We don’t settle on an Israel policy to please our Asian neighbours. No one should even hint we should. Shifting the embassy is wrong in principle.

It takes off the negotiating table the status of Jerusalem, which we always said needed to be settled by the two parties. It undercuts the promise of the Oslo accords and any number of UN resolutions. It positions Australia with Guatemala as the only nation to follow Donald Trump.

It sends a message to the Palestinians of the West Bank that there is no hope. It sends a message to hardliners in Israel that they can continue on their ruinous course of a Greater Israel with a majority Arab population denied a vote.

Five state Labor conferences have carried motions calling for recognition of Palestine by the next federal Labor government. Two have said the recognition should be immediate. Labor’s national conference next month can choose whether to adopt a recognition motion with that adjective, or the one I drafted and put to the New South Wales conference which leaves the timing to cabinet.

The high likelihood of recognition of Palestine being adopted by the ALP is rendered a near certainty by the injustice embodied in the policymaking of the Morrison government.

The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has enlarged and enlivened the controversy with his out-of-the-blue comments on the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, the head of a friendly, well-disposed country. Frydenberg said: “Dr Mahathir does have form, as you know. He’s made a number of derogatory comments in the past about Jews being hook-nosed, he has questioned the number of people that have been killed in the Holocaust and he also saw the banning of Schindler’s List.”

If it was appropriate for the treasurer to open an attack on those repellent views – expressed variously over the past few decades – why did he not choose to do it the day after Mahathir was re-elected prime minister in May? As it is, he has undercut his boss and his colleague, the foreign affairs minister, in their attempts to walk back from the madness of embassy relocation.

For Frydenberg to say that anyone who criticises his views on shifting the embassy is endorsing Mahathir’s antisemitic utterances is to present us with the most extreme example yet of trying to close down any debate that touches Israel with the cry “antisemite”.

If it silenced critics of Israel in the past, it is not silencing them today. The majority Australian position, confirmed by every poll taken on the subject, is support for the recognition of a Palestinian state living side-by-side with its Jewish neighbour. That’s what the West Bank Palestinians have offered – even going so far as to say their state would be demilitarised – and the obligatory references to Hamas don’t alter this one bit.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2018/nov/17/the...

American actor Pamela Anderson has lashed out at Prime Minister Scott Morrison via an open letter, saying he "trivialised" the suffering of Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and made "lewd" comments about her. 

• Anderson said she was "disappointed" by Scott Morrison's "unnecessary" comments
• The former Baywatch star said Mr Morrison should throw a parade for Mr Assange
• Mr Morrison said he had "plenty of mates who've asked me if they can be my special envoy to sort the issue out with Pamela Anderson".

Anderson, a former Baywatch star, appeared on 60 Minutes Australia earlier this month, sharing details of her friendship with Mr Assange and urging Mr Morrison to "defend your friend, get Julian his passport back and take him back to Australia and be proud of him, and throw him a parade when he gets home".

Mr Assange, who published thousands of classified United States documents, has been living in political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition.

When asked on commercial radio if he would follow Anderson's advice by throwing Mr Assange a parade, Mr Morrison said: "Well no, first of all, but next, I've had plenty of mates who've asked me if they can be my special envoy to sort the issue out with Pamela Anderson."

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/pamela-anderson-lashes-out-at-sco...

Meanwhile:

Ecuador might extradite Julian Assange. This is what the WikiLeaks founder’s lawyer Carlos Poveda said suggesting that Quito might have reached an agreement on this with the UK and US. In addition, the lawyer stated that Washington plans to impose a grave charge on Assange.

Sputnik discussed this with Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner and Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Sputnik: How likely is it the Julian Assange will be extradited by the Ecuadorian government?

Peter Tatchell: I'm afraid to say that we simply don't know, all we do know for certain is the Ecuadorian authorities have been turning the screw on Julian Assange with the special protocols that have restricted his freedom of expression and his ability to communicate with the outside world and to receive visitors.

All this looks like a deliberate attempt to make life so inhospitable and so difficult for Julian Assange that he will voluntarily leave the Embassy and of course this latest speculation which is really all it is, but I guess it's got some basis, there is some kind of an agreement being drawn up by Ecuador, UK and the US to get him out of the Embassy and to possibly extradite him to the US.

Now, this would be a very big turn around by the Ecuadorian's because they have granted him not only citizenship but also asylum, and so therefore to hand over someone who has been given asylum to a foreign power that is a very big, extraordinary and I think morally questionable step.

Sputnik: What's your take on his mentality and his particular stance, does he just want to see it through to the death, so to speak, in remaining in the Ecuadorian Embassy?

Peter Tatchell: Certainly we do you know that Julian Assange is very determined to resist extradition to the United States, he doesn't want to leave the Embassy unless he can be given safe passage to Ecuador which is what we would expect given that he has legitimately claimed political asylum.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201811171069897580-us-assange-prospects/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/political-scraps-2018/

The Australian socialite and businesswoman Roxy Jacenko has had to pulp the first copies of her latest book after a quote on the cover mistakenly said she “never fails to disappoint”.

Jacenko, a PR specialist and former contestant on Australia’s Celebrity Apprentice, said the “nightmare” endorsement was an honest mistake and was meant to say she “never fails to deliver”.

The less-than-flattering quote made it past all proofreaders at publishing house Allen & Unwin, and was spotted only when advance copies of Roxy’s Little Black Book of Tips and Tricks had been sent out.

Written in only six weeks, Jacenko’s book bills itself as a “no-bullshit guide to PR, social media and building your brand”. Glowing reviews on the back cover describe the publicist as “street-smart and hard-headed” and a “totally tenacious PR expert”.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/19/never-fails-to-disappoint-...

Read from top.

“never fails to disappoint”? The new slogan for our travelling PM?... "The Bullshit Guide to Become PM"? Sure.