For close to 21 hours, a Hamas swarm of 70 terrorists rampaged through the village, killing at will. Grandparents, young children and infants were slaughtered in kitchens and dining rooms, some even in their cots.
“It’s not a war or a battlefield, it’s a massacre,” said one Israeli commander on the scene, a combat veteran of 40 years. “It’s something I never saw in my life, something more like a pogrom from our grandparents’ time.”
The pogrom reference is right, because the bloody scenes we saw over the weekend, from Kfar Aza and Be’eri and the Supernova music festival – names that will live on in infamy – constituted not a military operation, but an organised massacre of Jews.
Not since the Holocaust have more Jews been murdered in a single day. And not since the Holocaust have Jews been slaughtered and terrorised in such a way.
Having served in Israel as our ambassador for four years, and having seen moral equivalence and “whataboutism” enter the affray quickly whenever Israel took steps to defend itself, I hoped perhaps this time would prove different. And Hamas had surely demonstrated beyond any doubt – with these acts of barbarity and its glorification of human suffering – that it was not a national liberation movement, but a nihilistic terrorist organisation. As evil and inhumane and indifferent to human life as Islamic State.
Surely those doubters would now be convinced that Hamas’s stated aims in its charter, the destruction of the Jewish state and the establishment of a caliphate over the land of Israel, should be interpreted literally?
Around the world, we saw communities and leaders react in revulsion and unequivocal condemnation. Sites from the Eiffel Tower to the Brandenburg Gate were lit in the colours of the Israeli flag. Thousands gathered peacefully at these sites to mourn and to comfort. Political leaders were crystal clear in their denunciations.
In Australia, however, we distinguished ourselves with an abject sense of moral confusion.
On the night the Opera House sails were lit up with the colours of Israel’s flag, authorities told Jews to stay at home. Instead, and perversely, a “Rally for a Free Palestine” was permitted to go ahead, arriving on the Opera House steps chanting anti-Semitic slogans, celebrating Hamas’s slaughter of Israeli civilians and its commission of war crimes, and burning the Israeli flag.
Our political leaders failed to lead or guide the debate in the public square. The NSW Police Minister defended the rally going ahead, entirely oblivious to the clear menace it conveyed to the Jewish community. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was uncomfortable and less than emphatic in his initial condemnations. He still has not managed to speak with Israel’s Prime Minister to express Australia’s horror and sympathy.
Penny Wong distinguished herself by calling for “restraint” from Israel when a live hostage situation was under way and Israeli towns remained under siege.
Senior Labor ministers Chris Bowen and Tony Burke dodged questions about the hate speech being promoted by imams in their own electorates.
Those who have glorified the terrorist acts in Israel and used the opportunity to threaten and intimidate their fellow citizens must shoulder the full legal responsibility for their actions.
But they must also bear the full weight of our collective moral condemnation as Australians.
We must never allow to pass, without the strongest response and denunciation, a situation where one group of Australians is actively calling for the extermination of another group of Australians, as we heard at the Opera House. As Martin Niemoller argued, if you fail to stand up for the rights of one group, you fail to stand up for the rights of every group. And if we allow such conduct to become tolerated or even normalised, we will soon lose what it means to be Australian.
Almost 21 years ago to the day, 88 Australians were among the 202 innocent civilians killed when the Sari nightclub in Bali was bombed by terrorists of Jemaah Islamiyah. The sympathy and solidarity we received at that time was overwhelming. We would have been revulsed and horrified if we saw protests overseas celebrating Jemaah Islamiyah and cheering on our tragedy.
But the confused souls at the Opera House have done just this. Their dislike of Israel is such that they end up in the strangest moral predicaments, and with the strangest bedfellows.
Those who pride themselves in standing up to racism instead engage in one of the oldest forms of racism, anti-Semitism. Those who claim to be pro-peace and are quick to accuse others of “warmongering” somehow end up glorifying terrorist violence.
Beyond its barbarism, Hamas has clearly demonstrated this week that it is no supporter of the Palestinian national cause or the Palestinian people.
Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, when it violently overthrew the Palestinian Authority, has been a disaster for the Gazan civilian population and an obstacle to a two-state solution ever since.
How is Israel meant to negotiate with an entity on co-existence when that entity is committed to its destruction?
And Hamas’s atrocities last weekend ensure a military response from Israel that will be devastating to the civilian population in Gaza. Hamas knows this well, and in fact will seek to capitalise on it.
Containment of Hamas having clearly failed as a strategy, Israel’s only option is Hamas’s military defeat and its removal from power.
Doubtless there will be more anti-Israel demonstrations in the weeks ahead, which will sophistically be described as “peace rallies”. But anyone who truly supports peace in the Middle East, and respects their fellow humans, should be shunning such rallies.
They should instead be hoping that Israel’s coming military operation is as effective as possible, so that the day of Hamas’s defeat comes quickly, and that the loss of civilian lives is minimised.
Dave Sharma was ambassador to Israel from 2013 to 2017, and was the Liberal member for the seat of Wentworth from 2019 to 2022
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As Israel’s forces regained control over the town of Kfar Aza over the past week, the scale of atrocity emerged only slowly. The victims are still being found and identified, but what is clear is that this small farming community was turned into a charnel house.