Greens MP’s Nakba event
Jenny Leong slammed for hosting Nakba event in Parliament with guest Nasser Mashni.
Greens MP Jenny Leong has been slammed for organising a Nakba event in Parliament, which will feature “special guest” Nasser Mashni.
Mashni leads the Australian Palestine Action Network (APAN) and is behind the pro-Palestine demonstrations across Australia. He has criminal convictions for kidnap, violence and threatening behaviour and has previously declared that “Zionism stripped bare is a genocidal, white supremacist, racist movement.”
Leong posted on social media, “Each year Palestinians recall the Nakba of 1948 when they were forcibly displaced from their lands and communities in Palestine with the establishment of the State of Israel.
“Today the Nakba continues in Gaza and the West Bank with the most displacement and destruction of Palestinian lives and homes since 1948,” she wrote.
Leong added that a screening of the film Palestinians Don’t Need Sidewalks will follow the event.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Michele Goldman told The AJN the event is a “disgraceful use of parliamentary resources to feed community tensions and stoke hatred”.
“Our Parliament should be a forum for unity and harmony, not a platform for events that divide our communities,” she said.
“This is disappointing – though sadly not surprising – given the Greens’ pattern of divisive behaviour and antisemitic attitudes.”
Leong has proudly posted photos of herself attending pro-Palestine rallies while wearing a keffiyeh and last year video surfaced of her accusing the Jewish lobby of using “tentacles” to “influence power”.
After a complaint was lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission about her comments, Leong agreed to attend a free guided tour of the Sydney Jewish Museum and donate $2000 to the museum. She also separately donated $2000 to the Jewish Council of Australia, which she said was a “diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers united in their opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life”.
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