BEN HARVEY: ISIS brides furore not black and white

Nothing is black and white when you live in a compassionate country that respects the rule of law.

We can find nuance in just about any scenario — even something as black and white as the ISIS brides controversy.

Break the brouhaha into its three parts and there appears to be no grey area.

1. Australian women marry lunatic Islamic State martyrs.

2. They go to Syria to wage jihad against everything Australia and the West holds dear.

3. Hubby goes into the afterlife with his 72 virgins courtesy of a US Tomahawk missile.

4. Widows say barlese, we want to come home because it’s awfully hot over here and there’s very little water.

What kind of an idiotic country would say “fair enough, see you when you get here”?

This kind of idiotic country, because we are a nation that is compassionate and respects the rule of law, even if that imperils our safety and way of life.

The village idiot knows we should be saying “sorry, you can stay in the great sandpit of hate that is western Asia” but the village idiot doesn’t understand the requirement to apply due process to the 34 Australians trapped in northern Syria after being turned around by Syrian authorities (I’m stretching the definition of that word) on the road to Damascus.

They were going to the capital at the behest of Sydney doctor Jamal Rifi, who is on an ill-advised mission to get them home.

Perhaps he believes they are sorry or were victims of coercive control. Who knows what his motivation is.

Dr Rifi has embarked upon this bleeding-heart mercy operation because the Australian Government is deliberately sitting on its hands.

“My mother would say, if you make your bed you lie in it,” Anthony Albanese said this week.

“These are people who went overseas supporting Islamic State and went there to provide support for people who basically want a caliphate.”

There’s nothing “basically” about it, Albo, that’s precisely why they went there.

The Prime Minister was talking tough because he had cover; Australia has a policy of refusing to repatriate anyone from Syria because the country has been largely lawless for the past year, courtesy of the late 2024 overthrow of the Assad regime.

What Albo didn’t make clear was the fact that if these ISIS sympathisers get out of Syria and make it to an Australian embassy in, say, Lebanon or Turkey, then Australia has a more accommodating view of them.

If an Australian citizen presents to a consular official and wants to come home, the only way to stop them is by issuing an exclusion order.

These notices allow the Government to refuse entry to anyone aged 14 or older, Australian citizen or otherwise, if they’re deemed a national security risk.

We’re told two of the 34 Australians currently snookered in Syria have orders against them.

You can’t issue a notice without evidence. Saying “we don’t know what you’ve been up to or what you intend to do if you get to Australia” isn’t good enough; you have to prove they have been up to no good while away or intend to get up to no good when home.

That’s difficult under any circumstances but especially so when the people you’re investigating have been off-grid in a war zone.

We have absolutely no idea what these people did, what they learned or what they came to believe when they were hanging out with the al Qaeda diehards who formed Islamic State 15 years ago.

I don’t know what their current philosophical predisposition is, but I’ll hazard a guess it’s not mateship, egalitarianism and tolerance for diversity.

But until our security agencies can say with certainty that these people definitely did not learn how to make IEDs while on the Syrian-Iraqi border, then the reason they ended up there should be irrelevant.

The very act of being in Syria during the time they were there should be enough for an exclusion notice. If it’s not, then the law is an ass and needs to be changed so it is.

When Australia accepted two ISIS brides and four kids back in September, the Government didn’t have to deal with a huge and immediate backlash because the repatriation was done in complete secrecy.

This current case is far more high profile and comes at a political inflection point.

The Liberals have floated the pithily named Operation Gatekeeper, which will appeal to anyone in this country concerned about national security and Pauline Hanson has taken a position that makes “not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims” look progressive.

Albanese should be hoping that if these women do end up back in Oz the Feds can stick them with a charge such as travelling to a proscribed area or membership of a terrorist organisation.

Seeing them sent to jail would appease Middle Australia, at least a little bit.

If they walk through immigration straight and get in a cab to Lakemba it’ll look like the Government is opening the door to national security risks.

The PM’s army of spin doctors will no doubt be giving him tips on how to navigate these politically loaded waters.

Tell them to stand down, Albo, I have a solution: the ISIS brides can come in but only if they live with Grace Tame.

Let’s see if she has the courage of her convictions when the intifada is sitting next to her at the breakfast table.