason: the Greens survive on the failures of others.
The Greens have never achieved any progressive change in our society even after years of been part of the government.

The Greens Don Quixotic approach wants to hide their failure in achieving any real progressive change by hiding behind more rhetoric. The attack on Anthony Albanese is a clear example. The Greens want to silence and get rid of one of the most progressive Labor politicians.

The Greens party is a power thirsty party with no commitment to any noble goal. This is why after 40 years in political life; they achieved very little. And this is why I left the Greens.

I cannot endorse voting for Labor, on moral grounds. But definitely, I want to see that Albanese stays in parliament fighting for socio-economic changes that his Greens opponents never fought for.

Our government’s “war on radicalisation”: reality vs joke!!!

In the last two years (yes, only 2), our authorities declared war on “radicalisation and extremism”, or at least that’s what they wanted us to think.

What we’ve seen so far is lots of noise threatening to crack down on extremists and making a few arrests. Also more than $1 billion of extra funding has been given to security agencies and community programs but so far the only results we can see is that extremism has increased while civil liberties have been taken away from people who are fighting the very extremists the government says it’s fighting!

After two years our government and authorities should prove to us that they are serious in tackling terrorism by showing us beyond doubt what they have achieved so far.

Well, I can easily claim beyond doubt that our government was never serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. This is very clear since there has been no degree of de-radicalisation.

A few arrests here and there of a few teenagers allegedly plotting some kind of terrorist activities is not what I call a result. Meanwhile extremism among some parts of the community is very high and extremist centres are still allowed to continue preaching hatred.

I need some answers to convince me that authorities are serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. Below are some of my observations:
- Security agencies were actively engaging and consulting extremist who were at the very source of radicalisation (Muslim leaders and organisations), and totally ignoring the real anti-extremist in the community.
- Funding for community programs aimed to reduce radicalisation was granted mainly to extremist organisations. Instead organisations that had a solid track in fighting extremism were never successful in securing such funds. For example, our organisation known to be in the frontline of the fight against extremism since 2008, was refused $25,000 in funding.
Organisations such as LMA are instead granted millions of dollars every year when in reality they have been the very cause of extremism.
Proof of this is the revelation that the latest teenager who was plotting the next terror attack was actually in a de-radicalisation program.
- In Australia we have 4 Muftis (all of them have limited representation among Muslims), the authorities chose to recognise and promote the most extremist of all. The authorities were in fact sidelining the other more moderate ones.
- Authorities were actively sabotaging anti-terrorism initiatives related to Syria, while allowing so far around 400 Australian extremist to travel and fight in Syria alongside ISIS and other terrorist organisations.
We need to know how our authorities are failing so miserably in the fight against extremism. How is it possible that great numbers of extremists were able to leave Australia to join terror groups overseas while anti extremist activist who wanted to travel on peace missions were stopped. I for one was even banned from entering Lebanon thanks to forged documents sent by Australian authorities,
- The arrest and deportation of a known peace activists (NZ citizen Warren Marriner, as a clear example) while outrageously allowing free movement of extremists between Australia and Syria (authorities admitted that 60 Australian terrorists had returned to Australia after fighting in Syria).

What I mentioned above are not allegations or theories. They are facts and we are working on documenting them.
But even without these facts anyone can easily see that Australia has a big problem with high radicalisation and extremism.
All the facts outlined below are evidence that our authorities are not serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation:
- The constant interception of youth trying to travel to Syria to join terrorist.
- The incessant reports of radical violence in schools.
- The repeat attacks on anti-extremism campaigners.
- The ongoing fundraising events to support terrorist organisations.
- The re-appearance of radical groups such as Al Risalah bookstore for example.

With all the facts I have outlined, we can only come to one sad conclusion: our authorities are on the side of the extremists!
We cannot expect our levels of radicalisation and extremism to come down unless the following measures are taken:
1. Closing down dozen of mosques and religious centres run by extremist.
2. Start consultation with the real anti extremist members of the community and halt all talks with known extremist community/religious leaders.
3. Stop the funding from Gulf countries (mostly Saudi Arabia) to Australian Islamic schools and religious centres.

If these measures are not taken soon, the government and the security agencies will lose the trust of the Australian people.

We can send a strong message to our government with the upcoming elections.

“You will not get our votes until you act on radicalisation and restore public faith in our security agencies.”

Why AFP refused my FOI application...!!!

