Australian Jews Seek Probe into Lyndon Larouche Group

The Jewish community this week called on the government to look into the Australian arm of the U.S.-based Lyndon LaRouche political cult after evidence of the group’s anti-Jewish activities was broadcast on national television.

The Monday broadcast included testimonies by former LaRouchites who said the group, known here as the Citizens Electoral Councils, was engaged in a “war” against Australian Jews.

Extremist Lyndon LaRouche, who has served five years in an American prison for mail fraud and tax evasion, has an ideology that combines anti-Semitism and bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the claim that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger worked for the Soviet KGB.

On Monday, the ex-LaRouchites on television said tactics included secretly taping meeting and private telephone calls; planting inaccurate information concerning leading Jewish business and community figures with lawmakers, whose comments in Parliament are protected from defamation law; and promoting in other minority groups hostility toward Jews.

Key targets were brothers Isi Leible, chairman of the governing board of the World Jewish Congress, and Mark Leibler, federal president of the United Israel Appeal and past president of the Zionist Federation of Australia.

In February, two Labor Party parliamentarians said the LaRouchite group were involved in an “unprecedented criminal conspiracy” against prominent Jewish families, including the Leiblers.

Colin Rubenstein, the editorial chairman of Australia/Israel Publications, which has spearheaded research into LaRouchite activities in Australia, said in an interview the group’s “efforts to defraud and destroy Australian families, and spy on prominent members of the community solely because they are Jewish, demands an immediate federal inquiry.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry also issued a call on the government to investigate “the activities of the Lydon LaRouche political cult in Australia.”