Australian far-left rag Crikey has a piece on Aftab Malik, Australia’s “special envoy to combat Islamophobia,” with whom the haters are not happy.
Several sources privy to the briefings told Crikey that in one session, Malik didn’t mention the conflict in Gaza until prompted by an MP, and said he drew a distinction between anti-Palestine racism and Islamophobia and that he was responsible for the latter.
Malik told MPs that this position was drawn from a public statement by Australia-Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni — a claim he reiterated even after it was pointed out by one MP that Mashni believed there was a direct link between the two (a link also made by the Islamophobia Register).
Mashni told Crikey that he had been consistent both in private and in public, as well as in his direct dealings with Malik, and provided Crikey with screenshots of personal exchanges with Malik in which he implored the Islamophobia envoy on several occasions to consider the link between Islamophobia and anti-Palestine racism.
“The rise in Islamophobia is absolutely linked to anti-Palestinian racism and the genocide in Gaza,” Mashni told Crikey.
“Any suggestion to the contrary is absurd and any report not addressing this intersection should be treated with the same disdain afforded the Segal report [into antisemitism].”
Note how Nasser Mashni attempts to connect “Islamophobia” with this “anti-Palestine racism” (whatever the latter is). Which I find hilarious and peak Mashni given how he is constantly claiming that anti-Zionism should not be conflated with antisemitism.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Mashni, every accusation is a confession.
