Greens renew their assault on Israel
"They still cannot bring themselves, even today, to refer to the innocent hostages still held by Hamas in this conflict," says Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts.
A renewed attack on Israel by the Australian Greens in Parliament has been thwarted, with motions in the House of Representatives and Senate voted down.
Adam Bandt on Monday launched a motion calling for a permanent ceasefire and describing “an appalling and increasing toll of deaths and injuries caused by the State of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza”.
The Greens leader called on the government to demand “an immediate and permanent ceasefire”, to “impose sanctions” on Israel and “restore UNRWA funding”.
Seconding the motion, Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather spoke of “mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza” and called Rafah “the next stage of Israel’s genocide”.
But Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts recalled the Greens’ refusal to join a bipartisan motion last October condemning the Hamas massacres.
“They still cannot bring themselves, even today, to refer to the innocent hostages still held by Hamas in this conflict.”
Liberal manager of opposition business Paul Fletcher said the Greens’ stance “airbrushes away the horrors of the October 7 terrorist attack … including sexual violence and deliberate harm to young children”.
Victorian teal MPs Zoe Daniel and Monique Ryan, whose Goldstein and Kooyong electorates have large Jewish populations, abstained, and NSW teal MP Kylea Tink whose North Sydney electorate has a sizeable Jewish community, and Mackellar teal MP Sophie Scamps, were not in the chamber.
Asked by The AJN why she abstained, Daniel noted only that she had voted against an earlier similar motion by the Greens, who “should at a minimum acknowledge that the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 was a breach of international law”.
Ryan issued no comment but referred The AJN to her February 14 statement that “Hamas has committed atrocious crimes against Israel and continues to hold Israeli hostages … With its military response, the Netanyahu government has killed an appalling number of Gazan civilians. It is not consistent with international humanitarian law.”
The Senate on Monday voted down a motion by the Greens’ Jordon Steele-John, who told the chamber, “The Australian government must condemn the invasion of Gaza … The pausing of funding to UNRWA by Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs has cut off vital aid access.”
Simon Birmingham, shadow foreign minister, called it “a demonstration of the Australian Greens’ one-sided, unbalanced attitude”.
Stating the Greens “have
harboured and ignored antisemitic rhetoric within their own party”, Macnamara MP Josh Burns told The AJN the war “will end when hostages are released, not when Greens do stunts in the
Parliament of Australia”.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the Greens “have once again shown that they are a party of division”.
“It is unfortunate that teals with a substantial population of Jewish constituents abstained from the vote … We hope that the next time this happens, the teals will see through the Greens’ motives.”
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said, “There were many blatant and inciteful misrepresentations in the Greens’ speeches to back their motions, such as accusing Israel of deliberately engineering a famine in Gaza … The extremism of the Greens should render them utterly beyond the pale in Australian political life.”
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