Labor showing its total terror weakness loud and Clare

Is there really a world in which “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” can possibly be interpreted as an endorsement of a strengthened Israel?

Jason Clare has a basic English language comprehension issue.

Or perhaps more alarming still, he doesn’t. Perhaps the federal education minister’s problem is entirely moral and political, and he’s too frightened or electorally constrained to deal with it.

Clare kicked off these concerns on Sunday when he attempted to claim that pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel chants calling for “intifada” or the establishment of a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” weren’t actually all that scary.

“I’ve seen people say that those words mean the annihilation of Israel,” Clare said at a press conference.

“I’ve seen people say that it means the opposite.”

Pro-Palestinian rally and tent city at Sydney University. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

Really, minister?

Is there really a world in which “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” can possibly be interpreted as an endorsement of a strengthened Israel?

Because that would be news to Palestinian terrorist psychopaths Hamas, who include the phrase “river to the sea” in their degenerate, death-dealing charter.

“What I’d say is this,” Clare continued, in his way.

“What I want all Australians to be arguing for, to be calling for, is a two-state solution: two countries, two people, two states side-by-side where people can live in peace without fear, without terrorism, without checkpoints, without occupation.”

Education Minister Jason Clare. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

The education minister’s vision of a tranquil two-state solution is undermined ever so slightly by Hamas’s decades-long drive towards a Nazi-style single state final solution. “Peace without fear” isn’t a phrase that comes quickly to mind when watching footage from October 7.

Speaking of Nazis, Clare previously wasn’t anywhere near so accommodating of crude and hateful anti-Semitism.

Following reports early last year that Kanye West might visit Australia, Clare suggested that the rapper’s pro-Nazi comments would be reason for a visa ban.

“I like Hitler,” West had said in a 2022 interview, saying he saw “good things about Hitler” and adding, bewilderingly: “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.”

Kanye is easily confused. But Clare, on that occasion, was perfectly clear.

“I don’t know if he’s applied for a visa yet,” Clare told the Nine network, “but Google it, you will see that he seems like he’s a pretty big fan of a person who killed six million Jewish people last century.”

Kanye West declared his "love" of Nazis and admiration for Adolf Hitler on Thursday, sparking outrage as another commercial partner announced it was splitting from the troubled superstar. Picture: AP

Yet Hamas is basically a Hitler fan club, and “river to the sea” pro-Palestine folk essentially call for the murders of even more Jews than were slaughtered by the Nazis.

You’ll never see, however, direct and unequivocal condemnation be aimed by Labor at that movement as was aimed at Kanye.

And for obvious electoral reasons.

Let’s just say that, among other obvious demographic considerations, Clare’s Sydney seat of Blaxland contains a significant number of people who voted against gay marriage.

Labor treats Western anti-Semitism very differently to Middle Eastern anti-Semitism. The former is an obvious evil, deserving of powerful personal criticism and visa denials.

Middle Eastern anti-Semitism, though, requires delicate, look-at-both-sides analysis and gently evasive – even completely arse-about – conclusions. Clare’s claim that “from the river to the sea” could mean “the opposite” of Israel’s annihilation is a classic example.

Or maybe I’m missing something. Just as well that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was available yesterday to offer a definitive “river to the sea” clarification.

“It is a slogan,” Albanese ruled on Monday, “that calls for opposition to a two-state solution.”

Well, yes, inasmuch as it calls for one of those states to be obliterated. Let us hear further from our celebrated decoder in chief: “I think the slogan … is not in the interests of Israel but it is not in the interests of Palestinians either.”

Each-Way Albo was once a local act.

Now he’s Each-Way globally.