Comment by Greg Ray
By appeasing Israel’s extremist ruling regime and its supporters, Australia’s governments – Federal and state – have done this country and its people a grave disservice.
Almost every step of the way since the Hamas attack in October 2023, Australia’s governments have caved in to extremist demands to facilitate and excuse Israel’s atrociously disproportionate genocidal response. Worse, they have also caved into almost every absurd ambit demand from the pro-genocide extremists to crush the right of Australians to point out and protest against the actions of Israel’s disgraceful Netanyahu government.
With over-the-top anti-protest and “hate speech” laws, bans on particular phrases and the green-lighting of police brutality, governments have gone out of their way to align themselves with one of the world’s most reviled political regimes. Anthony Albanese’s ill-advised appointment of an anti-semitism envoy with troubling far-right connections was a serious error of judgement. Cordially inviting Israel’s president to visit Australia – the Bondi massacre notwithstanding -was another one. The Albanese government has allowed itself to be browbeaten, bullied and outmaneouvred by the right-wing mainstream press and by pro-genocide extremists. It has false-stepped its way into a corner that could and should have been avoided.
Criticising Israel’s government is not antisemitism
The key tactic that has been used by the pro-genocide extremists is to falsely conflate Jewish identity with the Government of Israel and all of its actions. According to this argument all criticism of the actions of the government of Israel equals antisemitism and therefore must be suppressed. This argument is ludicrous, as I am sure many of those who so earnestly and shrilly repeat it are well aware. It was ludicrous before the Bondi tragedy and it remains ludicrous in its aftermath. So cynical are the extremists that they even used that tragedy, claiming – against all evidence – that the massacre was prompted by protests in Australian cities against Israel’s ongoing slaughter of innocent Palestinian people. The right-wing media, to its everlasting shame, happily signed on to that false narrative.
I would suggest that, to the extent that antisemitism may be on the rise in Australia and in the world generally, the obnoxious Netanyahu government and its vile actions should be acknowledged as the cause of much of the increase. The constant hectoring insistence that nobody should be allowed to criticize these appalling actions must be considered an exacerbating factor too. So many Israeli lobby groups are spending so much time and money promoting the idea that Israel and its actions are inseparable from Jewish identity that it’s hard to hear the voices of other groups, like the Jewish Council of Australia, putting the opposing case. Conflating Jewish identity with Israel may suit the Israeli Government, but many Jewish people reject the conflation as false and also prejudicial to their safety. To quote Sydney-based Jewish writer Antony Lowenstein: “Israel’s behaviour is directly endangering every Jew on the planet, including me. Antisemitism is real and growing, and this deeply worries me as a Jew. But Australia is not 1933 Berlin, where Jews were suddenly turned into second-class citizens. It’s hard to take seriously pro-Israel Jews who claim they feel unsafe when seeing a watermelon or hearing chants of ‘free Palestine’.”
Anybody who cares to spend a little time examining the political and social situation in Israel will accept that the Netanyahu government is an extremist outfit. Read the articles and editorials in the respected Israeli news outlet Haaretz and see how deeply that government has wounded Israel. Not only the genocide – which is frankly a savage extension of an ongoing horror for Palestinian people in the increasingly occupied territories – but also the relentless demolition of whatever democracy Israel possessed. It is a shocking, disgraceful government, headed by a shocking, disgraceful leader for whom the tens of thousands of dead Palestinians are no more than incidental casualties in his bid to hold and cement personal power and influence. (No wonder Netanyahu is striving to destroy Haaretz, along with any other remaining independent Israeli media voices. He is, frankly, very much like Donald Trump, with whom he personally confers so regularly.)
Pro-genocide lobbyists
Australian political leaders are fools to align themselves with representatives of this appalling regime. They are fools too, to cave in to the improper and unreasonable demands of genocide supporters who want the regime’s actions to be excused – even applauded – and for critics of the regime to be silenced, suppressed and sanctioned.
Enlightened and humane Australians have to recognise that their governments are under considerable pressure from Washington, Tel Aviv and influential pro-genocide lobbyists in this country. It would be politically impossible, for example, for Canberra to accede to requests to arrest the Israeli president, notwithstanding prima facie evidence suggesting he may have deliberately incited genocide. But did he have to be invited to Australia? It would have been better, surely, to have required him to apply to visit, if his visit was something the Australian Jewish community truly wanted. Nor should it have been necessary for Australian politicians – most notably the short-sighted NSW Premier Chris Minns – to have so sycophantically cosied up to the divisive visitor.
