Australia / Israel Review

Hostage diplomacy

In the Adelaide Advertiser (Sept. 3), AIJAC’s Justin Amler wrote of the joy experienced in Israel after the IDF’s rescue in late August of 52-year-old Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, an Israeli Bedouin held hostage in Gaza since October 7.

Al-Qadi, he wrote, “was saved… because Israel values every life. But a few days later, six hostages were murdered by Hamas, because Israel’s enemies embrace murder, death and destruction.”

Meanwhile, AIJAC Research Associate Ran Porat told ABC Radio’s Triple J (Sept. 3) that mass protests in Israel against the Government’s failure to secure the release of the six Israeli hostages alive would not coerce PM Netanyahu to accept a bad ceasefire deal. 

Dr Porat explained that “Hamas has maximalist demands” that Netanyahu cannot accept. These include “the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces [from Gaza]… And we’ve seen what Hamas is. Hamas executed at the last minute hostages about to be freed,” he said.

 

Real Downer

Writing in the Australian (Sept. 9), former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer condemned the response of Western governments to the brutal murder of the six Israeli hostages by Hamas.

“Two days after this brutal execution of six innocent people, the British government announced it was imposing bans on certain arms sales to Israel. From the point of view of Hamas, the criticism by Biden and the decision by the British government just encourage the terror group to keep and maltreat those remaining hostages who are still alive. And the Australian government? All Anthony Albanese could bring himself to do was express his sorrow at the deaths on X,” he wrote.

 

Numbers game

On Sept. 10, most of the local media uncritically reported the claims by the Hamas Health Department in Gaza that an Israeli air strike killed at least 40 people in a designated humanitarian zone near Khan Younis. 

Israel’s claim that only 19 Palestinians were killed, all of them Hamas-affiliated terrorists, was given short shrift.

Unusually, Hamas subsequently revised the number of killed it listed down to 19. While some reports noted the update, this received nowhere near the same amount of coverage as the initial estimate.

On ABC TV News (Sept. 15), Save the Children’s Alexandra Sayeh condemned Israel for launching strikes on UN buildings where, she said, Palestinians are sheltering.

Asked to respond to an Israeli military statement that it didn’t target schools, only “Hamas militants” using them as bases, Sayeh changed the subject, saying, “we know… that families were affected, that children have been killed, that women were sheltering there with their children. And we’re seeing this again and again and again.”

Of course, Sayeh didn’t demand Hamas stop setting up military headquarters in schools, mosques, and medical facilities, including in the humanitarian zone. 

She also accused Israel of obstructing aid coming into Gaza and not allowing medical supplies to enter in closed trucks with cold storage, but didn’t explain that Hamas is stealing aid and armed gunmen are more likely to be hiding inside sealed vehicles.

 

Luce with the truth

In the Australian Financial Review (Aug. 23), Financial Times columnist Edward Luce compared the death and destruction in Gaza to Warsaw 1945 or Grozny 1999, claiming Israel is “indiscriminate[ly]” bombing “to teach Palestinians a collective lesson.” 

The only reason why there is widespread destruction in Gaza and a high death toll is due to Hamas’ immoral and calculated tactic of basing its fighters and terror infrastructure amidst dense civilian populations. And those who highlight the civilian cost of the conflict almost never have any answer when asked how it would be possible for Israel to fight Hamas without causing substantial civilian casualties in the urban jungle of Gaza where Hamas has placed its military infrastructure in every civilian neighbourhood, and in homes, schools, mosques and hospitals.

Luce said the Biden Administration’s “poor record” on the Middle East predates October 7, citing its failure to “rejoin the Iran nuclear deal… Trump pulled the US out of in 2018,” which he attributed to a “fear of the pro-Netanyahu Israeli lobby.” Of course, it was actually Teheran that rejected returning to the 2015 nuclear deal when offered precisely this by the Biden Administration.

Meanwhile, AIJAC’s Tammy Reznik on the ABC “Religion & Ethics” website (Sept. 8) lamented that Hamas has “mastered the art of flipping the narrative,” and has succeeded in convincing many people that it is an organisation of “courageous freedom fighters”.

 

Rodger that

Commenting in the Nine newspapers (Sept. 4), on the cruel execution of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, analyst Rodger Shanahan noted that after the Hamas mass terror attack and kidnapping, “Israel had no choice but to take revenge against Hamas, and to degrade it to the point where it was no longer capable of threatening Israel in the way that it did on October 7.”

