Following a pressure campaign from pro-Israel forces, Australia has revoked the visa of Hussain Makke. The British-born Muslim scholar and motivational speaker had been scheduled to carry out a speaking tour across the country. But pressure from Sky News Australia and local pro-Israel politicians, who highlighted his pro-resistance stances and his attendance at the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, convinced the government to act.

Australia, which shares a similar settler-colonial past to Israel, is one of Tel Aviv’s strongest international supporters and has officially designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It was this angle that Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson used to lead the charge against Makke’s entry into the country. In a live TV segment, Markson accused him of spreading “dangerous views” and “defending terrorism.”

Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson echoed Markson’s argument, telling Sky News that “No one who praises a deceased terrorist, let alone attends the funeral organized by a listed terrorist organization, should be welcome in Australia.”

Using American-supplied bunker-buster bombs, Israel assassinated Nasrallah in Beirut in September. The attack drew widespread outrage and an outpouring of grief in Lebanon. An estimated 700,000-900,000 people participated in his funeral procession in February, nearly one-sixth of the country’s population. Makke, who resides in Lebanon, was among those attending. In a post on Twitter, he described himself as the victim of a “smear campaign” organized by Sky News.

In addition to being a journalist and television presenter, Markson is an open and vocal supporter of Israel and its attacks on its neighbors. In October 2023, she flew to Jerusalem to interview an Israeli Defense Forces commander who was participating in the bloodshed, calling him a “hero” and someone full of “bravery and courage.”

The pinned post on her official Instagram account shows her standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The caption describes it as one of the highlights of her career to meet him and hear how he is “fighting [ing] to ensure Israel’s survival in the face of terror and the hostile international community.”

Sky News Australia’s unrelenting support of Israel and its war on Gaza is predictable, given that the network is part of Rupert Murdoch’s massive media empire. Murdoch is a close friend and ally of Netanyahu. Indeed, a leaked handwritten list compiled by Netanyahu himself highlighted the Australian billionaire as one of his best sources of campaign contributions.

Last year, Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, who runs much of the News Corp empire’s day-to-day business, flew to Israel for secret talks with Netanyahu and former prime minister Benny Gantz. While the details of the meetings remain murky, it is clear that they discussed how the media could better support Israel’s offensive in Gaza and beyond.

Murdoch has enjoyed extremely close relationships with successive Israeli leaders for decades. In the 1980s, the Australian mogul vacationed at former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s Israeli farm. And he has publicly stated that he sees Israel as the linchpin holding together Western society. At a 2009 meeting of the American Jewish Committee, he said:

“In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States. I say to you: maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel… In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace… who reject freedom… and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb and the human shield”.

Unsurprisingly, he also has deep economic interests in Israel. In 2010, he became a director of Genie Energy, an oil and gas firm that was awarded the license to drill for hydrocarbons in the Golan Heights, an area of Syria that Israel has illegally occupied since 1967.

A journalist, teacher and filmmaker, Makke has amassed an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers across social media, commenting on matters of religion and the political situation in the Middle East. He graduated from Brunel University with a degree in journalism and from SOAS University of London with a Master’s degree in religion and global politics. He moved to Lebanon in 2012 to join a seminary.

The revocation of his Australian visa is part of a broader wave of a Western crackdown on public figures who have expressed support for resistance forces. British professor David Miller, who also attended Nasrallah’s funeral, was detained by counter-terrorism police upon his reentry into the United Kingdom. Last month, Canadian author Yves Engler was arrested for social media posts criticizing Israel and its supporters. Independent journalist Richard Medhurst was detained and interrogated by Austrian authorities, who claimed that they believed Medhurst – a Christian Englishman – was a member of Hamas. And in January, Swiss authorities deported Palestinian-American intellectual Ali Abunimah before he could give a lecture in Zurich.

Makke still has time to appeal his ban, but given both the influence of the Murdoch empire in Australia and the country’s steadfast support for Israel, it is far from certain that an appeal would be successful. Instead, the case will likely serve as just one more point of reference in the argument that an unexpected victim of Israel’s onslaught has been freedom of speech in the West.

Feature photo | Left: Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
0 Comments