Labor is trying to pull a huge con job on us on Palestine

Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong abandoned Israel when it needed us most. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is in Israel. Let’s face it, this is a “five minutes to the election and time is running out” trip that reeks of politics rather than conviction.

The Attorney-General’s trip landed in the same week in which a ceasefire deal was agreed to. As I write, the release of hostages is imminent. We don’t know how many are alive or how many have been executed by the monsters in Gaza’s terror tunnels. Who knows if the tiny Bibas brothers will come back in coffins. Could anyone who survives this horror ever hope to really live again?

Moreover, how disgusting, what a failure of the international community that it did not care enough about these hostages to put pressure on Qatar, Turkey and the usual suspects to force Hamas to let them go. Instead, we stood by as they were executed in cold blood, deep in terror tunnels built over decades and funded by international aid money.

Deputy Israeli Prime Minister and Minister for Justice Yariv Levin meets with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in Israel. Picture: X

This week I found myself diving down a rabbit hole, reading, digging, questioning. And I’ve come to what now feels like an obvious conclusion. The federal government is trying to pull a huge con job on us. Think shades of Fine Cotton. Or I’m a prince from Africa and I want to send $10m to your bank account. Australia’s push to recognise a Palestinian state now is nothing but a con job by the government on voters and I’m here to tell you why.

Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong abandoned Israel when it needed us most. They have merrily trashed our relationship with the only democracy in the Middle East. And they are attempting to accelerate the recognition of statehood for the Palestinian territories.

And herein lies the con. The language, the narrative, the picture that the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister have been attempting to paint for Australians to validate their radical policy shift is one that positions the Palestinian Authority as being ready. Ready for recognition, able to function as a working democracy just as Australia functions, just as Israel does. Rule of law. Equality. If a woman wants to wear a bikini to the beach, she can go right ahead. You get the drift.

The government wants Australians to believe the Palestinian Authority is like a house that has been beautifully renovated and is ready to go. Just move on in, all the work’s been done.

Wrong; it remains the ultimate fixer-upper.

The most powerful proof of this is something I found down the rabbit hole and it has been hidden in plain sight but you won’t hear Albanese or Wong talk about this. That would give the game away.

The Palestinian Authority, the same PA they think should be granted legitimacy, is actually paying off the Hamas terrorists who took part in the depraved slaughter of October 7, 2023. You heard me.

Many of you will be aware of the so-called pay-to-slay policy under which financial rewards are provided to the families of Palestinians who commit acts of violence against Israeli civilians. Known as the Martyrs Fund, it was started by the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1960s. It was and remains a financial safety net for terrorists. Don’t believe me? Under the (now) Palestinian Authority’s Prisoners and Released Prisoners Law, the more Israelis killed, the longer the jail time, the greater the financial payment – for life.

That’s the history, now for the present. The same PA to which Wong and Albanese have hitched Australia’s cart has not so quietly extended the pay-for-slay program to the families of the October 7 Hamas terrorists.

Just pause and process that for a moment. As The Wall Street Journal editorialised almost a year ago to the day, “Palestinian Authority law requires the October 7 terrorists to be compensated financially for a massacre well done”.

The PA in its own suite of various communications (all quite readily available for those who fancy a look for themselves) doesn’t differentiate between Hamas October 7 terrorists and civilians killed in the course of the war.

Of course, what this means is that you and I, and taxpayers from all over Europe and North America, will help pay the bill.

And our government thinks the PA is ready and deserving of being legitimised.

The same PA that has overseen the chaos, radicalisation, slaughter and subjugation of its own people; hasn’t held an election in 20 years; failed to control the spread of Hamas, which by all reports is now preparing to rebuild as soon as the ceasefire kicks in.

There are no rights for minorities (memo to Queers for Palestine, there are very few living queers in Palestine), and as a woman in the West Bank? Your testimony in court legally is worth only half that of men, and that is just the beginning.

As for how they do politics, just this week Fatah activists threatened to break the legs of political activist Mustafa Barghouti, a medical doctor born in East Jerusalem who was a former presidential candidate. His crime? Criticising the PA and calling for fresh elections.

I met Barghouti last year in Ramallah and he spoke passionately about a one-state solution (yes, one state). He dares to call for democracy and is threatened with abhorrent violence, and this is the norm under the PA.

Federal Labor has backed these chaos-mongers to run Gaza after the war and acts as if statehood is some kind of cure-all. This is the con. This is the great fraud Albanese and Wong are attempting to commit against the Australian people.

They say that statehood now is not only the right thing to do, it’s the fair thing to do. The PA is ready. What a lie.

And what a disgrace because what it also powerfully demonstrates is that neither Albanese nor Wong actually cares about quality of life for ordinary Gazans, for people in the West Bank, for minorities, women or the children whose education by UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is poisoned by a curriculum that fuels radicalisation and hatred of Jews.

They don’t care if anything materially changes or not. If quality of life improves. If democracy lives or dies.

Every Israeli I have met dreams of a two-state solution, but few have confidence there is a genuine partner for peace. Can you blame them? Even this week, again rockets have rained down from Yemen and Gaza.

As the ceasefire was announced, Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya responded by praising the October 7 massacre as a major achievement that would be taught with pride to future generations of Palestinians. He went on to say that the next step is to rid Jerusalem of all Jews. These are public statements being made before the world, and our government doesn’t want anyone to know it. This ceasefire deal doesn’t even require Hamas to be dismantled.

If this government cared about more than ideology it would demand accountability. You want statehood? Full and equal rights for minorities. Reform pay-for-slay so that it is a true social safety net, not a terrorist incentive scheme.

Hold free and fair elections. Give women the same rights and agency that women in Australia enjoy.

Demand it. Make it clear. Create a pathway and do not deviate. Anything less is simply rewarding a corrupt, violent, dysfunctional regime that has never given anyone cause to believe it is a genuine partner in the journey towards peaceful coexistence.

In his highly polished “I’ll have a buck each way, thanks” media statement about his trip to Israel, Dreyfus referenced HV “Doc” Evatt, the Labor attorney-general and High Court justice who steered Australia’s vote at the UN in support of the creation of the state of Israel. The chutzpah of it. Labor’s foreign policy position on Israel has been praised by Hamas. I wonder what Evatt would have to say about that.