No wonder “A Curse on the Jews” extremist academic Jay Tharappel feels right at home in the Labor party. His new leader doesn’t just post chummy selfies with the odious Jeremy Corbyn, he follows eagerly in his anti-Semitic wake.
The Albanese government has ignited a diplomatic furore with Israel over a snap cabinet decision to abandon the policy of recognising West Jerusalem as the country’s capital, after a bungle by the Department of Foreign Affairs threw Australia’s official position into doubt.
The Australian
The decision is not only suspect in itself — a clear indication that Labor is desperate to play to its anti-Semitic, hard-left wing, and to its Muslim base in the Labor heartland of Western Sydney — it also shows up the Albanese government’s basic amateurishness.
First, the decision – mysteriously and inexplicably – was publicised on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website when no such decision had been made. The government denied the decision had been made. Then it made the decision and announced it, retrospectively validating the website words.
For all its myriad domestic faults, the Morrison government played the global great game masterfully. China sympathisers might argue otherwise, but the diplomatic punishment meted out by China backfired badly on Beijing. It not only crystallised global uneasiness about Chinese thuggishness, it allowed the government to leverage diplomatic clout in a way few Australian governments have been able.
The concrete outcomes were the AUKUS treaty and the Quad alliance. Less tangible was the wave of goodwill for a middle power bullied by a communist giant (the French hissy-fit over ditching their dodgy submarine deal was little more than typical Gallic theatrics).
Anthony Albanese is pissing all that away. Even the Biden administration has reaffirmed the Trump decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Albanese government’s new decision looks antique, foolish and out of line with the main international trends we should be following. The administration of Joe Biden did not reverse Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Since Scott Morrison’s announcement, a slew of Arab countries, under the Abraham Accords, have concluded formal peace treaties with Israel and opened formal diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state, which remains the only meaningful democracy in the Middle East
The Australian
A key democratic state which suddenly has very good reason to be angry with Australia.
The Australian has confirmed the Israeli embassy in Canberra was blindsided by the move, prompting an angry response from Prime Minister Yair Lapid and calling into question Australia’s treatment of a close ally.
It also sparked condemnation from Australia’s Jewish community amid accusations that the rushed announcement – made without consultation and coming on an official Jewish religious holiday – had damaged Australia’s foreign policy credibility.
The Australian
Even worse is Penny Wong’s petulant response, claiming that the Morrison government was just pandering to “the Joos” in Wentworth. Which sounds an awful lot like an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
That the Israeli government has taken such a rare step indicates just how much damage Albanese and Wong have done — and for what?
Firstly, to pander to Labor’s hard left, which, like Corbyn’s Resist and other far left factions in UK Labour, is increasingly anti-Semitic. Dressed up as “pro-Palestine”, with support for the notorious BDS movement a given, Labor’s hard left smells more and more like a rabble of old-fashioned Jew-haters.
Hence former foreign minister and unrelenting CCP shill, Bob Carr, comes out in support of the backflip, and gibbering the standard lie that Israel is “practising apartheid” and doesn’t deserve Australia’s consideration.
Albanese and Wong are sending Labor down a very, very dark path.