The AFP refusal to release a document they provided to the Australian embassy in Lebanon on 4 November 2015 about an AFP investigation which lead to my ban from entering Lebanon, raises very serious questions:

1- Why has the AFP chosen to convey this document to Lebanon only?
If I’m allegedly under investigation for serious matters, why did the AFP not notify other agencies such Interpol and asked other countries to refuse my entry? If I am too “dangerous” to enter Lebanon, would I not be “dangerous” entering Jordan or Egypt?
2- Why did the AFP let me leave Australia knowing very well that I would be stopped in Lebanon? Clearly my travel documents stated where I was going. If AFP already knew about the ban initiated by their agency, why make me go through the great effort in travelling all the way to that country to just get refused? This little petty game played by AFP caused me extensive financial losses.
3- I have never been subject to any AFP investigation. AFP is merely lying...
4- Was it an AFP initiative to provide false information to the Lebanese authorities or the request came from higher? Was AFP pressured by elements in our government? Could it be they acted upon request of some politicians who have been embarrassed by my work on radicalisation and Syrian crisis?
5- Why is the media deadly silent on this gross abuse of power by AFP who is targeting a respected member of society only because of his political view?

We will start a public campaign on “political targeting” using police state powers. We will make this an issue of public interest during this election’s campaign. In the meantime we are getting legal advice in Australia and we are also waiting on a deliberation from the Lebanese Supreme Court to release the document.

I contacted my local MP Jason Clare, who declined to help. I also contacted the PM office and the office of Craig Lundy, MP for Reid. All declined to meet me and help clarify this issue. I understand this is a result of their political views in support of the Syrian “revolution” that is in odd with my views on this “revolution”. Again this will be highlighted in our campaign in the next federal election. We will ask voters to vote away from these politicians who conspire with foreign powers against respected member of their local community.

I am deeply disappointed that the dozens of journalists who worked with me and my group for the last few years on the issues of radicalisation are now hesitant to cooperate with me on these highly important issues.

I am in the process of assessing our level of cooperation with these journalists in the future, especially now that we are expecting good news from Syria. This news will enable us to lead a major project in Syria that will have a great public impact in Australia. In light of the above, we are assessing and will decide which media outlet will get the right to cover our upcoming project.

Whatever the reason, I will not vote for Jason Clare: No to extremism..!!

Jason Clare, Labor MP for Blaxland (where I reside) didn’t get my vote in the last election and definitely won’t be getting my vote in the next.

The reason why I didn’t vote for him in the last election was due to his poor record on many social issues.

The reason why I won’t support him in the upcoming election is his total support for radical elements in our community.

Mr Clare is the Labor MP of Blaxland, a federal seat that has the largest number of Muslims in Australia and one of the largest numbers of migrants born in Non-English speaking countries. The seat, which includes the suburb of Bankstown, witnessed the highest level of sectarian violence in the country. This violence was perpetrated by a group of Muslim extremist towards other sects that didn’t follow their same “ideology”. The people targeted by these violent individuals were other Muslims who either belonged to different sects (Shites and Alawi) or just secular Muslims.

Mr Clare’s response to these violent and vicious attacks was silence!

Not only was he silent, he even refused to meet with some of the victims of these attacks. I know this because one of those victims was me!

I was physically assaulted in the heart of Bankstown and just metres away from MP Clare’s office. Before that, I had already received hundreds of death threats and I had been verbally assaulted many times.

Another victim, Mr Ali El Ali, was shot on 4 February 2012 at his house in front of his wife and children. Mr El Ali lived in Punchbowl which belongs also to the division of Blaxland.

Mr Isawi was tortured by local extremist in his shop. He was beaten and threatened to be killed if he didn’t sell up and leave.
Without the support from local authorities he gave in to the extortion and lost his shop.

In August 2012 I sent an email explaining to Mr Clare what my family was going through after receiving hundreds of death threats. These threats included the kidnapping and rape of my children.

I’m a political campaigner and community leader and I’ve always been very vocal in fighting extremism in our society. This has never gone down well with the local extremists and for this reason I was physically assaulted.

Since I never got an answer to my email I decided to phone the office. I explained to a staff member the situation and that I wished to see him as the situation was critical. The staff member was rather rude and not willing to help stating “Mr Clare is a very busy man and can’t meet you”.
The staff member did, however, give me the number of the local police (sigh).

To date Mr Clare has not bothered to meet any of the victims of Muslims radicals. If this wasn’t bad enough, he hasn’t even taken the time to at least condemn these violent acts on his constituents. Many of these victims were forced to close down their business and move away from Bankstown.
Not even when I was assaulted on national TV in May 2013 he didn’t seem to deem this particular incident worth of condemnation.

