One of the root problems with social and political discourse is that too many people throw around words they simply don’t understand: Nazi, Fascist, Bigot (compounding the stupidity with the last is that the people who fling it the hardest are often the most genuinely bigoted people imaginable).
Another such word is terrorism. This is a word with a pretty precise meaning. While definitions vary very slightly between jurisdictions, most definitions are not much different from the legal definition in Australia:
“an act or threat that is intended to: advance a political, ideological or religious cause; and coerce or intimidate an Australian or foreign government or the public (or section of the public ), including foreign public”
There is disagreement over whether, for instance, terrorism is exclusive to non-state actors, or that it solely targets non-combatants. Other definitions place additional emphasis on the particular moral heinousness of terror acts.
Note, though, the very first words of the Australian definition: ‘an act or threat’.
This immediately torpedoes the mendacious arguments of those who are, for grotesque ideological reasons, trying to play down the enormity of the Dural caravan anti-Semitic terror plot.
One of NSW Police’s top cops has said its investigators discredited the caravan terror plot theory in late February, as the Minns government refused to reveal when they were briefed that the plot was a “criminal con job”.
Under questioning in parliamentary estimates on Wednesday, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson confirmed any terror threat was ruled out on February 21.
Although his suspicions of a “hoax” were raised from its public discovery on January 19, police could not discredit a potential threat until more than a month later.
Except that, even if it was a ‘hoax’, it was still, according to the Australian legal definition, a terror threat. A deputy commissioner must know better than to make such an error, which leaves the only possibility that he is being deliberately misleading.
So, to no one’s surprise, are the odious Greens. Greens MLC Sue Higginson used the questioning to attack NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley for – correctly, as Australian law shows – describing the caravan plot as a terror threat. Higginson, it might be noted, has defended the 9 October 2023 Muslim protest that chanted ‘Gas the Jews’ and attacked the decision to light up the Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag, following the October 7 atrocities, as ‘an error of judgement by the Minns Government’.
Catley was having none of it, reminding Higginson (as if she could possibly be unaware) that the Sydney Jewish community was (and is) enduring extraordinary, constant and violent threats.
Ms Catley fired back saying the Greens MLC had “amnesia” in forgetting the state of community tensions during the height of Sydney’s streak of anti-Semitic attacks […]
“We need to ensure that we remember what the environment was at that point in time … the Jewish community were experiencing fire bombed cars on their street. They were experiencing anti-Semitic attacks every second night.”
It’s irrelevant, then, if the caravan was meant to actually explode, or if it was intended to be found. It was still an act or threat that is intended to… coerce or intimidate. So, it was very much a terror act.
If the Jewish community was worried that opportunists would take advantage of the “fake terror” label attached to the anti-Semitic plot revealed by police this week, they didn’t have long to wait.
To no one’s surprise, the NSW Greens charged out of the block on Wednesday, with chief attack dog Sue Higginson in full fury at budget estimates, declaring the Minns government had misrepresented the “hoax” to justify the “rushed” laws it had introduced to protect the Jewish community.
By the end of the day Higginson had declared the case was “not motivated by anti-Semitism” and that the community had been taken for a ride.
But the opportunity was handed to Ms Higginson and her ilk on a plate by NSW and Federal police, who have proffered a series of ever-more convoluted messages since the discovery of an explosives-laden caravan on the outskirts of Sydney in January.
This is all part and parcel of a disturbing, decades-long pattern of behaviour by NSW Police, who, like their UK counterparts, seem determined to place ‘social cohesion’ ahead of prosecuting clear acts of terror. As in the UK, their overriding priority appears to be mollifying Muslims in the vain hope that they won’t get even more violent and extremist than they already are.
In their book on the Cronulla riots, former NSW Police Minister Carl Scully and Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin seem take great pride in what they claim was preserving ‘social cohesion’ – even if that meant downplaying and even ignoring the violent extremism of the Sydney Muslim community. They even admit that they kept under wraps that plots to machine-gun a surf club and use a grenade on a hotel were intercepted.
Do these idiots really think they’re helping, by continually misleading Australians and sweeping this stuff under the rug?
