Yesterday, I shone a light on the presence of pro-Hizbullah and pro-Nasrallah protesters at anti-Israel rallies that APAN President Nasser Mashni helped coordinate.
The Victorian premier has since condemned them, and police are probing possible crimes related to the presence of the flags.
One person really unhappy about this is Mashni, who has appeared in the media numerous times to downplay the amount of people who flew the flags and pictures of Nasrallah.
On Channel 9 News, he mentions “a couple” of flags and pictures, which is almost humorous after the reporter mentions dozens of Nasrallah pictures alone:
On SBS News, this seems to be changed to “a minority”:
(and I simply don’t believe him when he says the flags “came out of nowhere”)
On ABC Melbourne Radio, he mentions it as a “small minority” (while not condemning those flying them).
But it is not just the media appearances. Mashni has also been afforded the opportunity to pen an op-ed for The Daily Telegraph, in which he mentions there being only “a handful of flags,” and tries to suggest that it is racism to fixate on them!
As Israel expands its bloody campaign of settler-colonial violence into Lebanon, intensifying its year-long genocide in Palestine, Australia’s political and media establishments are fixated on what they deem a more pressing concern: a handful of flags flown by a minority at the weekend’s solidarity protests.
This theatrical obsession with flags serves as a convenient distraction for those who have spent the past year searching for ways to divert attention from the genocidal brutality of one of our key allies. And from Australia’s complicity in it.
By fixating on these symbols, our leaders sidestep the uncomfortable conversations about whether Australia is fulfilling its international obligations to prevent genocide and hold accountable those responsible for the most heinous human rights abuses.
Politicians and the media only talk about demonstrations when they want to whip up racist division.
And even after a year of ongoing protest against Israel’s genocide, there is a disturbing hesitancy among leaders and mainstream journalists alike to engage with their content or legitimate demands.
The fact that these flags have drawn more vocal condemnation than Israel’s indiscriminate killings of Palestinian and Lebanese men, women, and children, and its wiping out of entire family lines, also reveals a stark truth: Arab lives are deemed expendable.
The racism is glaringly obvious, for all to see.
Calls from figures like Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, now echoed by the government and some independent politicians, to cancel the visas of and/or prosecute those flying these flags, even as the AFP insists this is not an “arrestable offence,” are nothing short of racist dog-whistling.
This scapegoating feeds into a broader culture of fear and hatred of Arabs and Muslims, as anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia reach alarming levels.
It is a national disgrace that it has become easier to condemn a flag than to confront the violent reality of a rogue state intent on annihilating a population. We must rise above the superficial and sensationalist narratives and engage with the truth: Palestinian lives, Lebanese lives, Arab lives are as precious as any others. They deserve respect.
If there was ever an illustration as to how Mashni is a master gas lighter, this is it.
Meanwhile, if this all seems a tad familiar, it is because it is. He pulled the same shtick when antisemitic protesters yelled “Gas the Jews” less than a week after October 7:
Contrary to what Mashni is trying to portray, I believe it is a vast majority of these haters who are antisemitic terror supporters who heart Hizbullah, Hamas, and the events of October 7.
