In the Dead of Night

Under the page 1* headline Don't mess with the Greens: anti-BDS protest ends in court, yesterday's Australian told the heart-wrenching story of one man's David and Goliath struggle against, well, the Green Goliath:

"A Jewish doctor who campaigned against the Greens in the recent NSW state election over their boycott of Israeli-owned companies operating in Australia believes senior figures in the party are behind his prosecution for a minor electoral breach." (Imre Salusinszky)

Can you believe this? A man who did no more than campaign during an election is being PROSECUTED for NOTHING!. What is this country coming to?

"John Nemesh, 55, yesterday pleaded not guilty in Sydney's Newtown Local Court to distributing unauthorised election material... The Hungarian-born son of Holocaust survivors, Dr Nemesh believes his career as a medical specialist, working in hospital intensive care units, is on the line as a result of the charge, which carries a possible fine of $550 or 6 months' jail."

A son of Holocaust survivors and a healer to boot! Practically a saint! All but on the dole!

"The Greens always go on about the poor individual who's having a hard time with the system', Dr Nemesh said yesterday. 'In my case, they are the system and I am the poor individual."

A true David facing the awesome and crushing might of a (Green) Goliath!

"Dr Nemesh's posters condemned the Greens for their support of the 'boycotts, divestment and sanctions' campaign. The posters, which targeted Greens candidate and local Mayor Fiona Byrne in the inner-western Sydney seat of Marrickville, were legal and duly authorised, except they did not include the name of the printer - an ommission Dr Nemesh claims was an honest mistake, given he had no motive to conceal the information. The case has been brought by the NSW police, who would have required a complaint to take action."

Shocking! I mean all the GOOD DOCTOR did was have some of the lads plaster the place, by the light of the silvery moon, with such statements of ABSOLUTE TRUTH as:

A Vote for the GREENS is AGAINST Gay rights, AGAINST Women's rights, AGAINST Community tolerance

&

The GREENS HATE GAYS: By boycotting Israel the NSW Greens are boycotting the only country in the Middle East where homosexuality is not a capital offence, or even a crime. Support gay rights. DON'T VOTE GREEN on March 26.

&

The GREENS SUPPORT TERROR: Iran is anti-Israel. Hezbollah is anti-Israel. Al-qaida is anti-Israel. Hamas is anti-Israel. And by boycotting Israel, so are the NSW Greens. Leave terror to the terrorists.

&

The GREENS OPPOSE DEMOCRACY. By boycotting Israel, the NSW Greens are boycotting the only country in the Middle East with a democratically elected government. Support power to the people. DON'T VOTE GREENS on March 26.

As I said, the GOOD DOCTOR was simply spreading the TRUTH, the whole TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH, so why should anyone complain? I just don't get it. I mean, until Honest John, crusader for TRUTH, JUSTICE and the ISRAELI WAY, did us all a service by blowing the whistle on them, none of us had any idea the Greens were just a pack of homophobic, misogynistic, racist, anti-Semitic terrorists. So thankyou Honest John!

"Despite repeated requests by The Australian, Ms Byrne and other senior NSW Greens yesterday declined to deny they had lodged the complaint against Dr Nemesh. But a spokesman for the NSW Electoral Commission said it had nothing to do with the case."

Aha! The Green Goliath unmasked by The Australian, the paper of TRUTH, JUSTICE and the USRAELI WAY! Guilty as sin, of course!

"Dr Nemesh, a member of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, was so incensed at Ms Byrne's support of the BDS that when she stood for parliament that he produced posters accusing the Greens of racism and homophobia, and posted them around Marrickville."

As any defender of TRUTH, JUSTICE and the ISRAELI WAY would.

"I heard Fiona Byrne's statements in Marrickville, and it was all about taking action against Jewish enterprises, Jewish shops and Jewish cultural exchanges', Dr Nemesh said. 'I felt so strongly that I couldn't sleep, so I very quickly designed some posters and hired some vehicles. I felt nothing was being done in terms of organised resistance."

OMG, it's back to the 30s! Kristallnacht has at last come to Australia! And seeing the IDF are off strangling the Palestinian economy, it's an 'If not me, who? If not now, when?' sort of scenario, right?

"He has now gone on the front foot by lodging a complaint with police against Ms Byrne for allegedly stealing his posters. It is a claim Ms Byrne will have difficulty denying, given a You Tube video on the internet features her and a fellow Greens activist boasting of stealing one of the posters, and offering it up for action."

Make that homophobes, misogynists, racists, anti-Semites, terrorists and thieves! But MEN of GOODWILL and CONSCIENCE are standing by Honest John:

"He received support last night from Luke Foley, Labor leader in the NSW upper house. 'The Greens are the first to condemn tough law and order legislation, yet they want to throw the book at a man for exercising his freedom of speech', Mr Foley said."

Luke's a GOOD MAN to have on your side. A courageous campaigner for free speech. I can see him now also comforting the equally aggrieved Andrew Bolt. So GOOD is Luke, so terrier-like, he's back nipping at the heels of the Green Goliath in today's Australian!:

"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." (Greens' attack 'was revenge', Imre Salusinszky)

OK, that's enough of Imre Salusinszky's David and Goliath spin. Let's get down to business here. What did Foley call Nefesh's dead-of-the-night deed? A minor technical oversight?

Ah, but he wasn't always so blase about breaches of the electoral act. Foley, you may recall, was intimately involved in the 2007 pamphlet scandal in the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, helping to bust some Liberal Party campaigners who were distributing a fake leaflet from a fake Islamic organisation alleging ALP support for the Bali bombers and the construction of a mosque in the suburb of St Marys.

As one of the Laborites who tried to wrest some of these pamphlets from the hot little hands of the Liberal Party campaigners** (as opposed to Fiona Byrne's alleged "stealing" of Nemesh's posters), Foley, then Assistant General Secretary of the ALP, was quoted in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) Report on the 2007 Federal Election - Events in the Division of Lindsay of March 2010 as saying:

"So we would submit that there is an unfortunate trend in Australian politics exhibited at the last two federal elections concerning bogus material seeking to push the buttons of religion and race and seeking to divide the community on that basis. When that sort of material has been distributed on both occasions the aim has been to hurt the Labor candidate in a highly marginal seat. We are concerned to ensure that these tactics are drummed right out of Australian politics. We think that a $1,000 fine, the current maximum penalty that exists, is clearly inadequate for offences of this degree of seriousness." (2.21 p 14)

Hm... isn't falsely alleging homophobia, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism and terrorism just as big a problem here?

"So we have had our candidates in marginal seats, in Greenway in 2004 and in Lindsay in 2007, subject to this sort of bogus material being distributed at night in the final few days of an election campaign. We want to ensure it never happens again. The only difference between Greenway in 2004 and Lindsay in 2007 is that the perpetrators were caught in Lindsay. They got away with it in Greenway. Louise Markus was elected narrowly over Ed Husic." (2.29 p 16)

Hm... bogus material being distributed at night in the final few days of an election campaign. Now doesn't that sound familiar?

And this is what the Lindsay Federal Electorate Council of the ALP had to say to the JSCEM:

"Our concern is that the pamphlet was a fraudulent pamphlet, indicating that it was from another political party, and it was malicious and it vilified people. I think it was meant to incite racial tensions as well. What we are concerned about is the actual content of the pamphlet." (1.4 p 2)

Hm... so Labor has concerns with the actual content of dodgy election material only if it's directed against Labor?

Right.

[* So important is this story for the Australian that it even has an editorial (Common sense should rule) on the matter in today's edition; **Egan drops prosecution of ALP figures, watoday.com.au, 7/7/09]