We can only hope the ‘descent from civility’ dissipates quickly
Our success is that Christians, Jews, Muslims and others can live freely despite differences.
Former Australian prime minister John Howard has a good turn of phrase. His description of the anti-Israel protest that took place in Sydney on Monday as “a catastrophic descent from civility” is precisely accurate.
The unauthorised protest march took place from the Town Hall to the Opera House. I watched hundreds of protesters – men and women with children – march down Phillip Street chanting loudly: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” At the rear of the protest was a large number of NSW police vehicles, including members of the riot squad. The contingent gave the impression that this was a movement that required a police escort.
I did not know at the time that the march was unauthorised or that the police had instructed Jewish Australian supporters of Israel to remain at home.
Or that the only person arrested on the day was a man peacefully carrying an Israeli flag – he was subsequently released without charges laid. But he did not receive a police escort home.
When the protesters reached the Opera House, there were audible cries of “F..k the Jews” and “Gas the Jews”. The former is racially motivated abuse, the latter an incitement to murder, even genocide. No arrests were made on the night – not even when demonstrators threw lighted flares at the feet of police on the Opera House steps and burned Israeli flags in a public place.
On Wednesday morning, NSW Premier Chris Minns apologised to the Jewish community on behalf of the government and himself for what had occurred. He pointed out that the intention “to light up the Opera House” in Israeli colours had been to “create a place and a space for that community to come together to commemorate (following) these terrible events in the Middle East”. But he added that the Opera House forecourt “was obviously overrun with people that were spewing racial epithets and hatred on the streets of Sydney”.
In fact, the spewing of hate had begun the previous Sunday evening outside Lakemba station in southwest Sydney. At the time it was known that the Hamas terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip, and supported by Iran, had indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel and was attacking civilians on the Israeli side of the border as well as that part of the Israel Defence Forces that was in the vicinity.
Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun, an imam from United Muslims of Australia, said he was elated at the events, declaring this to be “a day of pride, a day of victory”. The next day pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Sydney.
We now know that Hamas terrorists, who like to be called militants, involved themselves in war crimes as they attacked and murdered children and babies, men and women (some of whom were raped). It wasn’t a day of pride and it’s unlikely to be a day of victory following the war that Hamas initiated.
There is not much that unites the extreme left and the extreme right in Western nations – apart from hostility towards Israel. The protesters marching through Sydney consisted not only of individuals with a Middle Eastern background but some white Australians of a green-left bent.
The chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means only one thing: that the Jewish presence should be driven out of the land that exists between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. That is, the elimination of Israel (in which a large Muslim minority lives peacefully) that was formally recognised by the UN in 1948.
As Daniel Mandel documented in his book HV Evatt and the Establishment of Israel (Routledge, 2004), Australia’s external affairs minister at the time, Bert Evatt, played an important role in the creation of Israel.
On Sunday evening, John Lyons, the ABC’s Sydney-based global affairs editor, told viewers of ABC TV news the Israeli public faced this “big question”: namely, whether “the cost of maintaining its occupation over three million Palestinians in the West Bank and its blockade over the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza is worth the price that it pays”.
It’s true that Israel occupied the West Bank after the success in its defensive war of 1967. But the area in southern Israel that Hamas attacked has been part of Israel for ages. The Gaza Strip is currently blockaded by Israel to an extent as a means of a democratic nation defending itself from Hamas, which is intent on destroying it. In any event, there is an exit from Gaza into Muslim-majority Egypt.
On ABC TV News Breakfast on Friday, Ebony Bennett, the deputy director of the left-wing Australia Institute, described Gaza as “occupied” by Israel. There have been no Israelis living freely in Gaza for more than a decade.
It is possible that Israel and the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah on the West Bank (which has limited autonomy) can eventually bring about a situation in which Israel can exist within secure borders as part of a two-state solution. But there will be no deals between Israel and Hamas.
The key political opposition to Australia’s support for Israel comes from the left. On Monday, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi put out a post declaring “One colonial government supporting another – what a disgrace”.
This overlooks the fact Pakistan-born Faruqi willingly settled in what she terms a colonial society, in which she has achieved much success.
Many of the Muslim Lebanese who criticise Australia’s support for Israel overlook that they or their immediate ancestors became Australian citizens due to the decision of the Coalition government in 1976 to accept those affected by the Lebanese civil war despite the fact they were not formally refugees. I wrote about this in these pages on November 24, 2016.
The success of modern Australia is that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others live freely in a democratic society – despite differences.
However, right now some Jewish Australians – including students – do not feel safe. We can only hope that this week’s descent from civility as identified by Howard dissipates quickly and that relative peace returns to the Middle East.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute. His Media Watch Dog blog can be found at theaustralian.com.au
More Coverage
Shame on us for ever believing Justin Trudeau
Canada is not a genocide state. Nor is white supremacy a mainstream creed. And it’s a disgrace to Trudeau’s legacy that he dedicated so much time and energy to trafficking lies about the nation he once claimed to love.
As missiles rained down over Tel Aviv, I felt as if time stood still
In the six days I was on the ground, the Houthis launched five ballistic missile attacks on Israel from Yemen. This is how Israelis live, and somehow, they’ve been told they deserve it.