OPINION
“If the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind,” Bob Hawke once said. It’s a sad reminder of just how far the Labor Party has slid into the moral abyss that Hawke’s moral clarity has been replaced by Anthony Albanese’s gutless, conniving moral relativism and fence-sitting.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in Albanese’s response to being taken to task for prevaricating in the wake of the October 7 massacres. Albanese took sixteen hours to even respond to that enormity. Ever since, his own ministers and backbenchers — many with seats dominated by Muslim voters — have chosen to relentlessly criticise Israel. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has barely deigned to even speak to Israel, let alone visit the Middle East’s only democracy during its worst crisis in decades.
When taken to task, Albanese gave a curious and telling response.
Anthony Albanese has confronted head-on allegations he has failed to tackle anti-Semitism following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, declaring he stands with the nation’s Jewish community but also with Australian Muslims.
The Australian
Why “also with Australian Muslims”? It’s not Muslims who are under siege from violent mobs. It’s not mosques which have been forced to cancel services due to gangs of thugs attacking them.
It was, in fact, Muslims who set off fireworks to celebrate the atrocities of October 7.
Muslims who chanted, “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, and who carried signs demanding to “clean the world” of Jews.
It’s in mosques, not synagogues, that preachers have openly exhorted genocide.
But it’s also Muslims who are crucial to Labor holding onto government, and who dominate Labor-stronghold seats, held by some of the government’s most senior ministers.
Albanese deserves everything Peter Dutton throws at him. Dutton is absolutely right to hold this contemptible government to account for failing the most basic test of moral fibre at a time of national crisis.
Dutton threw aside conventions on bipartisan support for leader’s trips and accused Albanese of “failing at the first hurdle” when it came to his primary job of caring for the Australian people on both the rise of anti-Semitism and the release of the criminals.
“The first priority for this Prime Minister is not to get on another – yet another plane – and head overseas. Prime Minister, don’t leave Canberra and don’t leave this parliament until legislation has been passed which will give effect to providing safety to the Australian people,” Dutton said.
On the policy towards Israel and the rise of anti-Semitism, Dutton said Labor was split down the middle and speaking out both sides of their mouths.
Essentially, Dutton’s calls for Albanese to stay to pass legislation on immigration detention, call a national cabinet meeting to deal with anti-Semitism rather than go to APEC seemed reasonable but were an impossible ask for Albanese.
The Australian
After all, elected on just 32% of the vote, Albanese is desperate not to alienate Western Sydney’s Muslim voters.
The moral turpitude isn’t limited to Australian Labor, of course.
Sir Keir Starmer has suffered a major rebellion over his stance on the Israel-Gaza war, with 56 of his MPs voting for an immediate ceasefire […]
Ten of the party’s frontbenchers have left their jobs over the vote, including eight shadow minsters.
Meaning, they want Hamas to go unpunished, and be allowed to regroup and continue its reign of terror in Gaza.
The UK has seen a series of protest marches demanding a ceasefire in recent weeks, with an estimated 300,000 people taking part in a rally over the weekend, the biggest in the UK since the war began.
BBC
“Over the weekend” means, “on Remembrance Day”. Just to rub it in, Hamas supporters also desecrated a war memorial in Melbourne with their revolting slogans.
As Douglas Murray has said, the gutless tolerance of open anti-Semitism across the West, for cheap electoral gain, shows just how badly our elites have failed us.