Australia / Israel Review

The events of October 7 and its aftermath have severely traumatised Australia’s Jewish community. In several regards, Australian reactions to those events, including from our Federal Government, have been extremely disappointing, compounding the trauma and creating feelings of isolation and betrayal. Surveys show that Israel is a central issue for upwards of 90% of Australian Jews, so our Government’s policy and pronouncements about Israel directly affect us.

Since the October 7 atrocities led to an Israel-Hamas war, at almost every opportunity, the Government seems to have chosen to strain, instead of consolidate, our relationship with Israel. Even early condemnations of the October 7 pogroms and acknowledgement of Israel’s right to defend itself contained constant admonitions to Israel to do so with restraint and in accordance with international law, as if Israel isn’t trying to do so. 

This has been a constant theme, together with statements that the civilian death toll is unacceptable. The Government appears to have largely ignored the Hamas human shield tactics that make civilian deaths inevitable, Israel’s efforts to evacuate civilians from harm’s way – described by some military experts as unprecedented – and the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties being approximately one to one – a lower civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio than in other recent urban warfare campaigns.

One festering sore for Jewish communities worldwide is the appalling double standards the UN and its agencies apply to Israel. Israel is generally censured there as often as all other countries combined, with permanent agenda items in UN bodies devoted to condemning Israel. UN double standards regarding the Jewish state are seen as antisemitism playing out on the international stage.

For Australian Jews, there was a measure of pride that our country was not part of this farce. Alas, no more. Australia’s UN voting record has regressed to abstentions or even affirmatives when there should be noes – including changing our votes to “yes” on two highly problematic draft resolutions in a UN Second Committee hearing on Nov. 14.  

Earliest examples include supporting a motion in December, barely two months after October 7, when the smell of death was still raw in the killing fields of Israel’s kibbutzim bordering Gaza, that demanded a ceasefire and the release of hostages, but didn’t even mention Hamas.

The Australian Government had, quite rightly, frequently asserted Hamas could have no role in Gaza’s future, yet here it was supporting a ceasefire that would leave Hamas in power. This was to become a recurring theme.

We voted in May for a resolution supporting recognition of a still non-existent Palestinian state – breaking not only with the US, which opposed the resolution, but also Canada, the UK and Germany, which abstained. The motion also gave “Palestine” greater powers in the UN.

This in turn led to the appalling Palestinian-sponsored UN General Assembly resolution of Sept. 19 that demanded Israel completely withdraw from the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem within a year or face sanctions, while imposing absolutely no obligations on the Palestinians. The motion completely upended the paradigm of land for peace achieved via negotiations, which had guided all Middle East diplomacy since 1967. Yet we not only abstained rather than opposing this motion, but Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong even expressed disappointment that we couldn’t support it only because it went beyond the very flawed and biased July 19 International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion upon which the resolution was based.

For Jews, perhaps the resolution’s most galling part was its insistence that any Israeli presence in the Old City of Jerusalem, the location of Judaism’s holiest sites and thousands of years of Jewish history, is illegal. 

Then, in three speeches at the UN at the end of September, Wong’s main themes were to push for a timeline for the recognition of a Palestinian state prior to the conclusion of negotiations, and for an urgent and apparently permanent ceasefire. Pushing for recognition of a Palestinian state not only encourages the Palestinian intransigence that has prevented one until now, with all Israeli offers of a two-state peace rebuffed, but also serves as a significant reward for the October 7 terrorism, which clearly prompted Australia’s initiative.

The Albanese Government has also refused to oppose Palestinian lawfare against Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ). In January, Wong weakly said that Australia does not agree with the “premise” of South Africa’s genocide claims against Israel at the ICJ, but Australia nonetheless refused to intervene in the proceedings despite having done so in recent unrelated ICJ cases.

Australia also endorsed the ICJ’s advisory opinion referred to above, even though that decision was based on a biased UN General Assembly referral that all but predetermined the Court’s decision. 

