Bandt’s own words expose Greens’ anti-Israel bias

Greens leader Adam Bandt’s equivocation when asked on Sunday to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group was a contemptible display by the leader of a fringe party that wants a bigger role in government. His refusal, when questioned by ABC Insiders host David Speers, to endorse a two-state solution that included a sovereign Jewish state to end the long-running Israeli-Gaza conflict was also disturbing. Yet Mr Bandt will move a motion in parliament this week to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state. As Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said, Mr Bandt “could not express support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel instead of in place of it”. Asked if he agreed Hamas was a terror organisation, Mr Bandt equivocated then said: “It’s just a fact. They’re listed as a terror organisation.” Not good enough. He also called for Australian sanctions against Israel, expelling the Israeli ambassador and an end to two-way military exchanges. As Mr Ryvchin said, Mr Bandt revealed the Greens had greater affinity with violent religious fundamentalists than states that resist them. The party has form. On October 12, four NSW upper house Greens voted against a motion supporting Israel after the Hamas attacks. On October 16, the Greens rejected the prospect an invasion of Gaza, dismissing Israel’s right to defend itself.

Three days ago, Israeli families released footage of five 19-year-old female soldiers being terrorised and hurt by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The women are still in captivity. Comments such as Mr Bandt’s do nothing to discourage the anti-Semitism that continues rearing its ugly head across the nation. The latest despicable example was plastered on the wall of Mount Scopus Jewish school in Melbourne’s east. And pro-Palestine “Trots” at Sydney University ambushed a Jewish organisation’s event, dressed as Hamas assassins, and abused ex-deputy prime minister John Anderson.

Political leaders have a responsibility to set the tone on the issue. Anthony Albanese denounced the horror of the October 7 attacks in Israel. But John Howard tells Josh Frydenberg in his documentary, to screen on Sky News Australia on Tuesday, there had been too many “buts, maybes” and equivalence, a criticism rejected by the Prime Minister. Yet as the civilian death toll has risen in Gaza, the government has backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member and refused to criticise the International Criminal Court’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.

Mr Bandt is not alone in his ill-informed views on Gaza. Friday’s International Court of Justice ruling, in which, by 13-2, judges including Australian Hilary Charlesworth ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive” and other actions in Rafah showed a naive misunderstanding of the war’s reality. Despite grave fears of massive civilian casualties, Israel has evacuated between 950,000 and 1.2 million civilians to safety. Its target has always been Hamas leaders and other terrorists embedded among the city’s civilians, and the Israeli hostages. Yet the ICJ’s ruling fails to admonish Hamas and effectively asked Israel to abandon its hostages. It is a shameful inversion of international law by the UN’s main judicial agency. It reflects “the morally inverted, politically corrupted and more than half insane nature of what passes for liberal internationalism today”, as Greg Sheridan wrote on Saturday.

It is no surprise that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority welcomed the ICJ’s ruling. As former army commander General Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said, Israel will “keep fighting to return the nation’s abductees and ensure the safety of its citizens”. No country could be expected to see its citizens slaughtered and then accept a ruling by the ICJ demanding that it, and not the terrorists, stops fighting. As the ICJ’s vice-president, Julia Sebutinde of Uganda, wrote in her minority judgment: “There are no indicators of a genocidal intent on the part of Israel”, as alleged by South Africa, the complainant in the case. South Africa, she noted, enjoyed a cordial relationship with the leadership of Hamas.