A government-subsidised workforce of Israel lobbyists is targeting regulators and employers across the fields of media, medicine and business to sack employees who criticise the government of Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. Joel Jenkins reports.
The powerful reach of the Zionist lobby in Australia has been on display the past few weeks, with news that lobbyists pressured ABC executives leading to the sacking of ABC journalist Antoinette Lattouf for sharing information from Human Rights Watch on her social media.
As the story of her unfair dismissal became global news, it seemed the pressure from transnational Zionist lobby groups didn’t rest with the media and government, and in fact, was a multi-sector, multi-tentacled lobbying army that is working to threaten the livelihoods of those who possess public views that support the people of Gaza under the charge of antisemitism.
On the morning of October 19, after receiving news from a friend trapped in Gaza about the bombing of the Al Ahli hospital, Farah Abdurahman, a media advisor to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), published a LinkedIn post to express her dismay in a train on the way to work.
Abdurahman arrived at her desk at 9am as images were streaming into the world revealing the devastation at the hospital site, and her post was getting attention. Within moments, her post was being aired on the Ray Hadley show, and by 2pm, she was called in by her superiors, who initially sent her home for some personal leave under the pretence of ‘mental health care’, citing the attention her post received.
The speed with which Abdurahman was removed was remarkable. Within moments after Abdurahman posted, the Zionist lobbyists had sent screenshots to the Ray Hadley Morning Show on 2GB, who then relayed this information to the office of NSW Premier Chris Minns for comment. Within a small matter of hours, her organisation was made aware of the situation by the NSW Premier’s office.
Initially her directors “feigned concern” for her mental health about replies to her LinkedIn post calling her things like a “rape apologist”, before sending her home on what would turn out to be forced extended leave without pay. Farah would never return to her position at the DCJ.
The caravan to Israel – journalist jaunts, political passengers, diplomatic dispatches and jobs lost
The AJA
The Australian Jewish Association and a vexatious cartel of pro-Israel lobby groups are pursuing individuals in their workplaces across multiple industries in Australia, with individuals and groups targeted who have spoken out against Israel’s actions facing real and concerning consequences as a result.
A lapel pin worn by a Qantas flight attendant made national news as a former Liberal Party staffer had a photo he took of the worker on a flight to Tasmania amplified by the pro-Israel lobbies and the Murdoch-led media onslaught, leading to a national frenzy and over 6,000 signatures on a Change.org petition calling for the flight attendant’s dismissal.
Not satisfied with this, the AJA also spammed another photo featuring an airline worker wearing a similar lapel pin to his colleague, using the same tactic to shame the employee and coerce the employer to terminate them.
And the doctors too
Dr Kate Ahmad is a Neurologist and administrator for the Doctors of Palestine Facebook group, a safe space for doctors to discuss the issues away from more public forums that are becoming increasingly heated, and where discussions on Israel and Palestine are often banned.
Dr Ahmad says members are being targeted using the industry regulator APHRA to report doctors for claims of antisemitism, and in the short time since October 7, thirteen members of the ‘Doctors of Palestine group have been reported to APHRA, eleven of them Muslim women, largely for social media posts within the closed Facebook group.
Dr Ahmad says it is infiltrated by pro-Zionist groups choosing “Arabic names, who make false profiles and pretending they are those doctors,” who then take screenshots to share for “complaints and doxing purposes”.
“M.A.”, a Sydney-based epidemiologist and academic, echoes these sentiments, saying he has been doxxed by #notmydoctor and #balanceisnotonesided on Instagram, leaking private and confidential information of the doctor to social media with links in the comments to the APHRA complaints office. M.A. complaint was to UNNSW.
He says APHRA is being used as a cudgel to drag medical practitioners before the regulator.
Forced to investigate each complaint that comes in, Dr M.A. says the Zionist lobbies, some of whom received millions in recent grants from the Attorney-General, are “costing taxpayers a lot of money, and a lot of resources, to investigate unfounded claims, that is doing nothing but endangering APHRA’s responsibility to the population.” (More to come on this story.)
There is a pattern emerging throughout Australia where an employee who takes an anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian position can be targeted wherever they earn a living, with real and potentially dangerous consequences for those who take a stance on a humanitarian crisis the ICJ has ruled to be a ‘plausible’ genocide in Gaza.
Since the sacking of Antoinette Lattouf, additional claims of similar treatment have emerged from individuals in a wide range of different workforces across Australia. These examples highlight a deeply entrenched corruption in our institutions, which has arisen due to unrelenting pressure from powerful lobby groups, tying religion and culture to the goals of a colonial apartheid state in the Middle East and slandering those who speak out against it as antisemitic.
People who have said nothing about Judaism have had their livelihoods dramatically affected under the charge of antisemitism for criticising the government of Israel, government workers sacked, airline staff bullied, academics censored, and doctors unable to do their jobs.
Postscript
After taking her two days leave, Farah Abdurahman logged in on the next Monday and realised she was locked out of the corporate software. Enquiring about it in her directives Microsoft Teams group as to what might be going on, she noticed the director removing her from all the group chats, her access was then revoked, and she was effectively on suspension without pay with no direct contact with any of her superiors.
Being on an employment contract as a Government advisor, the department kept communications through the contracting agency, refusing to contact her directly, and informed Abdurahman by proxy that her services would no longer be required. Abdurahman was sent home without pay, her contract was abruptly terminated, and she has not heard from DCJ in three months.
As was the case with both Lattouf, the Qantas flight attendant and Abdurahman, the Zionist lobby uses friendly media outlets to amplify their claims and put more pressure on employers. Lattouf was shamed in the Murdoch Press; the Qantas employee was taken to task in Murdoch’s Sky News Australia and Farah Abdurahman was shamed by outrage journalism in the Daily Mail. She was not contacted by the reporter she says. The reporter told MWM that he tried to contact her.