Chris Minns seems to think that any foolish idea can be made to stand by the use of force and stolid dissemblance. He has presumably calculated the expected political advantage of kowtowing and forelock tugging to those who support the Israeli regime and its actions, against a negative backlash from people who feel outraged by them. He appears to have decided to minimise the backlash by the application of overwhelming police force and the use of oppressive legislation. The results of his mismanagement will be seen over coming months.
Police use “kettling” technique
Minns’ ongoing war on protest and dissent found its most recent peak in the demonstrations against the Israeli president’s visit. He attempted to intimidate people into not attending by warning of a massive police presence. He followed through with the threat. Police appear to have used the regrettably now-standard technique of “kettling” the protesters, containing them on all sides and then closing in on them to cause a panic. Many people over the past several years have described being caught in a police “kettle” and the descriptions are consistent. The idea appears to be that people will learn that attending protests may easily result in physical injury and choose to stay away rather than risk possible hospitalisation, vexatious charges or both.
The Herzog protest has certainly yielded a solid number of assault victims, but whether this fact will produce the desired fear among the public of attending dissenting assemblies or whether it will actually stoke greater outrage is yet to be seen. This description of the event, by 76-year-old veteran film-maker James Ricketson in a letter to Premier Minns, gives one perspective:
Dear Premier Minns, I was arrested yesterday outside the Sydney Town Hall yesterday evening charged with assaulting a police officer. During my violent arrest I sustained several bloody injuries. I can barely walk today and my right kidney hurts very badly as a result of its being punched. Or perhaps I have a cracked rib? The demonstration was pretty much over when the police, backed up by eight or so fellow officers on horseback, started to aggressively push the crowd south, into an already very crowded space. I have witnessed this tactic before – used by police to generate a violent retaliatory response.
Up until then the police had been calm and respectful of we demonstrators. Then, they changed and became violent, as the footage you would have access to makes clear. Clearly, someone in the chain of command instructed the police to create chaos and violent confrontations in order to retrospectively justify the large police presence yesterday, to use as evidence in support of the banning of future demonstrations, and in the hope that the media will play along and hold we demonstrators responsible for inciting violence. Was it you who issued the edict to foment violence or someone else in the chain of command?
After 5 hours in a police cell with no offer of water or medical attention for my various injuries I was released without charge – the ‘assault police officer’ allegation having been dropped when it became apparent, from body cam footage, that I had not done so. I am a 76 year old filmmaker and journalist and request a response to this letter and an indication of whom I should approach within your government to have my spectacles and torn short replaced and my medical expenses paid?
Total immunity and impunity for police
I imagine Minns, if he replies at all, will spool out his Minneapolesque tale of police valiantly defending themselves against violent assailants. I doubt he is capable of anything other than doubling down on his errors. He seems to be that sort of leader.
It is interesting to speculate what this spectacular piece of mismanagement will actually cost, even in mere money. The upfront cost of having so many police on the scene – in riot gear, on horseback, in helicopters and armed on nearby rooftops – will be immense.
I had imagined, naively, that this cost might be eclipsed by what would have been the inevitable financial settlements to the victims of police assaults. In 2020 the NSW Government was obliged to reluctantly release figures on the cost of secret payouts to victims of assaults and wrongful arrests by police officers. The numbers were surprising. Over four years the state treasury paid out $113.5 million to about 1000 plaintiffs. Mostly the settlements were agreed “on the court steps” and almost invariably included a secrecy clause, preventing the recipients from telling anybody about them. The highest annual payout total to that point was $32.6 million in 2016-17 and no year’s payout total amounted to less than $20 million. This financial year the police force was already facing the prospect of hefty payouts for illegal strip-searches of young people at music festivals. Settlements for people while attending demonstrations seem set to drive the figure higher again, thanks to the Minns government’s anti-dissent clampdown.
I was shocked to learn that the victims of the police assaults in the anti-Herzog demonstrations won’t be able to sue for their injuries because of the Minns Government’s application of a “major event” designation for Herzog’s visit. This designation – supposedly intended only for actual major events, like ASEAN meetings etc – gave police immense powers to harass, search and move on anybody at all and also provided them with total legal impunity. As lawyer Michael Bradley points out in this Crikey video, giving gung-ho police forces carte blanche to be violent, with no legal protection at all for victims, is an insanely dangerous thing that no good government should ever do.
But perhaps Chris Minns sees all this as a net positive. Perhaps he sees the rising political stocks of far-right and crypto-fascist parties and senses that voters will warm to a Labor party that espouses similar values. Perhaps he hopes to deny One Nation a real foothold in NSW by pre-emptively occupying its policy ground. In that case the right-wing media and the pro-genocide advocates are his natural allies.
