James Morrow: What on earth has happened to Penny Wong?

It’s hard to know what’s driving the foreign minister. Is it being captured by an anti-Israel agenda or simply a cynical electoral calculus. Either way, it’s a terrible look for Australia, writes James Morrow.

What on Earth has happened to Penny Wong?

Once considered one of the star performers and steady hands of the Albanese government, our foreign minister now seems as serious as an undergraduate leftist playing Model UN.

Now, on any reading of it, dismantling Hezbollah’s terror capabilities in southern Lebanon – where it has over the years set up its own terror state within a state – could only be considered a good thing.

In a readout of a call between US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Israeli’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, the pair “agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern ­communities.”

Yet, here’s what our own Penny Wong’s office had to say about it.

According to The Australian, a spokesperson for the foreign minister said, “There must be an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, rather than the escalation we are seeing. Diplomacy must be prioritised.”

“International law applies to everyone. Lebanese civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hezbollah.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong speaks at the UN General Assembly. Picture: AFP

See the difference?

The foreign minister is no dope, so surely she understands that with Israel having the advantage, any ceasefire just means Hezbollah gets the chance to regroup before firing up its terror machine again.

Little reported in the West, since October 7 Hezbollah has fired something like 8,000 missiles into northern Israel – leaving swathes of the country unoccupied and thousands of innocent Israelis unable to return home.

She would also know that whatever the horrors of war, Israel targets military installations and while it is often far from perfect aims to avoid killing civilians.

For Hezbollah, killing and terrorising civilians is the name of the game.

Yet Wong would throw them a lifeline in the form of a ceasefire, and in the process further strain Australian-US relations at a time when our own neighbourhood is looking increasingly dicey.

Nor is this a one-off.

Palestinian youths celebrate as they stand atop a fallen projectile after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel overnight. Picture: Zain JAAFAR / AFP

Last week at the United Nations, Wong delivered a fatuous speech taking Israel to task while demanding “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood.”

She also directed the bulk of her criticism at Israel, again playing the moral equivalence card.

Of course she should know that in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, leaders just want peace, while in Tehran – which pretty much tells Hezbollah what to do – they just want to kill Jews.

See the difference?

It’s hard to know what is driving all this.

Demonstrators hold up pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at a protest at Town Hall in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Is it the fact that Labor has been captured by its anti-Israel wing, all but driving out a generation of ALP members who understood that morally and strategically, Israel was and is a lynchpin of Western security?

Or is it simply a cynical electoral calculus, working to shore up votes in must-hold seats with strong Muslim minorities?

Either way, it’s a terrible look for Australia.