OPINION
In the US, Jews who traditionally tend to vote for the “progressive left” have had a rude awakening. To their shock, their “progressive” friends are choosing, en masse, to side with the baby-beheaders of Hamas. Whilst I understand their despair at seeing the people they though were on their side flock to “stand with” the bloodthirsty monsters responsible for the worst crimes against Jews since 1945, I have to wonder: Weren’t they paying the least attention?
Didn’t they take any notice while the anti-Semitic BDS movement was sweeping the left? Was there not the slightest clue, when the left were chanting “From the River to the Sea”?
The voters of Kooyong, in Melbourne’s Jewish heartland, clearly weren’t paying attention, either, when they elected Teal (i.e. “blue-green”) Monique Ryan.
Well, their attention has been focused, now.
The principal of a Melbourne Jewish school has written a blistering letter to independent Kooyong MP Monique Ryan, accusing her of “unacceptable” bias in selectively expressing outrage at the death of children in Gaza rather than the deaths of 1400 Israelis at the hands of Hamas.
In fairness, Ryan split with her Teal colleagues when they joined the Greens to vote against the government’s bipartisan bill condemning Hamas. But, like too many of the political class, she appears to be trying to have an each-way bet on Palestine.
The letter from the principal of Bialik College, Jeremy Stowe-Lindner, said Ms Ryan’s responses to the October 7 massacre of Israelis and the retaliatory bombing of Gaza by Israel had repeatedly played down the suffering of Israel and of the Australian Jewish community.
It follows a Facebook post by Ms Ryan on Wednesday in which she wrote ‘as a pediatrician, I find the human suffering in Gaza intolerable,’ and called for a humanitarian pause so that aid can reach people.
As Yael Bat tur wrote: If your response to a massacre is to call for a “ceasefire” instead of the immediate release of the hostages and dismantlement of the perpetrators – you may not be an antisemite, but you’re really dumb.
Which is it, Mongo?
More to the point, with such a high Jewish population, it’s ten-to-one many of her constituents have been directly affected by Palestinian savagery: where is her concern for them? Is their suffering merely tolerable?
Mr Stowe-Lindner said he represented the only Jewish school in Mr Ryan’s electorate where “multiple family members (are) attending, online and in person, funerals of murdered loved ones in Israel.
“Your reference to the suffering only in Gaza is unacceptable,” he wrote.
“Perhaps a reference to the intolerable suffering of the families of 1400 Israeli civilians on October 7 who were murdered, raped, beheaded would be appropriate too? Or to those Jewish families sheltering in bomb shelters from 5000 Hamas rockets in just a few hours on that day who were wiped out through hand grenades being thrown into their shelters? Or to that catastrophe as a pogrom, the deadliest day for world Judaism since the Holocaust?”
“Intolerable also is the reaction of mobs calling for Jews to be gassed here in Australia, or apparently peaceful crowds with placards proclaiming ‘from the river to the sea’ which for those with any understanding of geography is a call for the ethnic cleansing and destruction of the world’s only Jewish state,” he wrote.
Like many commenters, Ryan may not be a slavering, open anti-Semite, but it’s notable that she only ever trenchantly criticises the Jewish state.
As for Hamas?
Mr Stowe-Lindner […] said Ms Ryan’s Facebook posts had only made one reference to Hamas, which was in response to the massacre of October 7.
“(There) you wrote that “Hamas has made the road to a two-state solution much harder. Israel has every right to defend its people.” Is that all you have to say? “Much harder?”
“Only one sentence on Hamas as making things ‘much harder’? And a vague comment about a country’s right to self defence but no comment in any post about suffering in Israel or the murder of Jews?”
The Australian
Your slip is showing, Mongo.