Australia’s SBS News reports on how a Gazan woman who came to Australia has had her visa cancelled because she is “directly or indirectly a risk to security”:
Relatives of a 61-year-old Palestinian woman who fled Gaza say they have been left “distressed” after her visa was cancelled by Australia’s Department of Home Affairs.
Maha Almassri was taken from her home in Punchbowl in Sydney’s south-west at 5am on Thursday, and initially held in Bankstown police station before being transferred to Villawood detention centre, according to her family.
Almassri’s brother, Soliman, told SBS News the “family thought IDF [Israel Defense Forces] was at her door.”
“They just came like a bunch of police officers and some federal police, and they just stormed the house, and they had a search warrant, and they terrorised everyone inside the house,” Soliman said in a video message.
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A document seen by SBS News shows that the Assistant Citizenship Minister Julian Hill “personally” made the decision to cancel Almassri’s visa.
Australia’s migration act grants its minister for home affairs — or a chosen delegate — the right to cancel a person’s visa on character grounds or if the cancellation is deemed to be “in the national interest”.
The document stated that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) assessed Almassri to be “directly or indirectly a risk to security” therefore deaming that she “objectively fails the character test”.
A spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told SBS News “the Government will not be commenting on this cancellation”.
“Any information in the public domain is being supplied by the individual and is not necessarily consistent with the information supplied by our intelligence and security agencies,” the spokesperson said.
“The Australian government doesn’t stop investigating new information about a visa holder just because they are onshore.”
SBS has also contacted Hill’s office for comment.
If I were to hazard a guess, if this woman was deemed to be “directly or indirectly a risk to security,” she is a Hamas supporter. But that is pure speculation on my part.
What is also interesting to me are the attempts of her brother Soliman to manipulate public opinion.
Almassri’s brother, Soliman, told SBS News the “family thought IDF [Israel Defense Forces] was at her door.”
“They just came like a bunch of police officers and some federal police, and they just stormed the house, and they had a search warrant, and they terrorised everyone inside the house,” Soliman said in a video message.
He questioned what threat she might pose.
Here he is trying to tug at people’s heart-strings, implying she has PTSD from the IDF. And using the word “terrorised” is mighty rich, given what their Hamas ‘government’ in Gaza – as well as other palestinian Arab terrorist organizations – are all about.
What is also troubling about this report is the language of the report itself.
She is originally from a town near current-day Tel Aviv, before her family was forced to resettle in Gaza as a refugee in 1948, during Al-Nakba, which led to the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands.
Her family said some of her relatives were killed in Gaza during Israel’s subsequent assault in the strip following Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Firstly, calling it Al-Nakba – meaning “the catastrophe” – is unacceptable. That is what the palestinian Arabs claim, not an objective fact. The same can be said for the claim they had to leave their “ancestral lands.” Present day Israel was never their ancestral land – the earliest of the Arabs would came here after the Islamic conquest of the 7th century, well after Jews – the actual, still-existing indigenous people of this land – were here.
Did I mention the woman’s surname – Almassri – literally means “from Egypt”?
The entire sentence is also misleading in the sense that it implies she was personally affected the 1948 war. Yet as a 61-year-old, she was born well afterwards!
What’s more, SBS labels Hamas’ atrocities of October 7 a mere “attack”, while labeling Israel’s response to remove Hamas from power and rescue our hostages an “assault.”
SBS is partially funded by the Australian Government, which makes the bias in this report even more egregious.
