This week Federal Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon was openly accused of anti-Semitism in a letter published in Murdoch’s Australian for supporting BDS and Palestinian rights.
The following day this appeared in the paper:
The assertion by David Syme (Letters, 30/8) that well-documented human rights abuses by Israel against Palestinians can be dismissed as nonsense is disgusting and reprehensible.
The view that just because the victims are Palestinian that atrocities don’t count has no place in a civilised society. I’d suggest Mr Syme study the myriad reports released by B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN into this matter — could it be that they are all wrong, or is it one big anti-Semitic conspiracy?
Moammar Mashni, Australians for Palestine, Melbourne, Vic
And then today this response:
With respect to Moammar Mashni (Letters 31/8), what I said (30/8) was that Lee Rhiannon is an anti-Semite and was using the Palestinian situation as an excuse or justification for her anti-Semitic agenda.
David J. Syme, Mollymook, NSW
The fact that a supposedly serious paper can consistently publish defamatory material accusing a senior politician of anti-Semitism both cheapens the meaning of the word and proves that Zionist extremists are petrified of any challenge to Israel.