Can you feel it, fellow Jews? The new Green Nazis are in town, talking all about Palestinian rights, as if those Arabs are under Israeli occupation. The shame of it all.
Yesterday’s Murdoch Australian continued its brave expose of a party that challenges individuals who accuse them of extremism and anti-Semitism:
Labor in NSW has accused the Greens of a “revenge attack” on a Jewish doctor who is being prosecuted by police because his anti-Greens posters did not include the name and address of the printer.
Luke Foley, Labor leader in the state’s upper house, yesterday called on the Greens to “drop their pursuit” of John Nemesh, who on Tuesday pleaded not guilty in Sydney’s Newtown Local Court to charges of distributing electoral matter “without particulars”.
Dr Nemesh, 55, distributed propaganda in the inner-western Sydney seat of Marrickville during the state election campaign in March, attacking the Greens candidate Fiona Byrne for her anti-Israel comments.
“This is simply a revenge attack by the Greens Party, given they lost Marrickville because of their extreme campaign against the Jewish state of Israel,” Mr Foley said.
“This was a minor technical oversight by Dr Nemesh, who is new to political activism.”
Dr Nemesh, the son of Hungarian Holocaust survivors, fears his career as a medical specialist will be threatened if he is convicted.
More evidence emerged yesterday to support his claims the Greens are involved in his prosecution — claims senior figures in the party, including Ms Byrne, did not deny.
The police fact sheet in Dr Nemesh’s case, obtained by The Australian, says the charges originated when “members of the public who witnessed the signs being placed on the telegraph poles took photographs” of the ute Dr Nemesh and his supporters had rented.
“Copies of these photographs have been given to police,” it says.
Ms Byrne ceased to be mayor of Marrickville on Tuesday evening, deciding not to recontest after a rocky year in office dominated by the issue of a council boycott of Israel.
Even the day’s editorial chimed in, asking for leniency for a decent man who simply wanted to publicly challenge the new Nazis:
Rules is rules and society functions best when they are honoured. But every now and then there is such a clear case for the application of common sense it is hard to believe it has not taken precedence.
Exhibit one: the prosecution by NSW police of Jewish doctor John Nemesh for a minor breach of electoral rules — failing to put the name and address of the printer on an anti-Greens poster during the last NSW election campaign. Are the Greens behind this court action? They’re not saying, but common sense suggests that if they are not, they should come out and deny it. Fiona Byrne, the mayor of Marrickville at the time who was supporting a “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” campaign while also standing for the NSW parliament, clearly had cause not to like Dr Nemesh’s poster, which accused the Greens of racism and homophobia. Certainly, her support for BDS was a turn-off for voters in the March poll in which she was narrowly beaten. Did the posters make a difference? Who knows? But common sense would suggest that the absence of the printer’s name on those posters did not determine Ms Byrne’s fate. The integrity of our voting system depends on clear laws around transparency and accountability, but we ought not lose sight of the need for discretion and a balanced application of those rules.
Murdoch’s rag cheapens the meaning of real anti-Semitism by continuing to accuse backers of BDS of Jew hatred. It may sound appealing in the paranoid mind of neo-conservatives who really wish there were more wars launched against Muslims in the Arab world, but BDS is growing globally, for the very reason the paper largely ignores; occupation.