Leading Australian Palestinian advocate has called for destruction of Israel

Nasser Mashni said Israel is 'the domino' of world's power structures; tension in ABC over language used to report Israel's Gaza offensive; Sydney Uni bans pro-Palestinian meeting.

Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni made the remarks about Israel at various times over this year and last year on Melbourne radio station 3CR.

Mashni, a property developer and donor to the Greens, has helped organise pro-Palestine rallies since Israel began its attack on Gaza that Hamas says has killed more than 10,000 people.

On his radio show in July last year, Mashni said: “The power structures that exist in the world all focus upon Zionism. Israel is the domino. Israel falls over, not just the Middle East – South America, the Africans, the world is a far better place once we destroy Western imperialist control of the world.”

“The liberation of Earth starts with the first domino, and that’s the overcoming and the decolonisation of Palestine and the ending of Zionism.”

The war has also caused tension within the ABC. More than 200 ABC journalists met for a mass meeting on Wednesday about the broadcaster’s coverage of the war in Gaza, with a number of grievances raised leading to a possible shift in how the conflict is reported on.

A key issue raised by staff related to the language used to describe elements of the conflict. Journalists argued that the ABC’s coverage of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza was too heavily reliant on the talking points of the Israel Defence Forces.

They also raised concerns around the ABC’s unwillingness to use language such as “invasion”, “occupation”, “genocide”, “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” regarding Israeli government policy and allegations made by human rights groups.

The Gaza conflict is also testing the limits of freedom of speech on campus after Sydney University warned that it won’t tolerate support of Hamas’ attack and the vice chancellor moved to ban a pro-Palestinian student meeting, dividing opinion among academics.