I had the privilege, together with the late Frans Timmerman, of working with Ali a good deal from the mid-1970s till the mid-1990s in producing the newspaper/magazine Free Palestine, and as national secretary of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign for a decade.

Later, there were other projects including two editions of his book The Jerusalem Question, the peace movement mobilisations against war in Iraq, and other matters. That experience informs my comments today.

As the founder of the Palestine Information Office in 1982, then as the official PLO representative and later Palestine Ambassador — and as an educator and organiser and networker of great skill — Ali Kazak was at the centre of the transformation of the politics of Palestine in Australia.

Ali wrote a book about his life and work in Australia, published in Arabic but not yet in English. He says:

“I was born [in 1947] during a painful era in the history of Palestine, full of turmoil, tension and fear. Destiny thrust me into a corner far from the town of my birth, when the catastrophe of the Nakba befell my family, country and people.

“From the time I opened my eyes to the world, I found myself in a shattered family and country, my father in Haifa and my mother and I in Damascus. [The invaders] took our country by force, changed its name, dispossessed the majority of my people and prevented our return. I did not see my father, nor did he see me, for 48 years.”

As a young activist, Ali arrived in Australia in 1970 and became a citizen in 1973. At that time the word “Palestine” was barely known, except as a place etched into war memorials commemorating dead Australian soldiers. Zionism exercised ideological mastery: Israel was the “promised land”, “a land without a people for a people without a land”. “There was no such thing as Palestinians. They didn’t exist,” said Golda Meir. But it was not an empty land, any more than Australia was terra nullius in 1788.

The reality of Palestinian dispossession was understood by few Australians. Arabs were not in favour: there was the 1973 oil crisis, the media focused on Leila Khaled, Black September, Munich and the like. Palestinian voices were rarely heard; representatives of Palestinian organisations were barred until at least 1984.

It was in this environment that Ali Kazak as a young man came to Australia, got a job in a Geelong car factory, then in an office. Recruited to Fatah as a university student in Damascus, Ali came to understand the Australian context and worked on a plan to transform it.

He understood that education, outreach, engaging new and diverse audiences, establishing a media presence and building strong relationships with journalists and with parliamentarians were the key tasks. To further these aims, in 1979 he established Free Palestine, a monthly newspaper; in 1981, a national network of activists, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, was established. In 1982, Ali received PLO support to establish the Palestine Information Office, first in Melbourne, then shifting to Canberra in 1987.

Ali had decided to commit his life full-time to Palestine advocacy in Australia. He writes:

“The decision [in 1981] to represent the PLO was a big responsibility. I was aware of the extreme difficulty of the task, given the government alignment with Israel, a professional, well-financed Israeli lobby and a biased media. By contrast, the Palestinian and Arab community was new and lacking influence and there was a scarcity of material resources. It was a huge challenge. If some think about how difficult it is to confront the Zionist movement and the Israeli lobby today, they can imagine how great the difficulty and challenge were then.”

Ali literally worked day and night, seven days a week. He built relationships with DFAT, with ministers and backbenchers from all sides of politics. He organised parliamentary delegations to the Middle East and speaking tours to Australia of leading Palestinian figures. He initiated cross-party Friends of Palestine parliamentary groups both in Canberra and at state level and within the Labor caucuses.

After years of work, in 1989 the government recognised the PLO and Ali as its ambassador and later as the General Palestine Delegation. In 1990, then governor-general Bill Hayden met ambassador Kazak, the first official meeting at government level.

In 2000, Ali facilitated a visit to the Middle East by then prime minister Howard, also deputy prime minister and National Party leader Tim Fischer, with whom Ali had a close relationship.

But this was only one part of the strategy. Ali pushed for state Trades and Labour Councils, for the Australian Council of Churches, for AFIC, for Young Labor, for organisations in many sectors to pass resolutions of support and engage in projects of support for Palestine. He organised a “Treasures of Palestine” exhibition, from the Opera House and across dozens of venues. And a thousand other things.

