OPINION
By now, you’re no doubt all-too-grimly familiar with the horrific details of the terrorist invasion of Israel. From late Saturday afternoon, when I noticed “Hamas” and “Israel” trending on X — hours before the media “broke” the story — we’ve all seen too much blood and horror for me to rake it over, here. Instead, I want to examine how, parochial as it may seem in the greater picture, the terror in Israel affects Australian politics.
Put bluntly: the Australian left has danced with the terrorist devil for too many years. Now, the harsh, bloody glare of the spotlight is on, and how they have chosen to respond tells us all we need to know.
Firstly, there are the grimly predictable.
There has never been any depth so low that former Greens, now independent, senator Lidia Thorpe won’t gleefully wallow in it, to draw attention to herself. Whether it’s being dragged, screaming abuse, from a Pride parade, literally crawling in the mud on the Parliament lawns to try and attack Kellie-Jay Keen, or screeching racist diatribes as she’s ejected from a strip club, Thorpe is a pig who lives to roll in the muck.
Naturally, she responded to the murder of hundreds of Jews and the abduction, rape and murder of Jewish women and children by cheering on the savages perpetrating the crimes. I stand with Palestine!, she bellowed on X, the day after the horror unfolded.
As for Australia’s Muslim leadership, they may not be dancing and cheering in the streets, as they have in London and other Western cities, but they’ve left no doubt where their allegiance lies.
Islamic leaders in Australia have declared their support for the Palestinian people after devastating raids by Hamas terrorists on Israel that killed more than 700 people.
The Australian
Remember, these are not “fringe extremists”: anyone who doubts that this is the mainstream opinion of Australian Muslims need only look at the spontaneous partying in Lakemba, Sydney’s Islamic heartland.
These are the mainstream of Islam in Australia. The Australian National Imams Council and the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils are chosen by their own communities. These are the men — and they are all men, this being Islam — whispering in the Australian government’s ear.
In the case of Anthony Albanese and Labor, a government that’s long been all-too-willing to listen.
At its conference in March 2021, Albanese’s now foreign minister, Penny Wong, announced that the party would formally “recognise Palestine as a state”. Former federal MP Michael Danby, who is Jewish, was prevented from speaking at the conference. As Dr David Adler of the Australian Jewish Association said at the time, “For the first time in Australian political history a mainstream party has in its policy platform unconditional support for the establishment of a new state in which all main players have a strong record of Islamist jihad and terrorism, human rights abuse and corruption.”
No wonder Penny Wong’s first response was equivocation.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has come under fire after she called for Israel to act with “restraint” in the face of an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Coalition says Israel have “every right” to defend itself, although the opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, pleaded for “all parties” to work together to protect innocent lives and end the violence.
Australia’s peak national representative body of the Australian Jewish community say calls for de-escalation by “both sides” are “misconceived and only play into the hands of the terrorists”.
It comes as the Coalition hits out at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his delayed response to the events.
The Australian
Where other world leaders published unequivocal statements condemning Hamas’ savagery within hours, Albanese waited half a day before responding — at 6 a.m. on Sunday. The timing was no excuse: I was watching the first news and videos of the atrocity by 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. As Liberal deputy Sussan Ley responded:
“You don’t get nights off as world leader and across the globe we saw an immediate reaction from world leaders about this awful, awful event,” Ms Ley told Sky News Australia.
“It took until this morning for Anthony Albanese to make that statement.
Sky News
Perhaps realising how badly his party had wedged itself, and Wong’s equivocation had exposed them, Albanese hardened his rhetoric the next day.
Anthony Albanese says the Israel-Hamas conflict could cause “real concerns” of anti-Semitism in Australia.
Except, even now, he chooses to play the Wong-style equivocation card.
“Racism is always (present). Whether anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of racism it is always a bad thing,” the Prime Minister said on Sky News.
The Australian
These people really can’t help themselves, can they?