Two Australian federal parliamentarians have joined Jewish community groups in a call for the government to investigate the activities of the Australian followers of U.S. extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
LaRouche’s ideology combines anti-Semitism and bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the claim that Queen Elizabeth heads a drug-pushing ring and that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was in the employ of Soviet KGB.
LaRouche has served five years in an American prison for mail fraud and tax evasion.
The two Labor Party politicians called a press conference Tuesday at which they said the LaRouchite Citizens Electoral Councils were involved in an “unprecedented criminal conspiracy” against prominent Jewish families.
One of the parliamentarians, Clyde Holding, who holds a seat in the heartland of Melbourne’s Jewish community, described LaRouche as “extreme and anti- Semitic.”
A former executive member of the Citizens Electoral Councils, Don Veitch, has stated in a detailed affidavit that he gathered information on Australian Jews and disseminated material “designed to damage, discredit and falsely smear” them.
The group’s primary targets in Australia have been Isi Leibler, chairman of the governing board of the World Jewish Congress, and his younger brother Mark, a past president of the Zionist Federation of Australia.
The LaRouchites have tried to link them with drug-dealing and pornography.
An investigation by the Melbourne newspaper The Age recently said that LaRouchites with criminal records have visited Australia to oversee the Citizens Electoral Councils’ operations and that adherents of the group have been subjected to brainwashing sessions.
The newspaper also said that the Citizens Electoral Councils were behind a defamatory campaign by a federal Liberal parliamentarian, Ken Aldred, that linked Mark Leibler and a senior government official to an international corruption intrigue.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the umbrella body of Australia’s Jewish community, issued a statement saying, “The Lyndon LaRouche cult has established an international reputation for fraudulent and dishonest activities.
“The cult’s history has been marked by an anti-Semitic obsession with Jewish individuals and organizations, with belief in conspiracies involving Jews at the very heart of its ideology.
“The allegations concerning the group’s targeting of prominent and respected Jewish Australians will serve as a chilling example of the lengths to which such obsessed people will go.”
The ECAJ called on the Australian government “to commission a report by law enforcement agencies as to whether the anti-Australian behavior of the Australian supporters of Lyndon LaRouche involved any illegal activities, including breaches of visa regulations.”
The national secretary of the Citizens Electoral Councils, Craig Isherwood, issued a release claiming “the issue here causing the attacks against our organization is the political personality of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., currently the second ranking contender behind President Clinton in the Democratic Party preselection process for the Presidency of the United States.”
The release further claimed that the forces attacking LaRouche “are the same forces which are intent in destroying the Clinton Presidency.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
