Australia faces a focused, armed insurrection: Jihadis are a matter of national defence, not law and order. By Greg Craven, former vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, in The Australian.
Our current legal and constitutional arrangements are based on the assumption that our commonwealth faces no deadly external or internal threats.
That assumption had begun to disintegrate even before the Bondi massacre. With 15 dead bodies near the sand of one of Australia’s favourite beaches, it became a joke.
Australia now faces an insidious threat from jihadist militants. This threat will be sustained and deadly. Beyond its program for the elimination of Israel as a state and as far as possible Jewry as a whole, it hates everything about Australia as a Western democracy, from free elections to personal choice about bathing suits.
There is nothing more certain than that there will be another Bondi, and probably another, and possibly another. The only question is where. Will it be a yeshiva at Balaclava in Melbourne? Will it be a synagogue at St Ives in Sydney or Dianella in Perth.? Will these assassins widen their oeuvre to include the general population of an Australia that supports Jews and recognises Israel? What about the odd bomb at the MCG?
The crucial necessity is to understand that this is no longer simply a debate about law and order and civil liberties. This is a debate about national defence.
As a nation we are faced not by the occasional act of terrorism but a focused, armed insurrection. Its forces in terms of combatants — we hope — are slight, but demonstrably capable of causing carnage. More, there can be no doubt that these insurgents have links and access to the resources of international jihadism. If two homicidal incompetents can wreak carnage at Bondi, imagine what would happen if the professionals were let loose. …
Protect the Muslims who want to fit in to our way of life:
I remember a Muslim friend who told me almost in tears about the threat to his two highly likeable Australian sons.
He had told them never to talk to the men at the back of the mosque, walk away if they approach you and, if you are cornered into some vicious conversation, demand the relevant text in the Koran. They will be flummoxed because they are not People of the Book, just racist and bigoted thugs fighting under the false flag of Islam and looking for their next kill.
It is important to remember this lesson. Moderate Muslims are also victims of these monsters. …
National defence rules increasingly apply:
If you accept that we now are in a posture of defence — “defence of the realm” in old-speak — certain things follow. …
Remember that when we were in mortal combat during both world wars, there was heavy censorship and prohibition of a range of organisations. We are nowhere near that now, but reality calls. In the face of an armed and cynically murderous opponent, these types of measures — appropriately diluted — can be proportionately applied.