The Other Cheek asks Mark Leach, organiser of Never Again is Now, which fights anti-semitism and a new group Allies for a Strong Australia, which aims to support “the values that hold a free society together.”
1. The Other Cheek asks Last year (Sept 30) you posted this challenge: “To all my friends, especially the Christian ones, who have believed so quickly the idea that Israel is intent on committing genocide, that it is pursuing ethnic cleansing, that it wants to steal all of Gaza, I now await your apologies and retractions, as Israel accepts the 20 point peace plan for Gaza.” How does the allign with a recent statement by PM Netanyahu (from the Times of Israel) “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has given directives for the IDF to take control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, in Hebrew-language remarks delivered at a conference held by the Ein Prat Leadership Academy. “’At this point, we are fully in control of 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip… and my directive is to get to… 70%,’ Netanyahu says in footage from the event aired by Channel 12. “When one audience member shouts out that Israel should take ‘100 percent’ of the territory in Gaza, Netanyahu responds that ‘we’re going in order,’ but doesn’t dispute that this could be the eventual goal. “‘First 70%,’ he says, ‘we’ll start with that.'” What is your view of what should happen in Gaza since Isreal appears to have shifted position post that agreement?
Mark Leach: Good questions. Firstly, it is Hamas’s refusal to disarm that is the sticking point to the 20 point plan. Israel must secure its people against future attacks from Hamas. Also, remember that Israel unilaterally withdrew every Jew (including bodies) from Gaza in 2005. In return they got 20 years of terror and the most barbaric slaughter imaginable.
2) In a comment on Grace Tame’s appointment for a 4 part podcast by the ABC you said “at one level” that the ABC had the right to hire Tame but you were concerned about “a deeper problem” namely ABC bias. Did Tame talk about the Middle East in that Podcast, and should people who use slogans like “globalise the intifada” be banned from the ABC?
Mark Leach: Secondly – listen to my second post on the ABC. I answer your question there. The Other Cheek transcribed the video
Well, what do you think about Grace Tame getting a job at the ABC? I mean, at one level, to be honest, it’s a free world, champion free speech. She can reinvent herself. She can try to make a living. The ABC can employ whoever it wants to.
On one level, that’s fine.
But there’s a deeper problem, I think. And this appointment speaks to the ideological capture of the ABC. I mean, this is not somebody I really want my taxes to go to employ when she has said stuff in public, which she’s free to [minimise or dispute] about sexual violence against Jewish women, that was widely documented. No one disputes that it happened, apart from those who have an agenda to discredit Israel and side with Jihadist terrorists, also known as Hamas. And she’s done that, and she also called to globalise the Intifada from Gaza to Gadigal, which I mean, I can’t see any way in which that is not actually an incitement of violence against Jewish people.
Just correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like if you understand what the Intifada is in the Middle East in Israel and you understand what it means, you go, that’s an incitement to violence. That’s it. She’s free to say that. But that the ABC would employ her? That’s a concern because I know they’re free to do it, but it undermines public trust in our public broadcaster. And so, maybe ABC management, you should think about that and reconsider because here’s what you need to know. We’re watching you, ABC. You work for us. You are accountable to us, the citizens of this country, the taxpayers of this country, and we want the very high standards of journalistic integrity, and we want to know that you have not been captured by ideologies that are harmful to Australia and everyday Australians. So what do you think?
3) As you build “Allies for a Strong Australia” will there be room for Palestinian Australians in it? I hope you can achieve that – how is it going?
There is room for a Palestinian Australian – we already have at least one involved (Christian, born in Jerusalem pre-1967). If a Muslim wants to be part of the Allies, they would need to be happy with a permanent rejection of sharia, not just the line ‘well we’re a minority so it’s not an issue’. There can be no place ever for political Islam and sharia in Australia. So numerous Muslim background Iranians are part of the Allies – they are secular and hate sharia and beg me to make sure it never comes here.
And broadly the Allies are going well – it continues to amaze me what God is doing through our little efforts.
Image: the Allies for a Strong Australia logo. Image Credit: Theallies.au