The Government has also continually expressed support for UNRWA, and doubled our funding to the agency, despite abundant evidence of its thorough infiltration by Hamas and unwillingness to act effectively against this situation (see article). 

Disappointingly, PM Albanese hasn’t even visited Israel since October 7. Wong did, belatedly, visit Israel in January, but unlike many other visiting dignitaries, refused to express a measure of solidarity by visiting the sites of the Hamas atrocities in the south.

It was also galling that the Israeli Ambassador was called in for a meeting in June and dressed down by a junior minister, who warned that Australia would not support Israel if it went to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Our Government apparently expected Israel to continue to accept without response the ongoing thousands of Hezbollah rocket, missile and drone attacks that had killed civilians and driven more than 60,000 Israelis from their homes.

Then there was the saga over the tragic accidental killing of aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen (WCK) colleagues in an Israeli drone strike on April 1. Seemingly not satisfied with Israel’s ability to investigate its own mistakes and take approprate disciplinary action against the officers responsible, Australia appointed Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin as Special Adviser to investigate Israel’s response. No other affected country felt the need to make a similar appointment.

Binskin’s findings agreed with Israel’s – the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity, caused by a failure of Israeli officers to follow protocols, but also by the presence, against WCK policy, of gunmen within the convoy. He stressed the similarity of the IDF’s conduct, and investigation mechanisms and processes, to the ADF’s. Yet in her press conference releasing these findings – and indeed subsequently – Wong ignored these aspects of his findings, misleadingly describing the incident as an “intentional strike”, while making it sound as if Binskin had uncovered previously unknown wrong-doing by Israel, adding, “We will continue to press for full accountability, including any appropriate criminal charges.”

Even on the one-year anniversary of October 7, the Government couldn’t contain its parliamentary condolence motion to the victims of the Hamas attacks, feeling the need to include clauses calling for a ceasefire and a two-state solution. This led the Opposition to oppose the motion. The Government then blocked the Opposition’s attempt to move its own motion. 

In a Sydney Morning Herald and Age opinion piece on Nov. 6, 2024, Wong wrote that the international community had failed to honour the 1947 promise of a Palestinian state – yet there was no such promise. She didn’t even mention the peace initiatives the Palestinians had spurned. She also wrote that Israel’s supporters claim the ALP enables Hamas by insisting Israel follow the laws of war. In reality, the ALP enables Hamas by condemning Israel even though Israel is following the laws of armed conflict.

The constant blaming of Israel for civilian deaths and other attacks on Israel’s conduct have no doubt added to the climate contributing to the sharp rise in antisemitism since October last year. The Government has condemned this antisemitism, but even here, its half-hearted conduct has gravely disappointed much of the Jewish community. 

The Government was less strong than it could have been in relation to the often antisemitic and intimidatory aspects of the anti-Israel demonstrations and protest encampments. It is also galling that Government figures seem unable to discuss antisemitism without adding “and Islamophobia”, as if antisemitism on its own is insufficiently significant to discuss.

The fact that many Jewish university students and staff feel unsafe on campus causes the Jewish community great angst. The Coalition rightly argues that the only way to deal with the failure of universities to remedy this situation is a judicial inquiry with royal commission powers. However, the Government blocked the Opposition Bill to establish this, instead referring the problem to a parliamentary committee with fewer investigative powers and subject to politicisation by hostile senators.

The Government’s own calculations no doubt inform its actions. However, the overall effect has been to degrade Australia’s relationship with our most important Middle Eastern partner, in a way that shows a distinct lack of principle and appears to undermine our core national interests. 

The Australian Government’s frosty and highly critical stance on Israel will also almost certainly put us at odds with the incoming Trump Administration, likely damaging our relationship with by far our most important strategic ally. 

And, sadly, the effect of the Government’s shift in Middle East policies has been to increase the isolation felt by Australia’s Jewish community, suffering its worst-ever wave of antisemitism. Indeed, it may even have inadvertently contributed to the intensity of the unprecedented antisemitic wave afflicting Australia over the past year.