Australia / Israel Review

Conduct becoming

Prior to the release of former Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin’s report scrutinising Israel’s investigation into the April 1 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) drone strike in Gaza that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six of her World Central Kitchen (WCK) colleagues, the Australian quoted AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein (July 18) predicting that Binskin’s report would likely confirm that the IDF had “a robust system of investigating itself” and had “learned from the mistakes” made. 

The Nine Newspapers (Aug. 2) quoted Zionist Federation of Australia’s Alon Cassuto’s reaction to the report’s release – that it “reaffirmed that while Frankcom’s death was tragic, ‘the IDF did not and does not target aid workers or any civilians.’”

A follow-up report in the Nine Newspapers (Aug. 6), noted the Israeli Embassy in Canberra said Foreign Minister Penny Wong “misrepresent[ed]” and “omitted crucial details” during a media conference in which she released the report.

 

IDF versus ADF?

The behaviour and remarks of Senator Wong at the press conference for the Binskin report’s release were criticised in the Australian (Aug. 7) by Peter Jennings of Strategic Analysis Australia. He argued that, “Far from justifying Penny Wong’s confected outrage about ‘an intentional strike by the Israeli Defence Forces’ on an aid convoy, Mark Binskin’s careful review finds the strike was a terrible error swiftly followed by an impartial investigation, with involved officers sacked and reprimanded.” 

Jennings asserted that “If Wong wants ‘full accountability’ she should press the World Central Kitchen to answer why there was no direct communications established with the convoy, why the vehicles left planned routes and were moving in the dark without night identification, and why armed guards were present when that was not planned.” 

A day earlier, Strategic Analysis Australia colleagues Michael Shoebridge and Anthony Bergin had written in the Australian that the appointment of Binskin as a “special adviser” was “a diplomatic insult… implying [Israel] couldn’t conduct its own investigation,” but he was nonetheless “provided with all the information he required” by Israel. 

His report, they said, “undercut[s] narratives about wanton Israeli breaches of international humanitarian law and laws of armed conflict.” Significantly, Binskin mentioned favourably the similarities between the IDF and Australian Defence Forces rules of engagement and standard operating procedures, they noted.

 

Piers-ing analysis

News Corp columnist Piers Akerman in the Sunday Telegraph (June 23) said, “Such is the perverted ideology of Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood sponsored by Iran, that deaths of Palestinians are to be celebrated, particularly if they occurred in an action against the great Satan, the US, or the lesser devil, Israel, but actually in combat with any infidel.” A week later in the paper, Akerman criticised the Albanese Government’s “lack of support” for Israel.

In the Spectator Australia (June 29), Akerman said, “Iran, the fount of evil in the region is pulling the strings of proxy armies Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi across the Red Sea,” adding that Teheran benefits from cooperation with China, Russia, and North Korea. 

 

Beautiful one day, antisemitic the next?

On July 1, the Courier Mail condemned the huge surge in recorded instances of antisemitism in Queensland, particularly on university campuses, since October 7.

The editorial said, “it is a line in the sand moment not just for the university, but for the state as well…. there is little our politicians can do to shape events in the Middle East… even less that the average citizen can do, but that feeling of helplessness should never be allowed to develop into hate.”

Similarly, on the same day, the Adelaide Advertiser called out the Extinction Rebellion protest movement for “try[ing] to argue that Israel’s defence of its territory, by rightly trying to eliminate Hamas, is partly to blame for global warming.” 

Meanwhile, on Sky News’ website (June 29), AIJAC Visiting Fellow Professor Greg Rose noted reports of the involvement of Islamist groups in university protests, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, which he argued should be listed by Australia as a banned terror group. 

 

Death by Proxy

Analyst Jonathan Spyer noted in the Australian (July 8) that “From Iran’s point of view, the strategy of slowly building up proxy forces in neighbouring countries is working very well. It has brought Tehran ownership of Lebanon, domination of Iraq and a large part of Yemen, freedom of action in Syria and effective ownership of the Palestinian war against Israel.

“Alongside this, Iran’s nuclear project is proceeding apace. Tehran is now just weeks away from possessing sufficient enriched uranium to build a nuclear device.”