He added that “for all the justifiable criticism of the Israeli approach to civilian harm minimisation in Gaza, one should never lose sight of the fact the mentality that led Hamas to kill six hostages in cold blood is the same one that allowed it to believe that shooting innocent concert-goers, or throwing grenades into bomb shelters housing young people in the prime of their lives, could somehow be justified in the name of Palestinian sovereignty. Those advocating support for Hamas would do well to reflect on this.”

Earlier in the Nine newspapers (Aug. 14), Shanahan was critical of Israel’s conduct of the war, saying “the strategic aims it set itself, along with the scale and duration of the Gaza operation should have been constructed so that at the end of the military campaign Israel was more secure than it was at the start.” However, he completely failed to explain how that could be achieved.

 

Vicious Cycles

On ABC Radio National “Breakfast” (Aug. 28), visiting AIJAC guest Behnam Ben Taleblu warned of the dangerous consequences that will follow the Biden Administration’s policy of pressuring Israel not to finish the job of dismantling Hamas’ terror capabilities in Gaza. 

Taleblu said, “the Americans [are] put[ting] the handcuffs on the Israelis rather than on the Iranians who are escalating this situation. That’s an eerie position for the West to be in, where its adversaries are driving it to restrain its allies.”

If Israel fails to achieve its war aims, he said, “the [Iranian] regime would take the victory lap” and boast that it has “become the champions or the defenders of Gaza. And from that sense would grow emboldened,” leading to “another boom-and-bust cycle of violence.” 

 

Canberra, Teheran and Jerusalem

The Australian (Aug. 22), condemned the Albanese Government’s “wet lettuce” response to a tweet by Iran’s Ambassador to Australia that said “the Zionist plague” should be “wiped out of the holy lands of Palestine” by 2027.

Strategic Analysis Australia’s Anthony Bergin and Peter Jennings in the Australian (Aug. 19) were highly critical of the Federal Government’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war, writing, when “Anthony Albanese says there’s no place for Hamas in Gaza, how does he think that outcome will be delivered? When Labor calls for an immediate ceasefire, the result would be to leave Hamas in charge.”

Meanwhile, in the Daily Telegraph (Sept. 8), recent AIJAC Rambam Israel study tour participant Piers Akerman listed the Albanese Government’s major negative decisions against Israel since it came to power in May 2022. 

 

Foreign Correspondence

On ABC TV “7.30” (Aug. 20), host Sarah Ferguson asked Majed al-Ansari, a foreign affairs adviser to Qatar’s PM, why Australia should recognise Palestine as a state if his own country refuses to recognise Israel.

Dr al-Ansari responded by waffling, saying, “Whenever we are talking about recognition here, we are talking about the recognition of the peace process itself and the result of that peace process is a two-state solution and obviously the decisions of sovereign countries are left to their own devices. We applaud these decisions whenever they come.”

The next night, Ferguson interviewed Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, who falsely accused Israel of perpetuating the conflict with Lebanon because it won’t “withdraw to its internationally recognised borders.”

Israel does not occupy any Lebanese territory, a fact that was officially confirmed by the UN after Israel withdrew all its forces in May 2000.

Dr Habib also claimed that “in 1948, the United Nations called for two states in the geographic Palestine. One state was established. The other is still fighting to establish… the best way to do it is to have a two-state solution, like what the world wanted.”

The reason why no Palestinian state was established in 1948 is the same reason why it doesn’t exist in 2024 – for nearly eight decades Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected every opportunity to create one.

 

MEAA culpa

AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein was quoted by the Australian (Sept. 9), condemning a resolution passed by the federal council of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) that expressed solidarity with Palestinian media workers killed in Gaza since October 7.

Dr Rubenstein said, “This one-sided resolution reflects the lack of objectivity that has sadly characterised too much reporting in the Hamas initiated war in Gaza.” 

Israel, he said, never “deliberately targeted non-combatants” and has provided “convincing evidence” that “many of the so-called ‘journalists’ killed have in fact been fighters for Hamas, or individuals who colluded with Hamas’ military activities.” 

He said a more appropriate resolution would have honoured “both Israelis and Palestinians” killed in the conflict.

 

Nelson’s column

A UK Sunday Times article republished by the Australian (Sept. 2) depicted jailed terrorist Marwan Barghouti as the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela”. 

