ALP loses perspective and principle on terrorist war

Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s response to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant smacks of rank disloyalty to a long-time ally. Or is it a sign of an underlying anti-Israeli mindset?

It is unacceptable either way. Instead of deafening silence, Anthony Albanese must assert authority and correct Australia’s position on the ICC’s contemptible anti-Semitic action. Senator Wong’s first reaction was a meaningless platitude, saying Australia respected the ICC’s independence. And in a comment beyond credulity she said we were “focused on working with countries that want peace to press for an urgently needed ceasefire”.

No nationality in the Middle East wants peace more than Israelis, who have been fighting for survival against Iran and its terrorist proxies since October 7 last year. That includes 80,000 people in the north who have faced 10,000 Hezbollah rockets and been forced from their homes.

The ICC and Senator Wong are overlooking the right of any nation to self-defence. For Israel, unfortunately, that has incurred heavy civilian casualties in Gaza because of Hamas basing itself in civilian areas, hospitals and schools. While stating the obvious, Senator Wong’s insistence that “rapid, safe and unimpeded humanitarian aid must reach civilians” overlooks the realities of Hamas siphoning off aid and the problem of widespread looting. This week, 97 aid trucks in a convoy of 109 were lost after a violent attack by looters. Last month, Hamas terrorists were caught on video taking control of 47 of 100 aid trucks entering Gaza. The ICC’s warrants claim Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant have used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid, and targeted civilians intentionally – charges Israel denies. In a hollow show of objectivity, the ICC also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be dead.

Incredible as it is, there now seems “little doubt that the Albanese government believes” Mr Netanyahu is a war criminal, as Cameron Stewart writes. Yet even the ICC admits Israel was not seeking to eradicate Gazans in some sort of planned genocide, as Israel’s critics often claim. But the court unjustly ignores the fact the war was not of Israel’s choosing but provoked by the need to avoid a repetition of Hamas’s October 7 atrocity.

Australia, yet again, is out of step with our principal ally, the US. Joe Biden rightly called the ICC’s action outrageous. There was no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas, whatever the ICC implied, he said. Australia now has grounds to rethink membership of the ICC. In May, former foreign minister Alexander Downer, who took the nation into the court in 2002, said he would withdraw if still in office and it proceeded with prosecutions against Israeli leaders.

Senator Wong’s response compounds damage to the Australia-Israel relationship caused by the government’s shameful denial of a visa to outspoken former Israeli interior and justice minister Ayelet Shaked on character grounds. Ms Shaked, who was due to attend a security conference in Canberra next week, was told by Home ­Affairs on Thursday that her visa application had been refused by a “delegate of the minister”, Tony Burke, because she could “vilify” Australians or “incite discord”. We already have plenty of both, including the despicable anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney this week that were the latest of many examples.

Mr Burke, whose western Sydney seat has a high proportion of Muslim voters, needs to explain why Ms Shaked was allowed into Australia last year but not now. Jewish Australians rightly are upset about such a hostile act.

As Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council head Colin Rubenstein says, the government, while banning Ms Shaked, fails to act against Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi, whose hateful slurs include calling for the end of Israel and the “Zionist plague”, and labelling the October 7 atrocity in which 1200 Jews were slaughtered and 250 kidnapped a “spontaneous Palestinian jailbreak”. On a crucial strategic issue, Labor is devoid of principle and perspective.