12 hours ago.
Updated 10 hours ago
The Australian Business Network
But the response last week to the news that Israel would not prosecute the soldiers involved points to the underlying anti-Israel sentiment of the Albanese government, and is a far cry from the days when then Labor prime minister Bob Hawke was a hero to Israelis.
Too little was made by politicians and in media questions of the findings two years ago by our own military investigator, retired Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, who had already concluded that this was probably a terrible mistake rather than a deliberate crime.
The IDF says drivers for the humanitarian organisation World Central Kitchen took an unapproved route. WCK had hired armed guards without consulting the IDF, which mistakenly assumed that these were Hamas militants again stealing aid. Two IDF personnel involved were stood down and three disciplined because they did not follow clear orders.
While Binskin did suggest the IDF provide Australia with more information from the drone feed on the night, this tragic mistake would have been accepted as such had it been made by any country other than Israel.
ABC Radio National breakfast show host Sally Sara went all out on August 20, the morning after the IDF Military Advocate General announced on World Humanitarian Day that it would not prosecute those involved. It will prosecute two other matters it investigated.
Sara, keen for her subjects to comment on whether Australia should expel the Israeli Ambassador, interviewed member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, Chris Sidoti, federal Labor Assistant Minister for Citizenship Julian Hill and Greens leader Larissa Waters.
Sara promised to speak to Israeli Ambassador Hillel Newman the following day, and did so.
Hill pulled up Sara when she asked if this was a low point in relations between Australia and Israel.
“I try very hard to talk when we have a difference about the Israeli government … It does feed into antisemitism,” Hill said.
“I try not to conflate the state of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state with profound at times disagreements with the actions of the current Israeli government.”
Hill’s point is at the heart of why the royal commission into the murders of 15 people in the terrorist attack at Bondi on December 14 should have been extended.
Commissioner Virginia Bell, Jewish Australians and anyone wanting genuine social cohesion should have heard from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Immigration Minister Tony Burke at the royal commission.
This government, a fierce defender of anti-hate speech laws, has since the October 9, 2023 protest at the Sydney Opera House been unable to call out the racism of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli protesters.
Albanese said explicitly in Perth only last week that neo-Nazis – rather than radical Islamists – are responsible for antisemitism in Australia.
Frank Chung on news.com.au wrote on December 16: “Official transcripts show the Prime Minister spoke a total of 5022 words in press conferences, interviews and statements … (in the day after December 14). Mr Albanese did not once say the words ‘Muslim’, ‘Islam’, or ‘Islamic extremism’.
“The PM instead spoke only of antisemitism, violent extremism and twice raised the threat of right-wing extremist groups.”
Why did Albanese stay silent when protesters chanted “F..k the Jews” at Australia’s most famous building only two days after the bestial murders, rapes and kidnappings by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel on October 7, 2023?
The royal commission devoted only five hours to the Opera House protest and heard from no ministers.
Former Australian ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma told Chris Kenny on News24 on Monday that, in his experience, every surge in conflict in the Middle East has turbocharged antisemitic behaviour here.
Sharma said it was clear from the night of the Opera House protest that the Jewish community would face increased danger.
Royal commissioner Virginia Bell says she does not need more time.
Maybe, but Australians are suspicious. The commission should also have heard directly from Muslim hate preachers such as Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun, who told a crowd at Lakemba in western Sydney the next day that October 7 was “a day of pride, a day of victory”.
The royal commission did hear from Australian National Imams Council president Sheik Shadi Alsuleiman, who said Dadoun had “clarified” his remarks on Facebook.
Shadi added: “We did not see there was a need for further action.”
The families of the victims of Bondi might disagree with Shadi.
Bell needs to tell Australians about the role of pro-Hamas Bankstown Sheik Wissam Haddad, who hosted accused Bondi shooter Naveed Akram at his Al Madina Dawah Centre in Sydney’s Bankstown in 2019.
Australia needs Bell to find that Jew hatred here is not the preserve of neo-Nazis. Antisemitism is spread by extremist Islamic preachers who push the hate of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Iran’s ayatollahs to young Australian Muslims.
This column has quoted dozens of speeches and stories from Middle Eastern politicians, clerics and journalists praising the Holocaust and Hitler, and calling for the elimination of Israel.
Australians will not accept findings that sweep such extremism under the carpet.
Australians need to know how Israel – with multiracial, multi-religious representation in its Knesset – has come to be branded by politicians, academics, some journalists and most pro-Palestinian protesters as an “apartheid state”.
Australians need to be told how lies about famine in Gaza, the deliberate murders of journalists, health workers and UN employees came to be accepted as facts and why so many in the media have failed to report recent findings revealing the truth about such claims, all of which came from Hamas.
Australians need to know why Wong reinstated aid to UNRWA when UNRWA sacked 70 employees only last month and may be employing 400 Hamas terrorists. UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 atrocity and a dozen were dismissed at the time.
We need to know how Albanese and Wong can continue to justify their recognition of a Palestinian state when Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas continues the PA’s “pay per slay” bounties to Palestinian terrorists who murder Jews.
Israel is not above criticism, but the Australian government and parts of the Australian media treat Islamic terrorism as beyond scope for scrutiny. Is this to protect social cohesion or to protect the Muslim votes of Labor MPs?
What is Wong saying when she criticises Israel for taking two years to investigate the WCK killings but her own government allows investigations of 15-year-old Australian war crime allegations from Afghanistan to continue to drag on without charges?
Rather than make unsubstantiated allegations about the Zomi Frankcom tragedy, Wong should send Binskin back to Israel to interview the Advocate General about its reasons for not prosecuting.
No doubt Wong’s criticisms of the IDF investigation would carry more weight in Israel had she and her leader behaved like previous Australian governments on the Israel-Palestine question, rather than like left-wing student activists.
Read related topics:Israel