Joe Hildebrand: How protesters and pontificators are blocking real global change

While governments grapple with real-world solutions to Gaza and climate crises, activists and officials choose grandstanding over practical action, writes Joe Hildebrand.

There are two types of people in the world: those who pontificate and protest about things, and those who actually do them.

And never has the chasm between the blowhards and battlers stretched so yawningly wide as it did this week on nothing less than the two biggest global lightning rods currently – yes, I did that – electrifying the world.

These are, of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict and climate change, both evergreen sources of the greatest and dumbest ideological schisms besetting public debate as well as critically important issues in their own right.

For anyone who genuinely cares about the devastating impact of either, these are incredibly complex problems that need to be solved.

For those who are more obsessed with their own ideological cosplay, they are merely a convenient stage upon which to perform.

The photograph of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq which was not all it appeared to be. Picture: Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images

Let’s start with the war in the Middle East – after all it’s been going for a few thousand years, so we might as well fix it now.

Anyone with working eyeballs has almost certainly seen the picture of the young emaciated Gazan boy in his mother’s arms that was splashed over the front pages of newspapers across the globe. Critically, this included conservative mastheads who were outraged by this portrait of starvation and demanded Israel cease blocking aid to Gaza.

I’m not sure how many readers outside the UK are familiar with The Daily Express but it is a tabloid not renowned for its social activism.

This was almost universally recognised as a major turning point in global sentiment about the conflict and, indeed, Israel reportedly increased the amount of aid it let through in the aftermath of the image going global.

It should have been a triumph for the anti-Israel activists. And yet two things instantly undermined it.

The first was the revelation that the poor child had pre-existing medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, which pro-Israel commentators were quick to point to as proof that it was merely yet more Hamas propaganda.

Who does French President Emmanuel Macron plans to hand the keys to in his imagined future ceremony to recognise Palestinian statehood? Picture: Tom Nicholson/Pool/AFP

And so while this was undoubtedly a tragic scene, it was not quite the scene that many outlets and activists presented it to be. Thus its once world-changing power is already being sapped because of a rush of pontifical blood to the head.

Still, it moved great powers like the UK and France to unilaterally recognise Palestinian statehood, notwithstanding the fact this politically, ideologically and geographically divided state has no cohesive or comprehensible government.

One wonders who Emmanuel Macron plans to hand the keys to in this imagined future ceremony.

Even so, it is a seismic shift in world sentiment, and ought to have been a massive victory for the global Left.

But after the pontification cometh the protests, and so what does Australia’s ever-present standing army of activists decide to do? You guessed it – have another protest.

This weekend they plan to block off the King Street Bridge in Melbourne and, even more shamefully, the Sydney Harbour Bridge – yes, the one people have actually heard of.

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Picture: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

Such activist logic is clear: “Finally, after all our efforts, the majority of people are on our side!”

“Great! So what should we do next?”

“Piss them off again by showing how angry we are!”

Yes, there’s no better way to celebrate the hatching of a new dawn than by taking a big dump in the nest.

This brings us to the UN’s big swinging dude on climate change, who graciously bestowed his wisdom on us in a visit to Australia this week.

As is now canon in greengrocer folklore, UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell warned fruit will be a “once-a-year treat” and told Australia to not “settle for what’s easy” when enshrining our 2035 emissions target.

Thanks for the advice buddy! Perhaps nobody told him the Albanese government has been busting its arse to roll out more renewable energy than in Australia’s entire history.

Problem is we’re hitting a few snags.

Farmers are revolting against wind farms on land, foreign investors are pulling funding for wind farms offshore, and the great dream of green hydrogen seems to be going the way of Puff the Magic Dragon.

We’re struggling to hit the targets we already have and this knucklehead thinks that just by changing the target we’ll somehow fix the bow and arrow.

You know what? We’re f---ing trying mate. But sure, just give a speech telling us to go harder and that will solve all our problems.

Once more the pontificators and protesters always tell us what’s best. They just never have to do anything about it.

And they stand in the way of people doing anything at all.

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: How protesters and pontificators are blocking real global change