Given Tony Burke’s arduous workload as cabinet minister and Leader of the House, you would think he had little time to spare for his electoral duties. But the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israelis last month have galvanised this devoted MP into making his constituents in south-western Sydney his foremost priority.
So mindful is he of endearing himself to those who lose it whenever Israel is so much as mentioned, he implied last week the country’s defence forces were committing the worst atrocities imaginable against Palestinians. Asked by ABC RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas whether he believed the actions of the Israeli government constituted genocide and apartheid, Burke did not repudiate the suggestion.
“I prefer to provide the facts as I just did, and I think your listeners will find their own words to be able to describe it,” said the Member for Watson, or rather the Member for Weasel Words. “I think when we go straight to ‘do we use this word’ [and] ‘do you use that word’, we end up in an argument about linguistics”. In other words, you might very well say that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
But there was no equivocating when Karvelas asked Burke whether he supported the Canterbury-Bankstown Council’s unanimous decision last week to fly the Palestinian flag.
“I support the decision completely,” he said. Council’s act was a case of “truly representing the grief that is in the community”.
When the discussion turned to the Minns government’s decision to light up the Sydney Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag following the attacks, Burke outdid himself in the sophistry stakes. He did not endorse that show of solidarity, but that was only due to aesthetic considerations, you see. Pointing out the structure was “an arts and cultural precinct”, he stressed the need “to start considering getting back to that”.
So just to clarify, Burke heartily approves of local-government functionaries using public resources to advocate for the Palestinian cause. But it was inappropriate for the NSW government to use Australia’s most famous building to extend our sympathy to Israel when its citizens, including women and children, have been murdered in the most barbaric manner possible. All good?
There is no need for you to waffle and prevaricate, Minister. Next time just say: “There are plenty of angry Middle Eastern types in my electorate who would like nothing better than to see Israel wiped off the map. But the only existential crisis that I am worried about is the thought of losing my seat.” If nothing else, you will at least be respected for your frankness.
And Burke can take comfort in the fact that the last few weeks have not always meant a state of grief for his constituents. Why, as the Daily Telegraph reported on October 10, people took to the streets of Punchbowl the night before to celebrate the deaths of Israelis by letting off fireworks and waving Palestinian flags.
This took place literally one block from Burke’s electoral office. But it was not until October 16 that Burke formally responded. His delay in doing so, he claimed in parliament, was due to “the state of my health last week”. Consequently, his “public commentary was very limited and that when comments were eventually given to the media late in the week they were not published”.
But immediately before condemning Hamas and “the minority engaging in hate speech”, Burke maligned Israel by subtly implying its actions were no better than those committed towards the destruction of the Jewish state.
“There is the fear of something as joyous as a music festival being something where people will feel they cannot relax, the fear of something as routine as attendance at a pizza shop, the fear of being confronted at a checkpoint, and the fear of sleeping and not knowing whether, by the time morning comes, a bomb may have struck or a knock on the door may have come saying that your home is to be demolished. There is the base fear of the constant risk of terrorism and the base fear of living with a seemingly endless occupation,” he said.
Get it? Being stopped at an Israeli checkpoint is akin to what happened at the Supernova music festival massacre. And to think that Burke had prefaced his remarks by saying “It’s important when we talk about actions that we don’t fall into games of false equivalence”.
As this masthead reported, Burke’s intrusion into the foreign affairs portfolio and his tacit acquiescence in accusations of an Israeli-led genocide have led to disquiet among his colleagues. But he is no lone dissenter. Fellow cabinet member Ed Husic accused Israel of having “collectively punished” Palestinians for the actions of Hamas. In addition to saying it was “hard to argue” against Husic’s accusation, outer ministry member Anne Aly said Israel could “be investigated” for war crimes.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has officially supported Israel’s right to self-defence, but his inability to control his errant ministers will only embolden others. He too is compromised. After all, in 2014 he embarrassed then opposition leader Bill Shorten when he went off script and told the Nine Network that Israel’s retaliation against Hamas rocket attacks amounted to “collective punishment”.
No doubt Albanese frets over which high-profile figure will next break ranks. November is the month for punting, and my money is on Sue Lines, WA Labor senator and President of the Senate. In February 2022 she attacked Israel in parliament for the “crime of apartheid”. That was not her first outburst. In 2019 she told a West Australian Labor Friends of Palestine event that the “Israeli lobby” stood between the party and its progress ¬towards formally recognising ¬Palestine. Presumably she regards as a protege newly elected WA Labor senator Fatima Payman, who last month, in response to retaliatory attacks by Israeli Defence Forces, said that Israel should be condemned for “indiscriminately killing men, women and children”.
Then there is Labor MP Josh Wilson. Addressing a fringe event at the ALP National Conference in 2018, he told the audience that Israeli checkpoints were places where Palestinians “go and they die”. His immediate predecessor, former Rudd government minister Melissa Parke, withdrew her candidacy for the seat of Curtin in 2019 after she reportedly told a public meeting that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians was “worse than the South African system of apartheid”.
Likewise Tasmanian Labor senator Anne Urquhart approvingly cited in parliament in 2014 the words of Ali Kazak, former head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia and New Zealand. The actions of the Abbott government regarding the Middle East, he said, were designed to “appease the extremist Israeli lobby”. At the time of those remarks, she was Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate. She is now Chief Government Whip.
Attending a pro-Palestinian outside Parliament House last month, Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou stood alongside Greens leader Adam Bandt, and declared proudly that “we stand with the people of Gaza”. Although not attending that event, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney must have felt a hankering for the cause. In 2021 she appeared at similar rally organised by the Melbourne University ALP Club.
In 2021 the Queensland Labor state conference passed a resolution accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “oppression and dehumanisation of Palestinian people”. In 2005 then Labor MP Julia Irwin told parliament “Israel will rule Gaza like a walled ghetto, a giant penal colony, a concentration camp”. And in 2002 a young Tanya Plibersek, now cabinet minister, spoke of the “rogue state which consistently ignores UN resolutions whose ruler is a war criminal – it is called Israel, and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon.”
In short, Labor regards Israel and its citizens, to use one of the party’s fashionable expressions, as suitable for collective punishment. This is nothing new. In 2004, the late Barry Cohen, a former Hawke government minister, observed in The Age that “the handful of pro-Palestinian supporters has grown steadily as the party has become dominated by the education mafia; former public servants and party union apparatchiks”.
His conclusion? “Anti-Semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party,” he said.
As to whether that is true or not, I will leave readers to find their own words. After all, we do not want to end up in an argument over semantics, do we, Tony Burke?
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