Palestine National Day and Welcome, Ambassador
This evening I had the pleasure of attending a meet and greet drinks affair to commemorate Palestinian National Day at the NSW Parliament House, Sydney. Now a yearly event, it was very well attended and it was great to see political representatives from Australian political parties, representatives and members of the Australian Palestinian and Arab communities, academics, clerics, supporters, well-wishers, friends. Many wonderful people.
This year, the gathering was most fortunate to have in attendance the new Ambassador, Izzat Abdulhadi. Welcome and ahlan wa sahlan, Ambassador!
The Ambassador is the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia and delivered a fine speech, reiterating the key planks of the Palestinian cause and the case for peace and statehood alongside Israel. I had the good fortune of meeting the Ambassador and found him delightful to converse with, a thoughtful, personable and warm person who left a great impression on us all. He is a great asset and we wish him well in his new post in Canberra.
Meanwhile, it was great to read a recent post penned by dear blog friend Doug, entitled Hamas Talks, Israel Demands. Check it out if you have a minute, well worth a read.
Also see:
- Nobel Winners Petition Israel to Outlaw Targeted Killing (AFP), Common Dreams
- If your site has ever been targeted by the cyber-drones from PR campaigns like Give Israel Your United Support (GIYUS), who d’ya call? Well, first, GIYUS are an organisation that tracks websites and blogs for criticism of Israel, feeds it on its site and then asks its Israel-first hacks to counter it and to stack the ranks of commentators to tilt and deflect legitimate criticism away from Israel’s actions. These cyber PR drones tend to post anonymously, and will enter into chatrooms and comments posts to skew debate about Israel’s actions or attempt to justify them and denigrate legitimate criticism thereof. They usually only use a letter or two for their names, and never reveal anything of their identities. Easy to spot them from their work — their intent is to cloud the debate and sow doubt and division. If this happens to you, Davide at Netherworld has compiled an excellent top ten of how to deal with them. Thanks Davide!
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