The voice of ordinary Muslims who were victims of violent attacks perpetrated by Muslim radicals are apparently not worthy of Mr Clare’s time.

On 1st October last year, Ms Maha Abdo who happens to be a Muslim extremist, had apparently received an angry phone call from someone telling her to “love Australia or leave”. Imagine my surprise when all of a sudden Mr Clare spoke out about this disgraceful phone call inside the parliament. He even issued a media release and mentioned this also on his website.

Apparently for Mr Clare shooting someone or threatening to kidnap and rape children is not a serious matter, however a harmful phone call gets blown out of proportion. And this is when in dirty politics it all comes down to votes! There is no other logical explanation for such blatant disparities within the same constituency.

Mr Clare not only supports extremism and radicalisation but his silence has encouraged local extremist to continue their radical activities of brainwashing, recruiting, attacking opponents and fundraising. And this is the main reason why I will not vote for Labor candidate in Blaxland in the next election.

Not only I will not vote for this politician who supported and still supports radicalisation in our society. I, and other concerned members of our community, will mount a campaign to see voters put him last on their ballot paper.

I will not vote for Mr Clare for two reasons:
1) I do not support extremism.
2) all Australians should be equal

In the next election, we will work very hard to see Blaxland become a marginal seat. Mr Clare needs to remember how we nearly achieved this in 2010.
We helped to achieve a drop in Labor’s primaries to 50%, increased the informal vote by 15%. 10% of voters boycotted altogether. Blaxland had the highest informal vote in the country where 25% of voters didn’t vote for any candidate.

Mr Clare needs to represent all members in his seat equally. He needs to withdraw support to extremist groups and organisations and highlight instead the dangers of radicalisation among our community.

If Mr Clare thinks he can gain votes by supporting such groups then he needs to know that according to NSW state election results, these extremists have no support among voting residents.

Mr Clare needs to apologise to all victims of extremism and stop listening to the likes of extremist organisations such as the Lebanese Moslem Association which have greatly contributed to the spread of extremism in our society.


#Vote_Jason_Clare_Last in Blaxland

The Greens conspire with Liberals to suffocate democracy

And once again The Greens betray another of their “principles”.

Now they have gone even further: conspiring with the ultra conservative Liberal government to give up our “unsophisticated” democracy by introducing so-called “senate voting reforms”.

Let us admit firstly that we do have a somewhat rather ancient democratic voting system.
This regressive primitive voting system allowed the two parties, for more than a century, to continue governing this nation with little opposition.

The system allowed at one stage the survival of a 3rd party when convenient. “For decoration purposes”, these were the exact words used by a Labor heavyweight.

The voting system in need of an urgent fix is the house of representatives and not the senate. If you examine any senate since the federation, you will find some representation of small parties or independents. The house of representatives on the other hand, has always less representation of small parties or independents.

The few “independents” who managed to win seats, were only able to do so, by being at first candidates from a major party then later defecting to declare independence.

The parliament system is extremely undemocratic as it lacks a proportional representation. To win any given seat, a candidate needs 50% +1. This is extremely hard.

On the other hand to win a seat in electoral area in a proportional system, a candidate will need smaller quota. Eg. If the electoral area consists of 4 seats, the candidate will need less than 20% of the votes.

Another issue which needs to be addressed is the representation of minorities and marginalised communities. In our parliaments, more than 95% of politicians are White Anglo-Saxons. The representation of Indigenous, Non-English Speaking and people with disabilities is almost NIL, comparing to the actual numbers of these marginalised communities.

The Greens which have become only recently a relevant party, have been studying ways to obstruct any smaller parties for their political advantage.

The Greens party were well aware of the fact that the only reason they rose to relevancy was thanks to the disintegration of the Democrats party. Without the current system (which they want to abolish), The Greens would never have had the chance to beat the Democrats.


The first Greens politician to win a seat was Bob Brown in 1996. He won merely on preferences. He got in with just around 6% of the votes (the quota is 14.5%).
The same happened with Kerry Nettle. She won her senate seat in 2001 on less than 4.5% (quota is 14.5%), despite the fact that the candidate for the Democrats got more primary votes than her.

The Greens deeply regressive Bob Brown, started to study ways to sabotage small parties in order to prevent any scenario similar to what happened to the Democrats by the hands of the Greens.

In order to achieve this, they demanded the tightening of regulations needed to register a political party. The only state where their demands were met was in NSW. The Greens conspired with regressive Labor’s Bob Carr and the Liberals and made it very difficult to register a state party.

