I have already written a fair bit about Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) President Nasser Mashni, and his Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde proclivities.
It turns out that his ostensible terror support should be no surprise, given his origins. He is the son of one Shaher Hussein El-Mashni (Abu Nasser), who was not exactly a man of peace.
This is how the Green Left eulogized Abu Nasser after he passed away in 2007.
Palestinian community leader and activist Shaher Hussein El-Mashni (Abu Nasser) died on March 1 in Melbourne. His memorial service, on March 18, was attended by more than 200 people, including representatives of Australian Palestinian groups and the Palestinian head of delegation to Australia, Izzat Abdul Hadi, who gave condolences on behalf of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Born on May 10, 1926, in the Palestinian town of Deir Dibwan, near Ramallah, Abu Nasser witnessed some turbulent times: at 10, he witnessed the Great Palestinian Revolt against British colonialism and Zionist colonisation; and in 1948, in response to impending partition and the setting up of the Zionist state, Abu Nasser joined the Palestinian Resistance led by Palestinian leader Abdel-Kader al-Husseini, who had secretly returned to Palestine in January 1948, after being exiled in 1938 as one of the leaders of the 1936 revolt.
Al-Husseini died in April 1948, but Abu Nasser survived the Zionist onslaught, spending the next 11 years in exile in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He knew if he was captured he would spend the rest of his life in an Israeli prison. During this time he continued his political activity, only to be jailed in Al Jafr prison by the Jordanian regime. Al Jafr, in the southern Jordanian desert, opened in 1953 to house political dissidents and soon became a symbol of political oppression. Closed in the 1970s, it was reopened in the 1990s with the CIA carrying out its secret “renditions” there.
Abu Nasser, with the help of friends, migrated to Australia in 1959. He immediately began his political agitation in Melbourne, seeking out Arabs and Palestinians to organise to support Palestinian and Arab nationalism.
Life-long friend Mohammed Saraya said Abu Nasser was a keen supporter of pan-Arab nationalism, believing it was the only way to build a politically, economically and culturally strong Arab world. Abu Nasser married Victoria in 1967 and they named their first son after Gamal Abdel Nasser, an advocate of this cause.
In the 1960s, Abu Nasser, along with others inspired by Yasser Arafat, formed the Australian wing of the Fatah movement, and became an active participant in the Palestinian National Council (Arafat’s Palestinian parliament-in-exile). According to Saraya, Abu Nasser attended many of the PNC conferences, keen to help build a future Palestinian state.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Abu Nasser worked tirelessly with other Palestinians and Arabs to establish a range of organisations such as the Arab Association, the Palestinian Association of Sydney and Victoria, the Arab Australian Friendship Association and the Australian Middle East Study Association. He was also instrumental in helping to establish the first Palestinian embassy in Australia.
Abu Nasser imparted his love of Palestine and his belief in freedom, justice and struggle to his three sons and grandchildren. According to his son Moammar, “Dad always said he had two wives. My most beautiful and precious mother, and Palestine.”
In a moving speech, Nasser, his eldest son, told the memorial that his father didn’t want, nor ask for, recognition. All he wanted was that “our just struggle not stagger, nor whimper or ever be forgotten. He demanded it grow and grow until victory!”
Dr Bassam Dally of the South Australian Friends of Palestine announced at the memorial the creation of the Shaher Hussein El-Mashni Al Awda Memorial Fund to continue Abu Nasser’s work.
Let’s break this down.
Abu Nasser was eulogized by Ismail Haniyeh
Abu Nasser was eulogized by arch terrorist Ismail Haniyeh, a senior leader of Hamas with the blood of thousands of Israelis on his hands. It is no wonder Nasser cannot bring himself to condemn Hamas.
Abu Nasser opposed the Partition Plan and was part of the “Holy War” to rid the land of the Jews
The eulogy mentions his joining Abdel-Kader al-Husseini’s fighters “in response to impending partition” “and the setting up of the Zionist state.”
The palestinian Arabs could have had a state back in 1947, had they accepted the Partition Plan. The Jews did accept it, even though it encompassed way less than our ancestral lands, while the Arabs responded by declaring a Holy War to rid the land of all the Jews.
Here’s what you need to know about the terrorist leader Abdel-Kader al-Husseini, for whom Abu Nasser fought:
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni (Arabic: عبد القادر الحسيني), also spelled Abdul Qadir al-Husseini (1907 – 8 April 1948), was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle (Munathamat al-Jihad al-Muqaddas), which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt and during the 1948 war.
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In 1938, Abd al-Qadir was exiled and in 1939 moved to Iraq where he took part in the Rashid Ali al-Gaylani coup. He moved to Egypt in 1946, but secretly returned to Palestine to lead the Army of the Holy War in January 1948.
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Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni arrived in the Jerusalem sector in December 1947 and by March 1948 had about 128 men. He established his headquarters at Bir Zeit and started to conduct a blockade of Jerusalem by attacking the Jewish convoys to the city. Hasan Salama, with 950 men of the Jihad and 228 irregulars, took responsibility for the operations in the Lydda and Ramle sectors, at the entry of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road.
There is actually now a terror group named after him, the Abdel Qader al-Husseini Brigades, responsible for the murders of innocent civilians.
Abu Nasser worked for arch terrorist Yasser Arafat’s Fatah and PNC
Abu Nasser worked for Arafat’s organization during the 1960s and seems to have been high ranking, so I assume they knew each other. Bear also in mind that during the 1960s, Fatah provided training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African terrorist groups, and carried out numerous attacks against Israeli targets the following decade. This was a particularly bloodthirsty period for Arafat and Fatah, so one could fairly assume that Abu Nasser was not averse to the murders of Israeli civilians. He may have even been involved in them.
Nasser was proud of his father
It is not like Nasser disowned his father. On the contrary, as the eulogy mentions, Nasser quoted him approvingly:
“All he wanted was that “our just struggle not stagger, nor whimper or ever be forgotten. He demanded it grow and grow until victory!”
One can safely assume that by “victory”, he did not mean reaching a peace agreement and two-state solution.
Elsewhere, we see that Nasser clearly idolized pops.
A piece of my #Nakba74 speech… my father’s Palestine… pic.twitter.com/9GxABmRwFz
— Nasser Mashni (@iamthenas) May 16, 2022
And how do I know the Nasser mentioned above is the same Nasser Mashni? From a different eulogy:
MASHNI Shaher Hussein (Abu Nasser) 10.5.1926 – 1.3.2007 Passed peacefully Thursday, Mar. 1, 2007 Aged 80 Beloved husband to Victoria. Father to Nasser, Moammar and Kamahl, father-in-law to Samar, Georgina and Rosa and much loved Jidou to Nasser Shaher II, Khaled Arafat, Jenin Areen Al’Ousoud, Leila Philasteen, Yasser and Jamal Mashni.
According to this profile, Nasser Mashni’s wife is Samar. Also, it mentions he is “a founding, and current, board member of The Australian Foundation for Palestinian Children, known as Olive Kids.” According to this report on the Olive Kids website, Moammar Mashni was also on its board. That is the name of one of Abu Nasser’s other sons.
Update: Yes, it is his father and he wants to continue his legacy.
With his father’s legacy in mind, Nasser is determined to continue the struggle for justice and a free Palestine.
More on his background is outlined in these two short pieces.
[https://immigrationplace.com.au/story/shaher-abu-nasser-mashni/] [https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/shaher-hussein-el-mashni-abu-nasser]