The Israel lobby constantly harassed Ali, tried to close down Free Palestine, have him thrown out of the office in Canberra, have him expelled. On and on it went. But they had met an immovable object. He took them on and won the decisive battles.

Success is measured in deeds, not words. So what did Ali achieve?

In Australia, he built mainstream support and understanding for Palestine and transformed the politics of Palestine. Despite the huge resource imbalance, the Israeli lobby no longer had it all their own way. Especially after 1982 and Sabra and Shatila, eyes were open. He regularly briefed parliamentary committees and government officials. Australia’s policy changed. In 1987, he became the first Palestinian, or Arab ambassador, to address the National Press Club, years ahead of the Israeli ambassador.

In the region, Ali achieved official diplomatic recognition and support for Palestine in New Zealand, PNG, Vanuatu and Timor-Leste. In New Zealand, his tours were remarkable for their media engagement, the public meetings and the building of the solidarity movement there. It is where he met his wife Aminah, who came to Australia, worked with Ali and deserves recognition for the enormous amount of advocacy work she did for Palestine.

In the Middle East, Ali’s work helped a flow of aid to Palestine, and understanding both ways, from National Party leaders with their focus on trade, to Ali’s advocacy work and writings in the Arab press on Australian Indigenous rights. Ali built and maintained strong relationships with First Nations activists such as Gary Foley.

At the community level, Ali’s impact on civil society institutions was profound, across the labour movement, the media, churches and on campus, both at the student level and with Middle East academics.

What were the keys to this success?

Firstly, he was dedicated and hard working. He had a big-picture strategy to transform the understanding of Palestine in Australia, to not be on the defence but to go on the offensive, to reach out to the centre of politics and build friendships and alliances, solidarity and concrete actions.

Secondly, Ali had a clear articulation of the task at hand. The framing of the issue was one of human rights and the right to self-determination, in language accessible and persuasive across the political spectrum. Goals and demands and messages were to be simple and clear and pursued without distraction, not flip-flopping. It was a long game, demanding consistency and political discipline.

Thirdly, he had a sound media strategy. He became an effective and authoritative voice and the centre-point for the regular distribution of briefing notes and information to government, to departments and MPs, to the media, to the activist sector and more. He was a consistent and credible voice in the media, especially in times of crisis. After he concluded his work as ambassador 2006, Ali kept up this briefing work right up till his unexpected death. In 1986, he won a case at the Australian Press Council on false and stereotyped reporting of Palestinians by The Age newspaper.

Fourthly, he was an amazing networker who built relationships everywhere: with newspaper editors and senior journalists, archbishops and ministers, ambassadors and judges, with trade union leaders and in the business sector. He maintained good relations with many parliamentarians, even after they retired, people like Ian McPhee and Chris Puplick on the Liberal side, with former speaker Leo McLeay, former foreign minister Bob Carr, Senator Margaret Reynolds and many others. And he even developed a relationship with Bob Hawke after he retired, one in which Hawke shifted ground more than Ali did.

My enduring memory of Ali is of a person with enormous energy. He never stopped, his work for Palestine was tireless. There was always big thinking, new initiatives, fire in the belly, a desire to challenge, unrelenting determination.

Planning the next issue of Free Palestine, Ali would arrive with a folder of telexes and clippings, declaring to Frans and I with a cheeky smile, “It’s all there, you’ve just got to put it together”. It was classic Ali understatement about the task at hand, but a reflection of the optimism that allowed him to try and do the impossible.

As a young man, as reflected in his autobiography, Ali was somewhat of a free spirit, reading poetry, gazing at the night sky, wondering, and compelled to wander. He was engaged by the politics of black liberation in America, and developed a love of jazz and blues. And he loved the music of Pink Floyd, amongst a broad taste in music.

Working with Ali, I also learned that he was a gracious host, and a great cook of Palestinian food — a skill nurtured by his mother and aunts — and he appreciated a good Australian red. He was a dear friend and comrade.

This was David Spratt’s opening address at the P&I-sponsored Australians for Humanity webinar on 31 October.