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AMUST NEWS

Intensive lobbying: Aussie pollies flocking to Israel

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While both Taiwan and the USA are amongst Australia’s top 10 export markets, Israel is a very minor trading partner – representing 0.1% of Australian exports. Sponsored trips to Israel also do not mirror community movements – in 2019, less than 0.2% of Australian overseas travel was to Israel.

A surge in political spending by organisations funded by hardline supporters of Israel, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is reshaping Democratic primaries in the US over several months.

AIPAC has spent $6m on to contest in Maryland, more than any other organisation, to oppose Donna Edwards angered some pro-Israel groups during her stint as a representative by failing to back resolutions in support of Israel over its 2011 war in Gaza and other positions.

She also backed the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran when it was strongly opposed by the Israeli government and therefore AIPAC.

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), a private company criticised for minimising Israel’s human rights record, takes more parliamentarians to Israel than any other group.

“Parliamentarians must consider the flowon impact of these junket trips on Australian public policy,” Australia Palestine Advocacy Network President, Bishop George Browning said.

“We need to ensure this doesn’t lead to reluctance to hold Israel to account.”

Former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, was also critical of the findings, saying “APAN’s report confirms what was never in doubt: the Israel lobby is the largest foreign influence operation run in Australia – at least since the end of pro-Soviet propaganda and marketing during the Cold War.

“The trips and the other activities have only one objective and that’s to see that no matter what Israel does – spreading settlements, for example, or bulldozing Palestinian homes – it will never be criticised by Canberra.”

A decade ago, a Fairfax investigation indicated China was the top destination for lobby trips. However, the current research echoes a 2018 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which found Israel was again the top destination for federal politicians between 2010-2018. During the period under study, Coalition parliamentarians were almost twice as likely than Labor parliamentarians to take sponsored trips to Israel. Furthermore, Coalition parliamentarians were four times as likely to take AIJAC-sponsored trips to Israel than Labor parliamentarians.

A small number of crossbench parliamentarians also took sponsored trips to Israel.

When analysing sponsored trips to all other countries, roughly an equal number of Coalition and Labor parliamentarians took these trips, with a small number of crossbench parliamentarians also taking sponsored trips.

Only six parliamentarians visited Palestine in this period.

Collectively, there were twice as many Labor and crossbench parliamentarians who travelled to Palestine than Coalition parliamentarians.

Read the research report: https://tinyurl.com/5n93zcej

AUSTRALIA 11 - 13 Tech companies must define terrorism to uphold human rights

AMUST Media

Tech companies must define terrorism rather than relying on UN and country designation lists, says a report from experts from across the globe launched by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism.

The report set minimum legal standards to guide tech companies on the most coherent approach, prompting discussion about problems with some nation’s laws, including Australia’s definition.

The inclusion of religion as a cause or motive of terrorism was explicitly recommended against as being inconsistent with terrorism law and human rights.

Australia, NZ, Canada, UK and Facebook are the only countries and company in the world to formally endorse ISIS as ‘religious-motivated.’

Removing ‘religious cause’ would ‘reduce the likelihood of law or policy being used to further misconceptions and create counterproductive outcomes.’

Care is taken not to give ‘undue credence’ to ‘self-proclaimed values’ when it comes to white supremacy. The ‘same logic and approach should apply across the board.’

GIFCT could prompt change by making the development of terrorism definitions by tech companies a requirement of membership.

The Five Eye Governments (except for the US) must also update their terrorism definitions to focus on political and ideological motives alone.

The GIFCT report, ‘The interoperability of Terrorism Definitions,’ can be downloaded at https://tinyurl.com/2m69tx2t

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