EDITORIAL: Hamas depravity exposes Albanese’s foolishness

For close to 80 years, Australia has stood alongside the international community helping to restore order to some the world’s most troubled places.

One of the first and the longest running of those peacekeeping missions is Operation Paladin, under which Australian Defence Force personnel continue today to supervise ceasefire arrangements between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Soon, more Australian troops are likely to join them in the Middle East.

As revealed by The Nightly, ADF brass are already in talks with their American counterparts as to what contribution Australia can make to a future “international stabilisation force” to help monitor the implementation of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.

While ministers insist a formal request has not yet been made to Australia, the ADF’s Chief of Joint Operations, Vice Admiral Justin Jones says contingency planning is underway.

Australia’s recognition of Palestine came with no strings attached

Any assistance provided by Australia was likely to be in the tactical realm of “co-ordination and security”, Vice Admiral Jones said.

Unfortunately, whether there will be any peace for Australia to help keep is at yet uncertain.

The ceasefire brokered by President Trump already appears fragile, thanks to the continued savagery committed by Hamas militants, who have turned their weapons against the Gazans they purport to represent.

Hamas has murdered seven Palestinians they accuse of being “collaborators” in public executions which have the Gaza Strip on the edge.

The escalating violence has sparked fears the Strip would tumble over into civil war should Hamas refuse to relinquish power.

Mr Trump said Hamas’s actions would not be tolerated, posted to his Truth Social website: “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them”, though he later clarified it would not be US troops doing the killing.

“There are people very nearby that will go in, they’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices.”

Hamas’s continued depravity against its own people puts into stark relief the awkward problem which now confronts Australia, which will be compounded should Mr Trump make a formal request of Anthony Albanese to send troops to the Middle East at the pair’s long-awaited White House meeting next week.

It has exposed the abysmal foolishness of the move last month by a coterie of self-aggrandising left-wing Western leaders — Mr Albanese among them — to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations.

That recognition came with no strings attached — no plan to compel Hamas to give up its weaponry and release Palestine from its toxic influence. No roadmap to guide the transition of power to a legitimate authority.

Just a plan to humiliate our longstanding ally in Israel.

There is still hope of a better future for Palestinians, one in which destruction and terror are no longer the status quo. Australia might yet have a role to play, to partly atone for our leaders’ tremendous error.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.