Labor’s anti-Semitism problem has become so obvious and so dangerous that even former Labor ministers are having to intervene to drag the party out of the Dark Valley.
Since October 7, with violent anti-Semitism becoming bolder and bolder in some sections of Australian society — namely, the far-left and Islam — the Albanese Labor government has vacillated, hemmed, hawed, and tried to avoid being dragged, kicking and screaming, into taking a stand.
The PM took nearly a day to even acknowledge the October 7 atrocities. Neither the PM or his foreign minister, or any senior member of government, has yet visited Israel. When a Muslim mob, with Greens politicians in attendance, marched on the Sydney Opera House, chanting “Gas the Jews!”, the government was MIA. When another mob surrounded a synagogue in Melbourne, the PM blithered about anti-Semitism “and Islamophobia”.
The reasons the government is so reluctant to take a stand are two-fold. First, Labor has steadily shed left voters to the Greens, to the point that its primary vote in 2022 was its second-lowest on record. As the ALP becomes a party not for workers but the university-educated middle-class woke left, those voters are increasingly opting for the real deal, the far-left Greens. The PM’s own, gentrified seat is fast becoming less safe for Labor: hence Coalition MP Julian Leeser’s jibe that Anthony Albanese’s craven call for an Israeli cease-fire is “about Grayndler, not Gaza”.
Secondly, Labor’s remaining rusted-on heartland is Sydney’s Western suburbs. This geographically small but densely populated cluster of seats is vital to Labor’s survival. It’s where many of its most senior ministers have their safe seats. It’s also Australia’s Muslim heartland: the mosques of Western Sydney have produced a train of jihadi preachers. Its streets erupted in spontaneous celebration on the night of October 7. Carloads of young Muslim men cruised the handful of heavily Jewish suburbs of eastern Melbourne, “on the hunt for Jews to kill”.
The Albanese government is too obviously desperate not to alienate their most loyal voting blocs. As a result, it’s selling its soul to anti-Israel barbarians.
At least some former Labor MPs are calling time on its Faustian bargain.
Two former Labor ministers are leading a new push to counter misguided attitudes towards Israel “from people who claim to be progressive” – including blaming the nation for collective punishment of Palestinians – and are vowing to support pro-Israel ALP candidates running for parliament.
The newly minted Labor Friends of Israel, led by one-time federal minister Michael Kelly and former NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal, aims to provide “salient facts” about the conflict, counter misinformation and combat support for Hamas among “progressives”.
They’ve got their work cut out for them.
The Labor Friends of Israel website went live days before a group of 50 well-known Labor figures, including former NSW premier and foreign minister Bob Carr, signed an open letter declaring the human rights of Palestinians had been violated […]
With Labor ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly accusing Israel of collectively punishing Palestinians in the conflict with Hamas, Dr Kelly said the group wanted Labor members to be “properly informed”.
Husic and Aly, it might be noted, are both Muslims from Sydney. What a coincidence, eh?
“Some of the terminology that’s bandied around like collective punishment, genocide … those things are certainly just completely not accurate legally,” Dr Kelly told The Australian.
Not that these Labor Friends of Israel are immune to delusions, themselves.
A former army colonel and defence industry minister under Julia Gillard, Dr Kelly said the group supported a two-state solution and a free and democratic Palestine.
And I want a gold-plated toilet seat, too. Which, frankly, has more likelihood of ever happening.
But Kelly is at least right to point out the deranged double-think of the left.
He condemned Hamas as a “savage terrorist regime” that was responsible for “horrendous sexual violence and the mutilation, torture and murder of everyone from the elderly to infants”.
“We do support a two-state solution, but I think one of the things that’s been alarming to us has been a lack of understanding of the nature of Hamas,” he said.
“And it’s particularly frightening when people who claim to be progressive seem to be supporting a regime that’s medieval and really a dictatorship and has oppressed the Gazan people for the last 17 years, including routine executions of LGBTQI people, the repression of women, the failure to implement any democratic frameworks” […]
“Under the Hamas regime, there have been no elections since 2006, no trade unions are permitted, and LGBTIQA+ persons are frequently executed when discovered,” the website says.
The Australian
Yes, but, apart from all that.
In stark contrast to Labor’s mealy-mouthed grovelling to the forces of darkness, the Coalition has been forthright and unequivocal in its defence of Israel and Jewish Australians.
Unfortunately, Labor has counted the heads and concluded that it stands to lose more votes by doing the right thing.
