16 August 2016

GetUp! ...and "force Israel into a perennial state of existential anxiety"

From The Australian, 16 Aug 2016, by Sharri Markson:
A director of activist group GetUp! supports a boycott of Israeli products and wants to “force Israel into a perennial state of existential anxiety”. 
Fresh from revelations GetUp! chairwoman Sarah Maddison campaigned for the Greens during the federal election, comes news that another board member, Sara Saleh, publicly supports the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement on Twitter.


Sarah Maddison & Sara Saleh
In a speech in March, Ms Saleh said the media fabricated news in support of Israel and claimed Israeli soldiers were banned from taking their phones into Gaza so they could not post to Facebook photos of them doing unspeakable things to dead Palestinians.
“It would come then as no surprise that after years of indoctrination, most Western news outlets are biased in favour of Israel, skewed at best, one-sided at worst in their media reports,” Ms Saleh said, adding this included “fabrication of news”.
...At the Australians For Palestine forum in March, Ms Saleh also said:
“We must crack their ethno-nationalist supremacy to the very core. We must go further than resisting through remembrance alone, we must force Israel into a perennial state of existential anxiety.’’
During the federal election, Ms Saleh was involved in the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network’s IvotePalestine campaign, which had the support of all 51 Greens candidates.
GetUp! told The Australian it represented “mainstream issues important to a majority of Australians” including “economic fairness, human rights and environmental justice”.
Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer, whose seat of Higgins was also targeted by GetUp! during the election campaign, said it was “very clear” the group had a “very political agenda to support the Greens”.
“It’s disappointing that organisations like GetUp! pretend to be non-partisan but are hyper-partisan and hyper-political,” she said.
“I think any person who has supported GetUp! on the basis that it wasn’t a political organisation, should reassess. GetUp! needs to be much more upfront as to where the funding actually goes and whose campaign they are supporting.”
The federal Labor MP for inner-city seat of Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby, said his support for Israel was one of the reasons the Greens campaigned against him.
Ms Saleh refused to comment yesterday. GetUp! released a statement saying: “Our board consists of experienced people with diverse interests and affiliations.’’

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