Last month, I exposed Victoria Liang, the Free Palestine Printing organizer who also worked for the Australian Department of Defense. I noted the conflict of interest, given she was helping in the dissemination of anti-Israel propaganda (including that which even seemed pro-terror) while working in Australia’s defense industry, especially considering its cooperation with Israel.
I have now discovered another Australian-based Israel-hater who seems to be engaged in a real conflict of interest.
Meet Ahmed Alabadla:
A vehement Israel-hater who lives in NSW, Australia, Ahmed works as a project officer for NSW’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water – at least that’s what his LinkedIn profile suggests:
While I am not sure exactly what this role entails, what is clear is he works for the NSW government in the area of energy.
This is especially relevant, not to mention troubling, given he recently ran a webinar on an energy embargo of Israel, and boycotting companies dealing with Israel from an energy perspective.
Besides the obvious issue of him working in the field of energy for an Australian state government department while seemingly using his expertise in energy to promote a boycott of those dealing with Israel in this area, it calls in to question how he can remain objective in doing his job with the best interests of the state of New South Wales and, indeed, Australia at heart. And to be completely frank, I severely doubt he does have the best interests of NSW and Australia at heart given he views Australia as a illegitimate settler colony.
To make matters even worse, Ahmed recently ran another webinar justifying palestinian terrorism as “resistance.” He also organized this upcoming event (archived here) glorifying terrorism:
The 76 years struggle for liberation in Palestine has reached a watershed moment with the advent of October 7th events. With a long and rich history of resistance and defiance, Palestinians are currently empowered by an unprecedented support from the international community despite the complicity of their political representation.
Palestinian resistance have taken many shapes and forms in it’s fight for justice and liberation against the Zionist regime, including violent and non-violent resistance where each form has its own strategies, tactics and legal implications.
This event will have a focused discussion on the effectiveness, impact and the legal justification of both forms of resistance.
—
Shahd Hammouri is a Palestinian lecturer in international law at the university of Kent and a legal consultant for multiple Palestinian civil society organisations and the author of the forthcoming book: Corporate War Profiteering and International law. Shahd has written extensively about, and argued for, the legality of the Palestinians’ right to resist occupation and colonisation by any means available.
Another aspect to consider is how Ahmed is pro-BDS. The BDS Movement website links to this Database of Military and Israeli Security Export which features a map containing military data about Israel. This raises another possible conflict of interest with Ahmed, a government employee of a nation allied with Israel.
And Ahmed’s activities are not confined to speaking events. He is very involved with Palestine Justice Movement Sydney (PJMS) as an organizer, organizing things like demonstrations targeting the ZIM shipping company, in attempts to disrupt the supply chain.
If you are troubled as me at the potential conflicts of interest on display here, please join me in contacting Penny Sharpe, the NSW Energy Minister.
Updates
19/8/24 8:00: Ahmed has removed both his LinkedIn profile and the energy embargo webinar recording following this expose. Shame for him about my screenshots and own video extracted from the webinar, eh?