In the Canberra Times (July 9), Dr Bren Carlill of the Zionist Federation of Australia argued the international community must pressure Hezbollah and Iran to withdraw the former’s forces north of Israel’s border with Lebanon to the Litani River. Carlill added that unconfirmed reports claiming Australia informed Israel it won’t be supported if it starts a full-scale war with Hezbollah appeared to be based on domestic politics rather than principle. 

 

Northern Exposure

In the Australian Financial Review (Aug. 2), New York Times columnist Bret Stephens noted that Hezbollah has caused the displacement of 60,000 Israelis from the northern communities living alongside Lebanon.

“Those who condemn Israel for its allegedly disproportionate response to the attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah would be a bit more intellectually honest if they asked themselves what they’d demand of their governments if they were in the same situation,” Stephens wrote.

Earlier, in the Australian (July 10), AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein argued that the low-intensity war Israel is fighting on its northern border against Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is “approaching a moment of decision.” 

Dr Rubenstein said if all-out war is to be avoided in the short term, then Hezbollah’s forces need to pullback “some 20km from the border [with Israel],” as per UN Security Council Resolution 1701, but neutralising Hezbollah longer term requires weakening its Iranian paymasters.

On ABC Radio “PM” (Aug. 2), former Middle East correspondent Adam Harvey echoed Dr Rubenstein: “I think what’s happening in the north of Israel is now seen as untenable… But the deaths of those children [in Majdal Shams] has really highlighted that. You’ve got entire cities, entire towns anyway evacuated… Israel’s effectively lost a lot of territory and there’s a lot of pressure on Israel from the right anyway to act and to strike further at Hezbollah in south Lebanon. And push them out of that sort of 10k buffer zone back towards the Litani River.”

 

Said Story

On ABC RN “Breakfast” (Aug. 1), discussing Hezbollah’s fatal rocket hit that killed 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, followed by the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran, US-based Law Professor Wadie Said sounded like an apologist for Iran. 

Said suggested Haniyeh’s role in Hamas was purely political, asserting that he was “not involved in… the sort of day-to-day decisions on… military tactics… and strategies.” 

He also appeared to give credence to conspiratorial claims that Israel caused the attack on Majdal Shams, saying, “There was a famous incident in the Vietnam War called the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which allowed for an escalation of the Vietnam War based on an alleged North Vietnamese attack, which then turned out to have not been true.”

 

When East is West

On ABC RN “Religion & Ethics” (July 10), Jamal Rifi attempted to explain why the Morrison Government’s policies on Israel and the Palestinians upset Australia’s Arab and Muslim community. 

Dr Jamal Rifi said, “[they] reduced the funding for UNRWA from 20 million to 10 million. And at the same time made the decision that they’re going to recognise east Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And they are going to move the embassy from Tel Aviv into east Jerusalem.”

These claims were wrong. The Morrison Government recognised only Jerusalem’s western part, which has been sovereign Israeli territory since 1948, as Israel’s capital and acknowledged Palestinian aspirations for a future capital in the eastern side of the city. And they denied any plans to move the embassy.

 

Choppy Water

On July 13, Canberra Times columnist and frequent Israel critic Jack Waterford accused pro-Israel lobby groups of labelling criticism of Israel as antisemitic. 

“It may be true that critical references to Israel or Zionism may indicate more fundamental hostility to Jewish people or the Jewish religion, but whether that is so is not to be determined as a matter for deconstruction, semiotics or divination by agents and advocates of the cause of the state or the Zionist dream,” Waterford wrote. So who should determine if something is antisemitic if not the victims of antisemitism?

 

Learned Discourse

Visiting Australia, former IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner explained to ABC Radio National “Breakfast” (July 17) why Israel’s war against Hamas is justified and moral.

Lerner said, “Unfortunately, there are still too many bent-on Israel’s destruction [who] have not come to terms with Israel’s existence. Hamas is just the… spearhead of the most recent attack.” 

Addressing the accusation Israel’s military campaign has not conformed with international law, Lerner said, “I think proportionality in warfare weighs on the military necessity and not on a numbers game,” adding, “professionals in military affairs” from the US and UK have “said to me, ‘Peter, you’re setting a standard most Western militaries can’t live up to.’” 

Lerner agreed “that too many people are suffering” but “sometimes there is a necessity to go to war.”

 

Devil in the details

In contrast to ABC Global Affairs editor John Lyons, who has repeatedly seemed incapable of informing listeners what Hamas is demanding in the ceasefire for hostage deal with Israel, his ABC colleague Allyson Horn did so with ease.

