Nasser Mashni regularly speaks at anti-Israel protests and objected to Palestinians flying the Australian flag

The head of the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network has expressed a seeming contempt for Australia and labelled us a “colonial” and “racist” country.

Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni regularly speaks at anti-Israel protests. Picture: Tamati Smith

Foreign Minister Penny Wong should apologise for helping to turn Nasser Mashni into Mr Palestine, now that he’s told us what he really thinks of us.

Wong posted a picture of herself with Mashni, president of the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network, saying she’d offered him her “deepest condolences … following the devastating explosion at the Gaza City Hospital”, which she was then implying had been attacked by Israel.

It had in fact been hit by a malfunctioning terrorist rocket.

I’ve warned for months against Mashni, son of a “refugee” who came here falsely claiming to a Christian fleeing persecution in Muslim Lebanon, but was actually an extremist so close to the Islamist Hamas terrorist group that a message from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was read at his funeral.

Penny Wong offered Nasser Mashni her ‘deepest condolences … following the devastating explosion at the Gaza City Hospital’. Picture: Martin Ollman

Now I read reports of Mashni’s outburst this month, on an online panel for Ecosocialism 2024 alongside former Palestinian militant Leila Khaled.

Mashni called Khaled a hero although she’d been jailed for helping to hijack two planes – in 1969 and 1970 – and taking passengers hostage.

Worse was how Mashni praised her, by vilifying Australia for denying her a visa to be here in person: “Our hero Leila was denied the opportunity to come here because this settler colonial, this racist country denied her a visa.”

It’s not the first time Mashni has expressed a seeming contempt for Australia.

Mashni called former Palestinian militant Leila Khaled a hero. Picture: ABC

He regularly speaks at anti-Israel protests, and at one said he’d objected “for years” to Palestinians flying the Australian flag: “That is the colonisers’ flag. It does not belong here.”

Who does not belong here? The flag, or Mashni?

Mashni has explained his agenda on his 3CR radio show: “Israel is the domino. Israel falls over … the world is a far better place once we destroy Western imperialist control of the world.”

Mashni says Aborigines face the same enemy as Palestinians. It’s colonialism; Israel and Australia “are both western European settle colony constructs”.

He’s therefore formed alliances with racebaiting Senator Lidia Thorpe and the extremist Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, selling badges of Aboriginal and Palestinian flags intertwined. Imagine the hell we’d face if some Aborigines decided to “resist” Australian “colonialism” the way Palestinian extremists “resist” Israel.

No, Israel’s fight really is our fight, but not quite like Mashni means. It’s a fight for Western civilisation against barbarians, tribalists and terrorism.

Step one would be for Wong apologise for giving Mashni the credibility he does not deserve – and we can’t afford.