It’s hard not to conclude that Israel has done what it must to keep its people safe in the only way possible – by force of arms

If Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had listened to Penny Wong and the rest of this anti-Israel Australian government, it would have stopped fighting Hamas many months ago.

We know now the only loveable Jew is a helpless one, begging their enemies to be allowed to live.

Poland has illustrated this new anti-Semitism in the most despicable way.

It’s let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu know he faces arrest as a war criminal if he comes to next month’s 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Nazis killed one million Jews.

Much like our own Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, who’s co-ordinating the event, has said “we are obliged to respect” the warrant issued for Netanyahu’s arrest by the International Criminal Court.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been told he faces arrest as a war criminal if he travels to Poland. Picture: AFP

Never mind that the allegation is plainly false – that Netanyahu deliberately tried to starve the people of Gaza into surrender as Israel hunted down the Hamas terrorists who on October 7 slaughtered 1200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250 people, hoping to trigger a wider war to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.

Yes, Jews may weep for millions of Jews executed in World War II, but cannot fight to save seven million Jews in Israel from terrorists who wish their country wiped out “from the river to the sea”.

Yet look back on this year and it’s hard not to conclude that Israel has done what it must to keep its people safe in the only way possible – by force of arms.

If Netanyahu had listened to Wong and the rest of this anti-Israel Australian government, it would have stopped fighting Hamas many months ago.

Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Picture: AFP

It would not have invaded Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon. It would not have bombed Iran, which funded both those terrorist armies and hit Israel with its own missiles.

If Netanyahu had listened to Wong, Hamas would not today be effectively destroyed, all its top leaders dead. Hezbollah would not likewise be crippled and making peace.

That Wong way would have left Israel threatened for years to come by Islamist terrorist armies to its north, east and south, ready to repeat another October 7.

This has always been Israel’s fate, to be hated most when defending its existence. When Israel defeated Arab armies in the Six-Day War in 1967, France banned the export of naval boats and fighters Israel had paid for.

Yet Israel is proving what the weak West would rather ignore: the game is ultimately decided by the strong.

A weak Israel would fall like the dead of Auschwitz. A strong one will live.

Originally published as It’s hard not to conclude that Israel has done what it must to keep its people safe in the only way possible – by force of arms