On ABC TV “The World” (July 16), Horn said “there are still… huge, significant gaps that need to be bridged… between Israel and Hamas that have been so problematic for all… the negotiations throughout this war. That continues to be the issue.”

She explained that Hamas had demanded “an entire end to the war,” not just a “temporary ceasefire” and for Israel to “withdraw all of its troops from Gaza.” 

But, she said, “Israel says it won’t do that because it… would leave a political vacuum there” enabling Hamas to “rebuild both its military and governing capabilities.”

 

Strange “Pragmatism”

Nine Newspapers’ US correspondent Farrah Tomazin (July 25) predicted that the Democrats’ presumptive Presidential candidate Kamala Harris would be tougher on Israel than US President Joe Biden. 

Tomazin wrote, “[Harris] is viewed as someone willing to be more pragmatic and publicly critical of the way the war is being conducted. Democrats therefore hope she can win back voters who say they could never support Biden because of his refusal to push back hard enough against his Israeli counterpart.” 

According to Tomazin, a “pragmatic” approach apparently means the US Administration should jettison its principled support for Israel as it fights an existential battle against Hamas to gain domestic votes. 

 

Rights and Responsibilities

AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein argued in the Australian Financial Review (July 26) that intercommunal tensions, particularly the explosion of antisemitism since Hamas’ October 7 massacre, do not prove that Australian multiculturalism has failed.

Dr Rubenstein wrote, “we need to focus on the right targets. Australian multiculturalism was never a license for ‘anything goes’, that whatever your background or values – be they embedded in extremism, violence, terrorism, racism or whatever – they’ll fit into diverse Australia.”

Australian multiculturalism has succeeded “by emphasising the need to accept and practise one’s responsibilities and not just exercise one’s rights. It relies on a non-negotiable commitment to certain shared core values and responsibilities, including parliamentary democracy and the rule of law; freedom of speech and religion; the equality of the sexes; and mutual respect and tolerance.”

Writing in the Daily Telegraph (Aug. 6) on the same topic, Peter Kurti also expressed concern that the hostility and hatred experienced by Australian Jews since October 7 is placing “unprecedented strain” on Australian multiculturalism.

“When private custom conflicts with public laws, the latter must prevail. That is why polygamy, child marriage and female circumcision are – and always will be – illegal under Australian law.”

 

Debunking misinformation

In the Canberra Times (July 2), AIJAC’s Oved Lobel highlighted a series of recent reports that have debunked two of the most pernicious claims levelled at Israel during its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Lobel noted that the “prevalent claim… that 70 per cent of [Palestinian] casualties were women and children,” has been proven wrong by the UN, which, in May “surreptitiously halved the number of women and children it claimed had been killed in the war.”

Meanwhile, the UN’s own expert committee on identifying famine found that there wasn’t enough data to back up earlier UN claims of widespread famine in Gaza. 

Elsewhere, AIJAC’s Justin Amler in the Daily Telegraph (July 31), systematically detailed how the UN and its staff have repeatedly “failed all tests of decency” by attacking, criticising, and blaming Israel since the October 7 massacre.

On ABC Newsradio (July 29), retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan dismissed Greens claims that Australia exports offensive weapons to Israel. Ryan said Israel was fighting to protect its civilian population, and a device Australia sells to bring down enemy attack drones is clearly a “defensive weapon”. 

 

Late Night Lies

ABC RN “Late Night Live” (July 24) interviewed US Palestinian activist and writer Saree Makdisi ahead of his attendance at this year’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney. 

Much of what Makdisi said belonged in a festival of delusional ideas.

Makdisi falsely claimed that Israel is “a democracy for as long as you’re Jewish, and that’s the issue, because half of the people over whom Israel exerts power, that is to say, direct sovereignty, are not Jewish. They’re Palestinian Arabs.”

Makdisi claimed even Arabs who are Israeli citizens do not have equal rights with their Jewish compatriots “because they are subject to over 60 laws that discriminate on the basis of the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens… For example, nobody in Israel, Jewish or Arab or otherwise, can vote for a secular democratic state,” he said.

The last claim is just false, while Makdisi’s claim about 60 discriminatory laws is pure propaganda, which on close examination is nonsense.

