US activist dumped for ‘Israel crime’ claim

A US activist who labelled the foundation of Israel a ‘human-rights crime’ has been dumped from an appearance with Daniel Andrews.

A US activist who labelled the foundation of Israel a “human-rights crime” has been dumped from a conference where she was to appear with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Opposition Leader Matthew Guy.

Tamika Mallory, a co-chairwoman of the US Women’s March, was to be the keynote speaker at next week’s Victorian Council of Social Service “Good Life” summit in Melbourne.

Ms Mallory helped organise the five million-strong march last year in Washington and other US cities against US President Donald Trump and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2017.

But Jewish groups in Australia were concerned by her ­engagement for the summit next Wednesday following her comments on Israel and her links to controversial Muslim cleric Louis Farrakhan, with whom she has appeared, and has praised online.

Ms Mallory addressed the US Centre for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan via video-link on Friday, saying the foundation of Israel in 1948 was a “human-rights crime”.

“It’s clear you (Israelis) needed a place to go — cool, we got that. I hear that. But you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and ­decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land,” she said.

“And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land. That to me is unfair. It’s a human-rights crime.”

A council spokesman said it had withdrawn Ms Mallory’s invitation yesterday as it did not want her comments to “overshadow” the summit. “VCOSS is concerned both by comments Ms Mallory made in recent days regarding Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and the capacity for these remarks to overshadow the Good Life Summit,” he said.

Ms Mallory was to be paid for her address, but VCOSS would not comment on the amount.

An Andrews government spokesman said the council had “made the right call”.

Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission welcomed the council’s decision, while Executive Council for Australian Jewry president Anton Block said Ms Mallory was “a dubious choice to speak about inclusion and social justice”.