“Hamas welcomed the joint statement.” As I read that line in various media outlets across Australia and the world this past week, there was a moment of disbelief. The statement Hamas was referring to was signed by Australia, among others, and called on Israel to end the war in Gaza.
Hamas, a terrorist death cult responsible for wholesale slaughter and unspeakable sexual violence, a group of ideological maniacs that doesn’t believe Jews have the right to exist, was looking at Australia and saying: bravo, Penny Wong, well played. If ever there were a statement that condemned Australia’s foreign policy position on the Middle East and exposed the shocking moral bankruptcy of the Albanese government, this was it: being praised by an organisation that our country and countless others have deemed a proscribed terrorist group.
Sometimes the important things get lost in the big statements. The detail, if you will. Ending the war in Gaza? Everyone wants that.
But this statement infers Israel is to blame. The US described it as “disgusting”. The Israeli government called it “disconnected from reality”. Both assessments are true.
To be explicit here, it is right to call for an end to this war. Every sane person wants this. The problem lies with the implication in words that place the burden of responsibility entirely on Israel to end a war it didn’t start, never wanted and has been fighting alone for nearly two years.
It is a piece of political virtue signalling that ignores context and the basic facts, such as that there is a ceasefire deal on the table right now. A deal agreed to by Israel, brokered by the US and the Qataris. Hamas again says no.
The same Hamas that paraded the semi-naked, broken and twisted body of German-Israeli woman Shani Louk through the streets of Gaza on October 7, 2023.
The same creatures of evil who ripped Ariel and Kfir Bibas and their mother Shiri from their home, then murdered the children with their bare hands and boasted about it.
The same demons who even the hopeless, Jew-hating UN has admitted conducted a brutal campaign of systemic sexual violence against the women slaughtered on October 7 and the hostages it took that day. Hostages. Remember them? There are 50 still being held. Still. Only half are said to be alive. A reminder: taking hostages is, of course, a war crime.
The Australian government, in signing this statement, has exposed itself as morally without compass and strategically deficient. The signs have been there from October 7, 2023. Wong’s first response to the atrocities was to tell Israel to show restraint. Neither she nor Anthony Albanese has bothered to go to the site of the Nova massacre or to meet the released hostages. The Foreign Minister hung out on the West Bank and the Prime Minister prefers to hang out in China.
Among the cosignatories to the statement is the Canadian government. Seven of its citizens were slaughtered on October 7. The French, unsurprisingly, signed this letter. The French who recently hosted former al-Qa’ida terrorist turned Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in an official capacity in May. Ah, the French. Seems like yesterday they were rolling out the red carpet for the ayatollahs after the fall of the shah of Iran. Everything old is new again.
More than 1000 Christians and Druze have been slaughtered in Syria in the past few weeks in a brutal episode of ethnic cleansing. Witnesses have described the same horrifying brutality that played out in Israel on October 7. And is it any wonder? Al-Qa’ida is Islamic State is Hamas, and they are playing the Western world like a two-buck recorder. Who has gone to the aid of the Syrian Druze? Not the UN but Israel.
What this government can’t seem to understand is that many things can be true in tension, and often are. When it comes to this war, this is absolutely the case, yet Albanese and Wong remain obsessed with Israel, with demonising the only democracy in the Middle East. So let me help them.
This war is terrible. There is tremendous suffering in Gaza among Palestinians who have only recently begun to demand an end to Hamas. These fledging uprisings have met with killings and brutal reprisals.
Yet again the Prime Minister shows how little connection he has with the reality on the ground. On Friday he said Israel was denying aid and killing children to seek access to water and food.
The Prime Minister does not acknowledge that Hamas has been weaponising the distribution of aid since the start. It’s a strategy.
Hamas has targeted and killed Gazans accessing aid via the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and has threatened Gazans not to take food from this group.
The UN also has a vested interest in undermining the GHF. The non-government organisation sector relies heavily on aid funding. After rejecting the ceasefire deal this week, Hamas then demanded full control over aid distribution.
The current proposal backed by Qatar, the US and Israel is for a split in aid distribution between the UN and the GHF. Hamas says no, it’s all or nothing.
At the time of writing, geoconfirmed images show hundreds of UN aid trucks sitting idle inside Gaza, aid undelivered. The GHF has offered to distribute the aid as a matter of urgency and it says the UN refused. Is there anything more sickening than politics?
All of this matters. It’s detail that took me a little while to find but it’s not that hard. I’m one person. The Foreign Minister presumably has a capable team that can read and research? This is the detail the Australian public deserves to know.
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