The list of supposedly “discriminatory laws” includes such things as making Jewish holidays public holidays and the benefits army veterans receive after they serve in the IDF. This is considered racist because Israeli Arabs are not drafted but Jews are. Of course, Israeli Arabs can choose to volunteer to enlist in the army, or in community service, and are then entitled to similar benefits. 

Makdisi also bizarrely claimed early Zionist settlers planted eucalyptus trees from Australia as they “grow very quickly” and because olive trees “represented a backward, primitive, non-European culture.”

He’s just wrong. Eucalyptus trees were planted because they helped to drain swamps and provide windbreaks to stop erosion. 

Makdisi included pine trees in his list of “European species” that Jewish settlers supposedly used to obliterate the native environment. In fact, the main type of pine tree planted by Jewish settlers was and still is the “Aleppo Pine”, which is not European and has grown in Israel for thousands of years.

 

---

In Parliament

Shadow Foreign Minister Senator Simon Birmingham (Lib., SA) – July 4 – Moving to suspend standing orders so he could move “That the Senate reaffirms Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, whether attacked by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or any other sponsor of terrorism”: “Palestinians… are used and abused as human shields by Hamas, who hide amongst them, hide hostages amongst them… If this were Australia, there would be no tolerance of terrorist organisations like Hamas or Hezbollah.”

Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong – “I move: At the end of the motion… add… ‘Calls on all parties to exercise restraint;… Supports efforts to press all parties to the conflict in Gaza agree to the ceasefire proposal.’”

Standing orders were suspended, the amendment was defeated, with only the ALP and Senator David Pocock supporting, and the original motion was then carried on the voices, with the Greens opposing.

Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie (Lib., Canning) – July 4 – moving the same motion in the House: “Hamas continues this by refusing to release the hostages, surrender, lay down its arms and cease to be a movement.” 

Labor adjourned the House debate with the Coalition and independents opposing the motion to adjourn.

Shadow Education Minister Senator Sarah Henderson (Lib., Vic.) – June 27 – on her bill for a judicial commission into antisemitism at universities: “Since 7 October, Australians have witnessed an unprecedented spike in antisemitic activity across our country… But, arguably, nothing has been quite as bad as on some university campuses… We must stop the antisemitic hate and incitement on university campuses.”

Greens Deputy Leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi (NSW) – “This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to attack student encampments and tarnish students and staff who are calling for justice for Palestine.”

Shadow Attorney-General Senator Michaelia Cash (Lib., WA) – “October 7 commenced an incredible wave of domestic antisemitism… it seems that the root of the infection is found sadly and, quite frankly, appallingly in our university campuses.” 

Shadow Indigenous Australians Minister Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (CLP, NT) – “For some reason… it has been acceptable for terrorist flags to be flying… and for terrorist chants to be used at… our universities.”

Others speaking in favour of the bill included Senator Matt O’Sullivan (Lib., WA), Senator Maria Kovacic (Lib., NSW), Senator Dave Sharma (Lib., NSW) and Andrew Wallace (Lib., Fisher) and Senator Jacqui Lambie (JLN, Tas.). Senator Henderson’s proposed judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities will be examined by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee.

Julian Leeser (Lib., Berowra) – July 3 – moved the same motion in the house: “Universities are ground zero for antisemitism and we are now seeing it filter into other aspects of life.”

Labor adjourned the debate with the Coalition and independents opposing the motion to adjourn.

Senator Faruqi – asking whether the Government would sanction Israel: “We have witnessed Israel’s full-blown genocide in Gaza, during which Israel has ruthlessly massacred close to 40,000 Palestinians, including around 15,000 Palestinian children.” 

Senator Wong – replying: “No Australian government has ever expressed such strong support for Palestinian statehood as this one.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (ALP, Grayndler) – July 1 – “‘From the river to the sea’… has been used both by supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestine who support a single state… I condemn [it] unequivocally.”

Senator Andrew Bragg (Lib., NSW) – June 26 – “The attempted mainstreaming of the saying ‘from the river to the sea’ is deeply antisemitic, and … designed to erase Israel from the map.” 

Max Chandler-Mather (Greens, Griffith) – July 2 – “Thirty-seven thousand Palestinians have been murdered, 72%of them women and children… One million Palestinians are at risk of death by starvation as a result of Israel’s engineered famine.”

Greens Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John (WA) – July 4 – “Australia must immediately sanction those complicit in this genocide, including Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Gallant.”