The Australia-Israel relationship has turned sharply south under this Labor Government. By David Adler.
While Jews in Australia date back to the First Fleet, there was an influx after the second world war. On a per capita basis Australia had the highest proportion of Holocaust survivors after Israel. …
Nearly all Australian Jews have family and/or friends in Israel. I learnt about a week after the attack that one of my cousins, a young woman attending the Supernova music festival with her boyfriend, was amongst the 260 bodies found there. …
Up until this week Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu did not accept a telephone call from his Australian counterpart. …
The Australian Labor government has in practice been so negative to Israel in a whole series of policy shifts, it may well be judged as the most anti-Israel since the modern state of Israel was recognised in 1948. These decisions [include …] doubling foreign aid in the federal budget to ‘Palestinian territories’ from $35 to $70 million per year.
The doubling of funding to UNRWA (the UN agency which runs schools in Gaza and supports Hamas) from $10 to $20 million is particularly obnoxious. UNRWA teaches hatred and incites terror. In August when Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced the change in Australia’s diplomatic terminology, in a first for an Australian minister she was featured on a poster by Quds News Network, the propaganda arm of Hamas. How does that look now? …
Beyond the budget allocations Foreign Minister Penny Wong has made two announcements since the atrocities of 7 October of $10 million and $15 million for Gaza supposedly for humanitarian aid. No matter how well-intentioned, this reflects stunning naivety. It is Hamas which controls all distribution in Gaza and even if our aid arrives as food, water, medicine, etc, if Hamas wants to take it for its jihadists, it is taken. Australia may be replenishing Hamas.
I recall Anthony Albanese in a Labor Party meeting in about 1982 in Camperdown, Sydney, making a silly speech about oppressed the Palestinian people were. He’s long been anti-Israel.