The article also absurdly suggested that Barghouti, who has served 20 years in an Israeli prison for organising the murder of five Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada, was at risk of being murdered by his Israeli jailors in retribution for Israeli hostages murdered in Gaza.

A letter by AIJAC’s Allon Lee published by the Australian (Sept. 3) ridiculed any comparison between Mandela and Barghouti, noting that no one accused the former “of ordering the murder of anyone, much less convicted him of murdering civilians.” 

In contrast, he wrote, “Palestinian leaders chose terrorism at the exact moment when… Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected Israeli PM Ehud Barak’s historic offer at the Camp David peace summit in July 2000 and ordered Barghouti to prepare a campaign of terror against Israeli civilians. Indeed, news reports in October 2000 quote Barghouti actively encouraging violence in defiance of an ostensible ceasefire.”

 

Mercury Falling 

In the Hobart Mercury (Aug. 28), the paper’s former journalist Harriet Binet accused Israel of “disproportionately killing women and children” in Gaza, suggested that “92,000 Palestinians – double the official estimates” – have died, and implied Israel has already been found guilty of genocide in Gaza by the International Court of Justice. 

Contrary to irresponsible reports, the Court has made no substantive finding whatsoever regarding this accusation, as the Court’s former President Joan Donoghue has publicly clarified.

Meanwhile, the claim that 92,000 Palestinians have died is more than double the current estimate provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza authorities, who have every reason to exaggerate rather than play down this number. Indeed, the UN recently halved the percentage of women and children in the estimated death toll precisely because the Hamas-provided data was exaggerating these numbers. 

Especially dubious was Binet’s reliance on an unsupported claim from controversial UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese as proof that “genocide” is occurring. This is the same Albanese who publicly said Hamas had a right to engage in violent “resistance” against Israel prior to its campaign of brutal massacre, rape, and kidnappings on October 7, and then insisted Israel has no legal right to self-defence against these attacks afterwards. She has also been widely criticised for openly antisemitic statements in the past.

 

Hicks Up

On Sept. 11, an op-ed in the Mercury by former teacher Peter Hicks said, “16,000 children have been killed by Israel’s campaign of bombing, starvation, snipers and siege. Save the Children estimate there are a further 20,000 Palestinian children lost, disappeared, detained or buried under the rubble or in mass graves.”

But as AIJAC’s Jamie Hyams noted in a letter the Mercury published on Sept. 16, Hicks did not “even mention… Hamas… which speaks volumes about his perspective and the reliability of his analysis, including his unquestioning acceptance of Hamas-supplied casualty figures.”

Hyams stressed that “the plight of Gaza’s children since Hamas started the war is indeed tragic, but it’s wrong to blame Israel. Hamas systematically uses schools for military purposes, including hiding weapons, and tunnelling under. The UN has even called it out on this.”

 

Mark: His Words

Canberra Times columnist Mark Kenny (Sept. 15) was also prone to extreme hyperbole, claiming that “there is literally no violent excess to which Tel Aviv could go that would halt America’s supply of arms or break its international protection (via the UN Security Council)… not the targeting of schools, or hospitals, or refugee camps, or the murder of countless children, ambulance drivers, aid workers and journalists… Forty-thousand-plus dead in Gaza, the enclave bombed into an uninhabitable rubble. Apart from the tens of thousands annihilated, displaced survivors include women and children maimed, starved, traumatised and terrorised.”

But as AIJAC’s Jamie Hyams noted in a letter published by the Canberra Times (Sept. 18) “Israel does not murder civilians. It tries to avoid civilian casualties with evacuations. Around half the casualties have been fighters, a far better outcome than other recent urban wars, especially considering Hamas’ human shield and sacrifice tactics.” Moreover, Kenny’s insinuation that 40,000 plus Gazans who died are all innocents absurdly implied that zero Hamas fighters have been killed in nearly 12 months of war. 

 

Open secret

The Herald Sun (Aug. 8) chastised the Albanese Government’s decision to resume its funding earlier this year of UNRWA, the UN’s aid agency for Palestinians, given a UN investigation has confirmed allegations that nine employees participated in the October 7 massacre. 

The newspaper said, “those familiar with UNRWA’s operations” know “militant infiltration and terrorist sympathy” inside it is an “open secret” and Australia should redirect its funding to “transparent, apolitical aid groups.”

AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein was quoted by the editorial, saying that “UNRWA is an organisation that continues to employ terrorists, to co-operate with Hamas, to incite violence and to educate towards a future of hatred and intolerance rather than peaceful coexistence – and it does so with our taxpayer dollars.”

 

Prior Good Acts

An Australian report (Aug. 27) quoted Australian Muslim spokespeople using the word “unprecedented” to describe an Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s condemnation of violence committed by a tiny minority of settlers on the West Bank, which described such attacks as “criminal under Israeli law” and “completely antithetical to Jewish values.”

But there is actually nothing remarkable about Australian Jewish communal organisations denouncing appalling criminal behaviour by a violent minority of settlers. 

Indeed, AIJAC has done just that repeatedly over the years, including in July 2015, February 2023 and this August. 

 

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In Parliament

Julian Leeser (Lib., Berowra) – Sept. 12 – “Australians are shocked by what we’ve seen since 7 October… calling for death to Jews; hate preachers openly calling for the murder of Jews.”

Andrew Wilkie (Ind., Clark) – Sept. 12 – “The Australian Government should … engage no further in trading arms … with the Israel Defence Forces until we can be sure they would not be used to commit a genocide.”

Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy Josh Wilson (ALP, Fremantle) – Sept. 9 –  “Israel has inflicted carnage on a trapped and defenceless civilian population in Gaza. More than 40,000 civilians have died, the majority … women and children.” 

Monique Ryan (Ind., Kooyong) – Sept. 9 – “[The] Israeli administration … seems intransigent to the urgings of governments, the UN and the International Court of Justice to halt the killing of innocents [and] to respect international law…”

Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism Kevin Hogan (Nat., Page) – Aug. 21 – “[Hamas] thought it was okay to film themselves and celebrate those horrible things … and … hides behind [Gazans] in tunnels and in schools and hospitals.”

Max Chandler-Mather (Greens, Griffith) – Aug. 21 – Moving a motion accusing Israel of apartheid, sexual abuse of prisoners and genocide and calling for sanctions: “Over 15,000 Palestinian children… have been murdered by Israel…”

Andrew Wallace (LNP, Fisher) – “Not only did [Hamas] kill innocent Israelis; they killed women and children, beheading people. There was rape. Where were the Greens? It’s ‘me too’ unless you’re a Jew.”

Only the Greens and independents Andrew Wilkie and Helen Haines opposed an ALP motion to adjourn the debate.

Senator Jacqui Lambie (JLN, Tas.) – Aug. 21 – “Australian authorities have registered and given special tax status to a charity directed by a key figure within Hizb ut-Tahrir who has urged Muslims to send weapons to Gaza.”

Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition Senator James McGrath (LNP, Qld) – Aug. 20 – “7 October was … an attack on the core values of freedom, democracy and liberty… Hamas must be eradicated, the hostages must be released.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (ALP, Grayndler) – Aug. 20 – “[Hamas] are enemies not only of the people of Israel; they are enemies of the Palestinian people because Hamas do not respect the human rights of Palestinian people.”

Tony Zappia (ALP, Makin) – Aug. 19 – “Over 40,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza from targeted Israeli attacks… The Netanyahu Government ignores international law, blocks humanitarian aid to fleeing Palestinians and hinders efforts to contain the spread of polio.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (Lib., Dickson) – Aug. 15 – “The Israeli Government is a democratically elected government… They have helped thwart terrorist attacks in our country… The level of antisemitism in our country is at a record high.”

Shadow Assistant Foreign Minister Senator Claire Chandler (Lib., Tas) – Aug. 14 – “The Iran regime and the terrorist groups they arm and fund make absolutely no secret of their desire to eradicate Israel and to spread dangerous and violent antisemitism around the world… It is absolutely unacceptable to have a foreign official openly espousing such dangerous antisemitic hatred in the Australian community, and it is extremely disturbing that the Iranian ambassador has been doing so since October 2023.”

Greens Deputy Leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi (NSW) – Aug. 14 – “It’s been 10 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza … of unimaginable savagery—of slaughtered children, of families burning in tents… This genocide is the greatest shame of our time… Labor lets Israel run riot, violating international laws, bombing nations across the Middle East.”

Greens Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John (WA) – Aug. 13 – Moving to allow a motion to sanction Israel and cut ties: “The genocide has been going on for over 300 days. That’s 300 days of war crimes.”

Only the Greens and Senator Fatima Payman supported the motion.