Labor is playing politics, but what is the price?

We make no apologies as a newspaper for advocating on behalf of and defending Israel.

But when it comes to Australian domestic politics and our nation’s major political parties – recognising that the community we represent is a broad tent – we have never taken a side.

That position is becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

Labor promised no major changes to Australia’s bipartisan positions on Israel prior to the May 2022 federal election.

In September 2022, it doubled Australia’s contribution to corrupt and Hamas-infested UNRWA.

A month later, Labor reversed Australia’s recognition of west Jerusalem – which sits in uncontested territory inside the green line – as Israel’s capital.

In August 2023, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced Australia would use the term “Occupied Palestinian Territories” to describe all lands outside the line – as well as Gaza, which then had not a single Israeli soldier in it.

Labor rightly condemned October 7 at the time and stated Israel’s right to defend itself. But words and actions from the government since have contradicted the latter. Israel is condescendingly told that how “it defends itself matters” with no regard to the complexities of urban warfare where the enemy uses human shields in an attempt to maximise civilian casualties.

When Wong visited Israel in January, she declined to visit the Gaza envelope to see the destruction for herself.

In March, before waiting for the findings into an investigation that UNRWA staffers had participated in October 7, the government restored $6 million in emergency funding to it.

Australia the appointed its own overseer, Mark Binskin, to mark Israel’s homework after aid worker Zomi Frankcom was accidentally killed in Gaza in April, despite Israel immediately taking responsibility, investigating the incident as a matter of urgency and holding individuals accountable. Wong then largely ignored the fact that Binskin mostly concurred with Israel’s findings. She misrepresented the report and continued to blast Israel, even calling for criminal charges.

Also in April, Wong announced in a speech that the government could recognise Palestinian statehood “as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution”, while somehow insisting that doing so would achieve the opposite to emboldening terror.

Australia followed that up in May by voting in favour of a UN resolution calling on Palestine to become a full UN member. Then at the UN in September, Wong called for a “clear timeline” to recognise a Palestinian state outside of a negotiated peace process.

Last week, Australia changed its vote to Yes on a UN committee vote recognising Palestinian sovereignty in the disputed territories – against the advice of our own UN diplomats – and on another blaming Israel for an oil spill in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war it previously said it did not commit.

And then on Thursday night, the government inexplicably denied former Israeli government minister Ayelet Shaked a visa to visit Australia on character grounds, despite allowing her into the country in 2023. This while Iran’s ambassador remains welcome here despite his antisemitic outbursts calling for Israel’s destruction, and while Gazans who have since been found to have ties to Hamas were issued visas in 24 hours.

What changed? Could it be that our immigration minister in 2023 was not in a western Sydney electorate under threat from an ostensibly more pro-Palestinian candidate?

To add insult, Wong’s reaction this morning to news that the ICC has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was weak and unbecoming of a supposed ally.

Simply put, Labor has trashed Australia’s relationship with Israel. In doing so, it has alienated the Australian Jewish community.

The Albanese government also fails to see the link between the anti-Israel environment it has helped to create and the effects felt by our community in the streets, such as the electorate offices of its own members being trashed in Melbourne and cars being set alight in a horrific antisemitic attack in Sydney.

None of Labor’s foreign policy actions make sense in the context of advancing either Australia’s interests or peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as the government claims. The only explanation can be domestic considerations.

But the cost of this weakens not just Australia’s social fabric but also the very foundations of Australian diplomacy, and casts doubt on every commitment our nation makes on the world stage.

The Australian public must demand better.

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