Scott Morrison urges Albanese government unity on Israel conflict
The former prime minister said the government had made it clear in parliament that it stood with Israel but cautioned that there was no room for ambiguity.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison has urged the Albanese government to remain unified in its support for Israel, saying outspoken cabinet ministers shouldn’t be undermining policy positions when vital international partnerships are at stake.
Currently on a visit to the Holy Land, Mr Morrison said the government had made it clear in parliament that it stood with Israel but cautioned that there was no room for ambiguity, a seeming reference to remarks made by Ed Husic, Tony Burke, Penny Wong and others that cast doubt over Labor’s support for Israel’s war on Hamas.
Mr Morrison spoke to The Australian as he participated in a tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza with former British leader Boris Johnson, the pair having arrived in Israel on Sunday morning. The village remains the site of one of the worst massacres carried out by Hamas terrorists in the Israeli south on October 7.
“The government has a position, the ministers should be supporting that position,” Mr Morrison said, showing care not to name any cabinet ministers in particular.
“There can’t be any ambiguity about this. I understand everyone is responding to the way people are feeling, but government policy and governments in these situations, it’s a matter of meaning what you say and following what you say.”
Anthony Albanese has already ruled out flying to Israel despite a recent visit to Washington and now Beijing, where he is currently engaged in diplomatic efforts with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Mr Morrison is the only Australian MP to visit the Holy Land since the attacks last month; British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited the country last month.
Asked whether Mr Albanese had failed to show genuine support by not turning up to Israel, just as many other world leaders had already done, Mr Morrison refrained from making overt criticisms but said the government had a stated policy of supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, and it therefore made sense to act on that policy.
“I’m here because I believe I should be here, and they’ve gotta make their own decisions about whether they’re taking actions that follow up what they said at the time,” he said. “I’d be expecting the government to follow through on that policy and implement that policy. I’ll leave it to others to make a Judgement about whether they’re doing that.”
Accompanied by a security detail, the tour of Kfar Aza led Mr Morrison and Mr Johnson down the ruined avenues of the village where terrorists overran the population to rape, murder and torture its residents – from children to the elderly.
Such was the extent of the damage that Israeli archaeologists have been contracted to assist with the recovery of body parts from Kfar Aza; their task has been to sift through the charred wreckage of homes to locate teeth and other minute remains that might help with identifying the dead or the missing.
IDF Major Liad Diamond, acting as a guide, said thousands of residents from Gaza had stormed through the kibbutz to steal personal items in the wake of the Hamas attacks. “We have videos of them taking bicycles, strollers of babies. They took everything into Gaza. There were thousands of people who followed them (Hamas) and committed these crimes.”
Bodies were also booby-trapped, he said, posing an extreme hazard to the first responders. “They used grenades,” he said. “They took the pin out of the grenade. They stuffed it under the body and just left.”
Touring with Mr Morrison and Mr Johnson was Israel’s former envoy to the United Nations, Danny Danon, who said the attacks showed a level of planning that continues to astound the investigative teams. The terrorists, he said, were armed with such a wealth of detail that they knew which families had guard dogs and which households had access to weapons.
“They mapped everything. They knew where to go and what to do,” Mr Danon said.
Clearly affected by the experience, Mr Morrison said he remained firmly against the idea of a ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas and allow it to regroup for further attacks. “I hold Hamas responsible for all of it – all of it,” Mr Morrison said.
“You can’t help but be overwhelmed by what we’re standing on – a place of innocence desecrated beyond comprehension. This,” he said, looking around the kibbutz, “is where antisemitism ends”.
“We said ‘never again’, and we mean ‘never again’, and if you mean ‘never again’ then you cannot stand for this to go unaddressed – and we must stand with Israel to make sure that they can now do what they need to do and do it in the way that they’re trained to do it.”
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