Premature state no help to Gaza

Former NSW premier and Labor foreign minister Bob Carr’s false likening of Israel’s behaviour in Gaza to the war crimes of Stalin, Hitler and Mao received the contempt it deserved from Labor Friends of Israel co-convener Nick Dyrenfurth. Dr Dyrenfurth responded to Mr Carr’s outburst with historical truth: “During the systemic and cold-blooded extermination that was the Holocaust, the world’s Jewish population fell from 18 million to 12 million,” he said. “By contrast, since the founding of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank and Green Line Israel has grown from 1.2 million to some 5.5 million.” He could have added that Stalin and Mao were each responsible for countless millions of deaths because of political and religious persecutions, torture and prison labour. At least 30 million starved to death during the 1959-61 famine caused by Chinese Communist Party policies.

As the death toll in Gaza nears 60,000 according to Hamas health ministry figures, Mr Carr claimed a pattern of behaviour “that really demands comparison with the worst of the last 100 years, of Stalin’s Ukraine, of the Warsaw Ghetto, of Mao’s Great Leap Forward”. Unspeakable cruelty was being visited against babies and children as Israel used “mass starvation as a weapon of war and giving effect to a genocide”. Whatever mistakes the Jewish state has made in a fraught situation, Hamas has oppressed ordinary Gazans, hijacking and selling aid at inflated prices, punishing those who oppose terror, and misusing their suffering as a propaganda weapon. Israel has finally stepped back to allow aid into the Strip, as Hamas continues to hold the remaining Israeli hostages after 21 months.

Despite pressure from Mr Carr for Anthony Albanese to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state, which is no solution to the current suffering, the Prime Minister has shown appropriate leadership in resisting such a gesture. As he told the ABC: “How do you exclude Hamas from any involvement there? How do you ensure that a Palestinian state operates in an appropriate way which does not threaten the existence of Israel?” A state would need a structure; no elections had been held in the Palestinian Authority for about 20 years.

After the offensive, anti-Semitic excesses of the October 9, 2023, pro-Palestinian protest at the Sydney Opera House forecourt, NSW Premier Chris Minns’s leadership in barring a pro-Palestinian march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3 makes eminent sense. The march, as Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chair Alex Ryvchin says, would sully another Australian icon.