We expected better from our fellow Australians
Last Sunday, in Sydney and Melbourne, almost the same number as Australia's entire Jewish population marched for inhumanity.
On Saturday, the sadistic Hamas terror group released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David.
David, who was kidnapped from the Nova festival at which Hamas killed 378 party goers amid a grotesque rampage of rape and murder, has been held for 671 days in Hamas captivity.
Appearing utterly emaciated, the video showed David in a terror tunnel holding a shovel, saying he was digging his own grave.
This is the nadir of inhumanity.
And yet, in Sydney on Sunday, almost a hundred thousand people claiming to be part of a “March for Humanity” demonstrated – knowingly or not – on behalf of his captors.
Thousands also marched in Melbourne. Together, almost the same number as Australia’s entire Jewish population.
They chanted hateful slogans like “from the river to the sea” and “death to the IDF”. They carried abhorrent placards displaying sickening moral inversion. They marched alongside terror flags and portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader. These marchers would condemn Evyatar David to a life in hell.
The protesters were not demonstrating for a just ceasefire, peace or a two-state solution. They were marching for the elimination of Israel and the dehumanisation of those who support its right to exist.
Understandably, those who participated with good intentions – we too feel for suffering innocents in Gaza – may not have realised this. So steady is the diet of Hamas propaganda in our media, from our leaders, and online, they have lost the ability to be critical and seek out the truth. It was a case of the malevolent leading the blind.
And once again, Australia’s lack of leadership at the top revealed itself on Monday, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese excusing the demonstration as “an opportunity for people to express their concern about what is happening in Gaza”.
Not a word to comfort our community, who are reeling and in disbelief.
Of course, Albanese, who didn’t hesitate to repeat Hamas’s lies about Israel’s conduct in Gaza last month, has said nothing about Evyatar David. Nor has Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
We expect more from our leaders.
We expected more from NSW Supreme Court Justice Belinda Rigg, who ruled against the police and the Premier in allowing the march.
We expected better from our fellow Australians.
They all let us down.
And we are absolutely broken.