The bloodstains and bullet holes the PM refuses to see
Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong have hitched our Middle East policy to a corrupt Palestinian Authority.
Everything in the home had been left untouched save for the bloodstains. Most of those had been cleaned up, but here and there you could still see traces. The house was small and modest, and I imagined the living room in which I was standing was once welcoming and warm. That was before death rained down on a bright October day in 2023.
In the centre, I stood and slowly turned on the spot to get a full view. Every square inch of this family room, and much of the adjacent areas, was covered in bullet holes. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of them. They were so much bigger than I imagined, too.
This was on December 20 and I was in the Gaza envelope in southern Israel, at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz less than 2km from the Gaza border. It was one of two kibbutzes I visited that day, as well as the site of the Nova massacre.
We walked gently, trod softly. The faint staccato sound of machinegun fire danced by on the cold breeze at intervals, a reminder of how close we were to this war, to hostages still being held 400-odd days after they were dragged from their homes. To the root of this evil.
I was there as a private citizen, a columnist I suppose, for a week of study and immersion through a program run by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. We were a small group and no surprise. After all, it was Christmas week and as I flew out on December 18 most of Australia had clocked off. Our group rang in Christmas morning in a bomb shelter thanks to yet another Houthi missile attack, but more on that another day.
Why did I agree to go? A deep conviction of the need to bear witness. Too many had already forgotten what happened that day. At Kfar Aza and nearby Nir Oz, death was everywhere. Only remnants of life remained.
Outside the charred ruins of homes in which entire families including small children were burned alive, roses bloomed bright and brilliant against a grey winter sky. Grapefruit and pomegranate trees stood defiant, heavily laden with fruit.
For the first time in my life there were no words. I could say it was a massacre, but that’s not enough. I could call it evil; that’s too soft. I could tell you families, children, pets, the elderly and those with learning disabilities were all slaughtered in an unbridled orgy of hatred and barbarism, but this too falls short. If demons exist, then this was surely their doing.
What I now understand about October 7 is this: It wasn’t just the killings. I faintly wondered throughout the day if for some death came as a release. It wasn’t just the scale of the murders but how they were carried out. The horror of what was done, described to us by those who survived. The deliberate, meticulous, calculated evil.
A young survivor from Kibbutz Nir Oz walked us around the quiet, lush grounds where peaceniks once lived out their dream of coexistence. He survived by hiding behind a sofa for 11 hours in his safe room. When he emerged, he joined those who were left in dragging the remains of their neighbours, friends, many of them small children, from charred homes and bloodied living rooms.
“I’m messed up,” he said softly as the day drew to a close. I’ve never seen eyes like his before, void of any light. Not yet 30, he survived only to be sentenced to a living death.
The week was full, confronting and exhausting. We met ministers of the Palestinian Authority, Arab journalists and non-government organisations deep in the weeds of the humanitarian challenges in Gaza. This was a deep dive into every pool available to us. We barely drew breath, and my brain still feels like a sponge that can’t take any more water.
While we were there the West Bank, under the control of the PA (the old Palestine Liberation Organisation with a bad facelift), was on a knife’s edge. The PA is struggling to contain intra-faction fighting and remains afraid of upsetting Hamas, which is still wildly popular among the broader population.
The PA official we met under the supervision of our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would not explicitly condemn Hamas by name, or October 7. This is the government to which Foreign Minister Penny Wong has hitched Australia’s cart. This is her team.
The PA remains deeply corrupt, led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is enjoying the 20th year of his four-year term. He is a vile anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, but it is to this man and his government that Wong wants to grant statehood. Twenty years into a four-year term and Labor wants to make them legitimate.
I want to remind you that neither Wong nor Anthony Albanese has been to the site of the Hamas atrocities in Israel’s south. This was a deliberate choice, a reflection of their priorities and values. While the world was recoiling in horror, Wong wagged her finger at Israel and told it to exercise restraint. Neither Wong nor the Prime Minister could be bothered to visit Kibbutz Be’eri where Australian grandmother Galit Carbone was machinegunned to death outside her home.
I can name more than a dozen private citizens like me, people who are in the real world and the real economy day in and day out, who have travelled across the world to bear witness. To do what our Foreign Minister and Prime Minister chose not to do. To stand where they refused to stand. See what they continue to refuse to see.
How can they set Australia’s foreign policy on Palestinian statehood without having visited the site of these killings? Perhaps if they came face-to-face with the truth it would shatter their obsession with demonising the only democracy in the Middle East. It might compel them to change course. Or perhaps they are so wedded to the vile, Australia-hating Greens that they dare not.
Peace is everyone’s goal but appeasement is the road to hell. Australia could take a clinical, staged approach to recognition. It could insist the PA deal with Hamas in the south as a condition, insist the authority demonstrate fiscal propriety, hold free and fair elections. It could demand social reform that protected the rights of women and minorities. Truth is, the PA fears elections in case Hamas wins in the West Bank. It is shameful, it is dangerous.
Instead of setting a clear pathway where recognition is conditional rather than a given, our government under Albanese and Wong is rewarding terrorists. It signals to foreign actors and domestic parties that seek to undermine Australian values: this is how you get what you want.
I thought I was prepared for what I saw on December 20. I wasn’t. I thought I’d be OK. Wrong again. Israel is not perfect. It is facing many domestic challenges, but I observed two things: a country exhausted and highly traumatised but united with purpose to finish this war and protect itself. And, without exception, every leading Arab Israeli or Muslim Israeli we met mocked the idea of statehood for Palestinians based on the current situation. They know. They see. Our government, in every way imaginable, does not.
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