A brief look at some items of note during the last ten days.
I was in #Gaza in March+testified to @CIJ_ICJ as part of gen0side case against #Israel
— Ben Thomson 🇵🇸 (@BenNephrology) August 14, 2024
Today, #EyeWitnessGaza starts with video testimonies of horrors we saw. Campaign demands pinned2 @BenNephrology
This is my first testimony. More health workers2post soon@HA4Palestine@CIJ_ICJ pic.twitter.com/1WGSZjy925
“The entire unjust world does not care about this. That’s all I can say.” Heartbreaking testimony in the wake of the killing of newborn twins and their mother in Gaza -- leaving behind a father whose world is shattered. Correspondent @JDiamond1 reports. pic.twitter.com/CKUwLt23sn
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) August 14, 2024
⚠️ GRAPHIC ⚠️
— Amer Amayreh (@a_amayreh) August 14, 2024
Sorry for bothering you, but things are worst on ground.
Thanks for your tax money. 🥸
⚠️ GRAPHIC ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/mIjYPnSFX5
On 14 August 2024 the State of Israel's War on Gaza entered its 313th day and, the Palestinian population has suffered more war deaths than the Australian people did during the approx. 2,107 days of the last world war.
A sad comparison
In World War Two 34,000 Australian service personnel were killed along /w 700-1,000 civilians [ABS 1998, Parramatta History and Heritage 2020, Statistica 2024]. These numbers are estimated to be 5% of Australia's total population as of 30 June 1939.
In the War on Gaza from 7 Oct 2023 up to 14 Aug 2024 a total of 39,965 Palestinians are recorded as killed [UN OCHR August 2024] with est. 11,000 of those killed being children.
NOTE: These UN numbers do not include the thousands missing presumed dead or the as yet unidentified dead stored within the Gaza Strip.
However, the numbers do represent an estimated 2.0% of the Palestinian population residing in the Gaza Strip on 1 September 2023.
As of 20 August 2024 there is no negotiated ceasefire or any timetable for a declaration that the War on Gaza has ended.
Jewish Council Australia, media release, 14 August 2024:
Jewish Council condemns Peter Dutton and Dave Sharma for stoking racism in comments on Palestinians fleeing genocide
August 14, 2024
Today, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told Sky News that no Palestinians from Gaza should be entering Australia and that a visa scheme for Palestinians fleeing Gaza would put Australia’s national security at risk.
These comments were made days after Liberal Party Senator Dave Sharma criticised the government, suggesting that Palestinians entering Australia “might endanger” Australian citizens and “our own democracy.”
These comments cannot be taken in isolation. Only two weeks ago, neo-Nazis held a Trump inspired anti-immigration rally outside Federation Square in Melbourne calling for the mass deportation of immigrants. Rather than clearly distancing themselves from dangerous anti-immigrant sentiment, Peter Dutton and Dave Sharma are only fuelling division.
The Jewish Council rejects any assertion that Palestinians fleeing violence are a threat to the safety of Australians.
Palestinians in Gaza face extreme levels of violence. On Saturday morning, an Israeli attack at the Al-Tabeen School in Gaza City killed at least 100 people, making it one of the deadliest attacks in Israel’s 10 month assault on Gaza. The intensity of the bombing was such that many victims were dismembered beyond recognition. Doctors resorted to collecting body parts in plastic bags, giving families 70 kilos of remains when their loved ones could not be individually identified.
The horrific reality of violence faced by Palestinians in Gaza underlines the need for Australians to do all we can to support and welcome Gazans seeking to enter Australia.
Dr Max Kaiser, historian and Executive Officer
“The rhetoric directed against Palestinian refugees is reminiscent of the same rhetoric used to vilify Jewish refugees in the 1940s and 1950s who were frequently labeled ‘security risks’. This rhetoric is also part of a long history of racism and exclusion in Australia, from the White Australia Policy to panics about ‘boat people’.”
Sarah Schwartz, human rights lawyer and Executive Officer
“Peter Dutton and Dave Sharma should be ashamed of themselves for using anti-immigrant rhetoric to stoke fear and division. It is only weeks since anti-immigrant riots took place in the UK, and neo-Nazis held an anti-immigration rally in Melbourne’s CBD. Politicians should be distancing themselves from all forms of racism and xenophobia not fuelling division.
“The Australian Government should not be influenced by the Israel lobby’s false and racist depictions of Palestinians. Many Jewish people have family histories of fleeing persecution and understand the importance of Australia meeting its obligations under International Law to protect the human rights of refugees.”
Historical background
Rhetoric directed against Palestinian refugees is reminiscent of the same rhetoric used to vilify Jewish refugees in the 1940s and 1950s who were frequently labeled ‘security risks’. T.H. White, Australia’s delegate to the 1938 Evian Conference famously said with reference to German and Austrian Jewish refugees, Australia has "no real racial problem [and is] not desirous of importing one". This rhetoric is also part of a long history of racism and exclusion in Australia, from the White Australia Policy to the War on Terror’s exclusion of people from the Middle East.
