Andrew Bolt: Hypocritical Albanese Government happy to sanction Israel, but gives aggressive dictatorship China free pass

Anthony Albanese now seems happier to slap democratic allies like America and Israel, than confront China, an aggressive dictatorship.

The hypocritical Albanese government isn’t hiding its hatred of Israel, now hitting two Israeli ministers with sanctions.

But how is it in Australia’s interest to act like useful idiots of radical Islam, sanctioning two ministers of a democratic ally, but never the hostile Chinese dictatorship?

The government’s ban last week on American tech blogger Hillel Fuld was outrageous enough. Fuld was coming to raise money for Israel’s version of the Red Cross, but was banned for disputing unproven claims by the Hamas terrorist group that Israeli soldiers last year slaughtered 112 Palestinians waiting for food.

The government also accused him of “Islamophobia” for a post in which he correctly noted that most Palestinians had backed the October 7 massacre of Jews.

Now it’s joined four countries in sanctioning Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank” and creating new Israeli settlements there, imperilling “long-term stability in the region”.

Both are banned from coming here, and Australians dealing with their assets face 10 years’ jail.

This showboating could cost us. This government has again provoked the United States, our only real protector in a future war.

Despite supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and his communist party gets a free pass from the Albanese Government. Picture: AFP

The US two weeks ago asked us to spend more on our defence: Albanese refused. It then asked us through its Ambassador to Israel to lift our ban on Fuld: Albanese refused.

Now we’ve infuriated US state secretary Marco Rubio, who posted: “The United States condemns the sanctions imposed by the governments of United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia.

“These sanctions do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war.”

True, the US can’t decide our policies, but it can decide whether we’re a country worth giving, say, a couple of its rare nuclear submarines.

How strange that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese now seems happier to slap democratic allies like America and Israel, than confront China, an aggressive dictatorship.

Now, let me admit that those two Israeli ministers are loudmouthed ratbags of Israel’s far-Right.

Smotrich, for instance, said last year that starving the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza “might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages” still held by Hamas, although Israel continues to send Gaza truckloads of food.

Smotrich two weeks ago also approved 22 new West Bank settlements, which he claimed would “avoid the establishment of a Palestinian state”.

As for Ben-Gvir, he’s a “river to the sea” guy, except he means the whole area from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River should be Israel, not Palestine.

SAnthony Albanese once again finds himself antagonising Australia’s only protector in a future war. Picture: Gaye Gerard

He last month called for the destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque, built in Jerusalem on the ruins of the great Second Temple of Jewish kings, boasting: “We are conquering the Land of Israel, liberating Gaza, settling Gaza”. That’s the way to guarantee another century of war.

Yet Israeli voters and Israeli justice can also be trusted to put Smotrich in his place: very few back him, and he’s already been convicted several times of racist incitement.

But you may think: nasty men. Yes, sanction them.

But that’s where the hypocrisy of Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong exposes them.

If people demanding all the land “from the river to the sea” must be punished, why did Wong post pictures of herself supporting Nasser Mashni, head of the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, who insists it’s time “for Palestine to be free, from the river to the sea”?

If (supposedly) inciting violence is the crime, why has Wong not sanctioned Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who still runs a “pay for slay” scheme of pensions for terrorists and their families?

If imperilling long-term stability deserves sanctions, why hasn’t Wong imposed them on Abbas for defending Hitler’s genocide of 6 million Jews, claiming it “was not about Semitism and anti-Semitism” but “because they (the Jews) were dealing with usury and money”?

And why ban Hillel Fuld while letting in the rabidly anti-Israel Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, who’s defended “any form of resistance against the occupation”?

But it’s comic, this government’s lack of awareness of their double standards.

Albanese has now shrugged off Rubio’s criticism, insisting: “Australia makes its own decisions based on the assessments that it makes.”

But isn’t that Israel’s argument? That it’s a sovereign democracy making its own decisions in its national interest?

So why are Albanese and Wong interfering, imposing useless sanctions which can only anger our friends and embolden our enemies?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Hypocritical Albanese Government happy to sanction Israel, but gives aggressive dictatorship China free pass