According to this legislation, a party should register 1 year before the election. The party needs to have at least 700 members (when in fact a party needs only 500 members to be registered as federal party and a few members to be registered in all other states).

Conniving with the Liberals is now the other legacy of the Greens in their bid to suffocate small parties to change the senate voting system and make it impossible for smaller parties to swap preference and win a seat.

In the last elections, Glenn Druery was crucified by The Greens after they lost some seats due to Motor Enthusiasts party winning less than 0.6% in the primaries.

Let us discuss the philosophy of Glenn and see if it is evil or progressive.

A decade ago, more than 80% of Australians would vote for either one of the 2 major parties.

More than 95% of Australians will choose one of the candidates of the 3 established parties (Labor-Liberal/National-Democrats and then Labor-Liberals/National-Greens).

In the last election this percentage was significantly reduced. See below parcentages:

Total votes for the candidates of the three established parties: 67%
Informal votes: 3%
Absentees: 8%

The above numbers are worrying for the “gang-of-three major parties”.
This is the reason why the Greens, who are more vulnerable to any loss of votes, are so desperate to suffocate any small parties competing with the Greens for the limited numbers of available votes.

Let us go back to Glenn’s philosophy. Glenn noticed the large numbers of unhappy voters (dissatisfied from the gang-of-three). This dissatisfaction is translated in the large numbers of new small and micro political parties registered to run any the last 2 elections (around 47 parties and the list is still open to be increased till the next election).

Glenn also noted that despite the fact that most of these parties will get less than 1% of the primary vote, if added up it could reach 25% of primaries. So he ingeniously invented a method to add up all these small percentages to win a seat in each state.

In conclusion, Glenn did not cheat the system. He did not deceive anyone. And he did not use any illegal methods.

In any election, the small primaries won by micro parties will be swallowed at early stage of counting the votes by one of the three established parties. So dissatisfied voters will still be dissatisfied because their protest votes ended up in the party they wished to punish in the first place.

The genius method of Glenn saw the “dissatisfied” votes add up to win a seat for a party outside the “mafia”.

This is why the Greens are unhappy. The Greens want the dissatisfied voters to hit their heads on the nearest brick wall. Contrary to all facts and data, The Greens still want to continue to claim that they represent dissatisfied voters.

The Greens should pay dearly for this undemocratic conniving with one of the worst conservative governments in Australian contemporary history. Such scheme could see the Liberals winning both houses and this could mean the end of “fair go” Australia we all know.

Why organise International Tours of Peace to Syria?

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, active groups, who oppose the violence in Syria, started to organise solidarity visits to the country. There are many reasons for organising such visits but the number one reasons was to send a message of solidarity to Syrians and their legitimate government.

These tours also enable activists, media representatives and intellectuals to find out what is really happening in Syria first hand and not through the mainstream media fabrications.

I had the honour to participate in one of these visits in late 2013. It was a great experience that gave me a lot of ideas and information about the situation and the needs of the Syrians who chose to stay in the country.

Up until now mostly the same groups and same people visit Syria. This is mainly due to connections to that country. We wanted to do more.

We wanted our tours to be “Responsible Tourism”. This is when we decided to start our International Tours of Peace to Syria where:

• Anyone can participate.
• Each participant will finance his/her stay in Syria. This will generate greater economic benefits for the local people.
• The tour will provide more enjoyable experiences for the participants through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
• Visits will become more frequent allowing more people from diverse background to participate. This will have greater impact and generate better media coverage.

In our first International Peace Tour to Syria all participants (except one) were first time travellers to Syria.

Every participant paid their own way and enjoyed the Syrian hospitality. So much that a few have already booked for the next tour and others have expressed their desire to go back again as soon as their finances will allow them.

Our tour got good coverage on Facebook and mainstream media in different countries including Syria, Norway and Australia.

The first tour has allowed us to come up with more ideas, including our project of sending volunteers to Syria. We will announce the details soon.

The management for this project is very flexible always consulting with others on almost every aspect of the organisation. Openness and transparency are the keys to achieve our goals. It is for this reason that all the participants were very happy with our tour, even if it was our “test run” tour.

The participants had minimal interference by Syrian authorities while exploring the reality of the situation. Participants moved freely among the market stalls, talked freely with ordinary Syrians and freely took photos/videos everywhere they went. We changed our itinerary several times and were able to accommodate the wishes of the participants.

We expect the 2nd tour to be even better!
We promise many unbelievable surprises. What surprises? Come and find out!

www.socialjustice.net.au/syria-tours or info@socialjustice.net.au