Like the Covid pandemic, the Gaza war is a litmus test of basic moral fibre. As depressing as it is to see how many have failed dismally, it’s at least reassuring — and often surprising — to see who passes with flying colours.
I am not, it is putting it lightly, a fan of Julia Gillard. So it is doubly pleasing to see that, when the crunch came, she stood on the side of human decency.
Julia Gillard has warned many young Australians have ill-informed and unbalanced views about the Israel-Hamas conflict because social media has exploited their lack of knowledge about the history of Israel.
While Gillard made a terrible prime minister, she has mostly been an exemplary ex-prime minister. Because, to her credit, she has remembered what too many other recent ex-PMs (looking at you, Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating) choose to forget: keep your mouth shut unless absolutely necessary.
So, when Gillard speaks, it’s usually for good reason.
In a rare public intervention from the former Labor prime minister, Ms Gillard says there is a desperate need for better education about the facts of the conflict and the pathways to peace.
Her comments come as younger Australians have dominated anti-Israeli protests in growing numbers and polls show many younger people in the country are increasingly hostile towards the Jewish state in its war against Hamas at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Australia.
Like most of us, no doubt, Gillard has had the lamentable experience of listening to some young cretin spouting off, with absolute confidence, the most viciously anti-Semitic nonsense you ever heard.
“It worries me that people get their understanding of history off social media without ever touching any of the real facts,” Ms Gillard tells former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a documentary on anti-Semitism to be screened on Sky News Australia on Tuesday.
“I think a lot of what is going on today is a distortion of history from social media. It’s a misunderstanding about how Israel came into existence. It’s a misunderstanding about the nature of the conflict.”
You only have to look at the fatuous clowns of “Queers for Palestine” to realise just how little these useless idiots really understand who they’re cheer-squadding for.
Gillard’s public intervention is all the more critical because of who she is.
Ms Gillard – the nation’s first female leader and a highly respected figure in both Labor ranks and Australia’s wider progressive movement – says she has been alarmed by the rise in anti-Semitism in Australia since the October 7 slaughter of Israelis by Hamas. “I’ve been shocked and very, very disturbed to see some of the anti-Semitism,” she says […]
The Israel-Hamas war is also set to dominate discussion in the party Ms Gillard once led this week as Labor MPs returned to Canberra for parliament.
Gillard has particularly pointed advice for her Labor colleagues currently in government.
In her interview, Ms Gillard calls on every Australian to call out anti-Semitism immediately whenever they see it, whether it is on the street, in the workplace or in the home, saying the lesson of history is that if we don’t confront it now, it only grows.
“The Holocaust, of course, teaches us where anti-Semitism leads if it’s not confronted,” she says. “These things happened a step at a time. So given we’ve seen that history, we’re in a position, when we see the first few steps, to say, ‘No. No more. Let’s start combating that now rather than watch this history just play out’.
“I think where we need to go from here is each of us needs to make sure, as we move through the community, that we see any form of anti-Semitism, that we call it out and we deal with it and we address it, that you don’t walk by, because if you keep walking by, then things get worse and worse.”
That includes, looking at you Anthony Albanese, looking the other way when your constituents, or worse, your own MPs, spout anti-Semitic, genocidal slogans, and publicly celebrate October 7.
She says recent events in the Middle East mean a two-state solution to the conflict is “so far” off. “Whenever I’ve gone to Israel … it’s always been the dearest wish of mine that we could see peace emerge in the region, a two-state solution, two nations living side-by-side, secure borders, great trade, and everybody able to get on,” she says. “Unfortunately, in the modern age, we are just so far from that.”
The Australian
Are you listening, Penny Wong?
I never thought I’d say it, but…
Well done, Julia Gillard.
