Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong’s concern that Israel has not undertaken a serious investigation into the death of humanitarian worker Zomi Frankcom is warranted, but is also gobsmacking in its selective outrage about Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
More than 74,500 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed in the now nearly three-year obliteration of Gaza, a figure that does not even take into account the many thousands who have been buried under the rubble, probably never to be found by their families and given a proper burial.
This selective outrage shows that Labor knows that Australians overwhelmingly oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza and support the Palestinian people’s right to live in peace. The Harbour Bridge march for humanity, a year ago, was the clearest example of this.
Labor also knows it has lost support over Palestine, but saving its hand-wringing for an Australian aid worker killed by Israel in Gaza is calculated to hide its ongoing alliance with the apartheid state of Israel.
Israel is still slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza, and now it is allowing illegal occupiers to mount a deadly campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, alongside the expansion of settlement outposts, the construction of roads and greater restrictions on the movement of Palestinian residents.
It’s reminder that Israel’s genocide is still supported by the United States and Australia — despite global outrage.
The rebuttal of Australia’s mealy-mouthed “concerns” over Frankcom's death by Dr Hillel Newman, the Israeli ambassador, was predictably smug. He repeated the Israeli government line that the special military court found no evidence of criminality, but that “mistakes” were made. He blamed the World Food Kitchen staff for their own murders, saying they had failed to alert Israeli authorities of a detour, or the addition of several passengers.
While Newman’s dismissal on ABC Radio National on August 21 that there even was a famine in Gaza was to be expected, the fact that it went unchallenged is completely unacceptable.
That this sort of psychopathic denial of reality by an Israeli official prosecuting this genocide still gets a free pass on the national broadcaster reflects the limits on is much vaunted independence.
Newman should be expelled to show that Australian people do not condone the ongoing Gaza genocide and Israel’s expanding occupation in the West Bank and Lebanon.
Furthermore, all weapons and intelligence ties between Australia and Israel should be cut.
However, nearly three years into the genocide, it is clear that Albanese and Wong will not be moved by appeals to international law, or to norms of human decency.
Like most Western governments, its support for Israel in non-negotiable.
This reality is reinforced by two things. First, the AUKUS pact, which commits Australia to unconditionally support the United States, not just in its confrontation with China, but everywhere.
Secondly, the bi-partisan goal to turn Australia into one of the world’s top 10 weapons producers means expanding bilateral military ties with Israel.
The federal government’s practical support for the Donald Trump regime’s illegal attack on Iran and its silence over Trump’s plan to dismantle the International Court of Justice show its true nature.
The challenge for progressive minded people is how to force the federal government to enact a just foreign policy. The only way to force an end to its racism and do the right thing will be the sheer weight of public opinion.
The movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, through all its ups and down, has been unprecedented in scale.
However it will need to grow and intensify if it is to succeed in its goals of achieving justice and dignity for Palestinians, from the river to the sea.
That remains the urgent task before all of us who believe in universal human rights.
[Pip Hinman is a member of the Socialist Alliance national executive. Sam Wainwright is one of its national co-convenors.]