Statements by Leader of the Opposition & LNP MP for Dickson, Peter Dutton:
The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 August 2024:
....Dutton on Wednesday decided to push beyond the Coalition’s previous demands for tougher scrutiny of Palestinian refugees, saying: “I don’t think people should be coming in from that war zone at all at the moment. It’s not prudent to do so and I think it puts our national security at risk.”
9 News, 15 August 2024:
"So (the government) said that they will bring people into Australia who are sympathisers with a listed terrorist organisation," Dutton said.
"Could you imagine if we were proposing to bring people in who were sympathetic to another listed terrorist organisation, like al-Qaeda or ISIL or ISIS? It's completely unacceptable.
"You bring 3000 people in, let's say 99 per cent are good.
"If one per cent, 30 people, are questionable or sympathisers with a listed terrorist organisation, how on earth is that in our country's best interests?"
ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has previously said that "rhetorical" sympathy for Hamas would not be considered an automatic bar to entry.
Note: Using statistics drawn out of thin air to create hypothetical risk scenarios produces nothing but 'word salad' - especially as the number of Palestinian refugees who have entered Australia since October 2023 is far less than the 3,000 mentioned. A wider lens is required. As an example, between 2014 & 2020, a total of 3,360,650 people entered Australia on migrant visas [ABS, 2021]. If the total number of individuals actually charged with terrorism related offenses within this period had been in that 6 year migrant intake, it would still only have represented an estimated percentage point of 0.003273176320057132% of this statistical cohort.
A cartoonist's perspective
 |
Matt Golding |
An exchange in the Australian Parliament
House of Representatives, Hansard, 15 August 2024, excerpt:
Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (09:16): It's extremely concerning to see the opposition turn up today with this suspension of standing orders and the words and the rhetoric that we're hearing here. It goes directly against the advice of ASIO and the concern around the polarisation in our communities—that whipping up of a sense of fear and that inference that, for example, our services and systems are not working. What I'd like to share is the human story, the real story, about some of the people we're talking about and the lives we're talking about.
Mr Conaghan interjecting—
Ms STEGGALL: And I would ask you to be silent! I have the floor!
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Cowper will cease interjecting. The member for Warringah will be heard, just as other members were heard, in silence.
Ms STEGGALL: In 2020, I met a man called Mohammed at the North Steyne Surf Life Saving Club. He had come to Australia under a visa approved by the Morrison government under the same systems. He came to participate in a surf lifesaving skills program. He wanted to give the children of Gaza an opportunity to learn water safety, to not drown, to have something positive on weekends. They loved that program. They attended.
Unfortunately, after the horrendous events of October, that program, of course, ended. The bombing started. Many people that participated in that program have died. Many of the children have died. These are normal families. These are families that you are seeking to paint as all being terrorists, who should all be mistrusted and who are not worthy of humanitarian aid.
Mr Dutton: Complete rubbish! Stop repeating the governments lines.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.
Ms STEGGALL: We heard you in silence; you can hear me in silence. Stop being racist.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition is seeking the call.
Mr Dutton: That was an offensive and unparliamentary remark and it should be withdrawn.
The SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much noise. As I previously asked for the chamber to be silent, I'm just going to ask the member for Warringah, if she made an unparliamentary remark, to withdraw it to assist the House.
Ms STEGGALL: Could I have a clarification: is a description of language as being racist an unparliamentary remark?
Mr Katter interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. Just to assist the House so the debate can keep going, as has been previously ruled, I will just ask the member to withdraw and continue. [my yellow highlighting]
The War on Gaza continues
ABC News, 16 August 2024:
The death toll in Gaza from Israel's offensive has surpassed 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
It says a total of 40,005 people have been killed and 92,401 injured since October 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel....
The Leader of the Opposition & LNP MP for Dickson continues
The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2024:
The Nazis tried to conceal their crime of murdering six million Jews. Hamas felt no guilt when they carried out their terrorist attack on October 7. They invaded Israel with body cams and phones to film their butchery of 1200 people – the greatest loss of Jewish life on a single day since the Holocaust.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 August 2024:
“The advice that I have is that, out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 are from second- and third-generation Lebanese Muslim backgrounds,” he said in November 2016.
The comments were widely condemned at the time and last year, in an episode of the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet, journalist Annabel Crabb put to Dutton that they were racist.
“They’re comments that I shouldn’t have made,” he replied. “I have apologised for that.”
But five leaders of Australia’s Lebanese Muslim community now say they have no recollection of Dutton ever making that apology.
The opposition leader’s office did not respond to multiple enquiries from this masthead about when, how and to whom he said sorry.
[my yellow highlighting]
The pushback by members of the Jewish community in Australia continues
