CAMERON MILNER: The Prime Minister’s weak leadership on Israel is an Albanese problem, not a Labor problem

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shamed Labor’s rich history of standing with Israel and the Australian Jewish community.

It sets aside the multi-generational legacy and Labor Party involvement in the creation of Israel and the unwavering support for the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East.

Bob Hawke said of Israel: “If the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind”.

Daniel Andrews, a leader of the ALP Left has recently become a patron of the Labor Friends of Israel and states unequivocal support for Israel.

Andrews put it so well when called Israel “a home for a culture as old as civilisation … for the survivors of mankind’s worst crime … a great, precarious social and economic experiment willed by a brave people”.

And Australian Labor was there also at the very start. Dr HV Evatt, Labor’s minister for the exterior — a precursory minister for foreign affairs — chaired the 1947 UN Commission that recommended the creation of Israel and of a separate Arab state in Palestine.

Fast forward to the current holder of the office, mean girl and Hamas apologist, Penny Wong.

Wong is on her way out but is determined to define her legacy as a lackey of the anti-Israel movement. Her performance last week proselytising for Palestine and then hanging out with her Pally mates rather than listening to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address the UN assembly was an absolute disgrace.

As revealed exclusively by Sharri Markson, the snub from Wong and the excuses afterwards just show how out of step the minister is with the rest of our allies in the West.

Hezbollah has been raining rockets on Israel for months. Iran conducted its second missile attack on Israeli civilian targets in as many months, yet Wong can’t bring herself to unreservedly condemn Hezbollah and can’t define when and how Israel should be able to defend itself.

But this isn’t just playing out half a world away. Australia is seeing its own social fabric under threat.

No time, not even during the height of the Irish troubles in Northern Ireland, has Australia seen such mobs of violent thugs on our streets in Australia. Our social cohesion is being tested like never before and as a country we need our elected representatives to stare down the Islamic extremists, back in our police forces, stand with Jewish Australians and stand up for the rest of Australia.

A year on from the sickening attack by Hamas on October 7 that saw women and children murdered, raped, burnt to death and taken hostage, the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust, Australia stands on a precipice of massive social unrest.

A Christian bishop was stabbed and blinded by an Islamic terrorist on Albo’s watch. A feral celebration the day after the Hamas massacre occurred at the Opera House where chants of “Gas the Jews” were heard on Albo’s watch. Islamic clerics in Western Sydney have called for jihad on Albo’s watch. UK and Germany-listed terrorist group Hizb ut-Tahrir operates openly in Western Sydney on the PM’s watch. Hate preachers continue to hate preach and Albo just lets it all slide.

Hamas signs were hung on our national Parliament and the Australian War Memorial was graffitied with pro-Hamas messaging. Hamas flags were also over our taxpayer-funded sandstone universities.

An Iranian national holding a Hezbollah flag and calling Australia a “pathetic, tyrannical, terrorist regime” has still not been arrested or deported.

The Iranian Ambassador, a guest of Australia, praised Nasrallah, the now-dead Hezbollah leader as a “martyr”. This bloke should be punted from Australia but is welcome to stay according to Wong and her weak leader, Albo.

As Albanese is fond of saying: “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”.

But these aren’t isolated events. There have just been way too many of them under Albanese not to call out the domestic security threat to our nation’s safety. Those who love Hamas and Hezbollah and hate Australia and Israel in equal measure are emboldened by the Prime Minister’s abject failure to show any spine.

This weekend was a culmination of the PM’s capitulation to the hate preachers, the Islamic extremists and the handing of moral leadership to Cabinet ministers like Wong and Tony Burke.

Wong might have cried tears of joy as Australians voted for marriage equality and she got to become Mrs Wong earlier this year. Well in Iran she would be flogged with 100 lashes. Her male equivalent would be sentenced to death by hanging.

The Hezbollah leader said of LGBTIQA+ people “even if they do it once … they are to be killed”.

Since when has Australia been so loath to condemn such horrendous hate speech or the actions of a tyrannical regime like Iran? In 2001, when the US was attacked by Islamic terrorists we went to war with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Now Israel is attacked similarly, Albanese ministers hand out gratuitous advice and call for ceasefires.

All we see under Albanese is the use of weasel words. Support for Israel isn’t a natural response, instead, it’s extracted like pulling teeth and always, always with a caveat. “Israel has a right to defend itself, but”.

Meanwhile, Burke threatens sanctions but won’t lift a finger to do anything lest he lose his seat at the next election. One of the biggest anti-Israel rallies today, promoted by an internationally-listed terrorist organisation was held at the Lakemba Mosque, the heart of Burke’s electorate.

Thank goodness though Labor has leaders like Premier Chris Minns. He’s clear-eyed and has called it right, from condemning the Opera House protest to attending a vigil with Sydney’s Jewish community today.

So, this isn’t a Labor problem, it’s an Albanese problem.

Albanese is chronically weak as a politician, who repeatedly under-performs and constantly disappoints. His weakness though isn’t just about diminishing Australia’s international standing. It has given succour to extremists already living in Australia.

Sometimes Albo comes close to mouthing the right words, but he always self edits and guaranteed he never takes any follow-through actions.

Albanese’s weakness is all pervasive, just as the strength of Wong and Burke and their anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian stance is on steroids.

Labor can still be a friend of Israel. It’s been there from the start and shown such sound bipartisan leadership alongside the Liberal Party of Australia. Yet Albanese seems determined to trash all of that. Like Albanese’s political mentor Jeremy Corbyn, who allowed anti-Semitism to flourish in UK Labor, this era of moral depravity will need to be purged and relationships rebuilt.

Cameron Milner is director of GXO Strategies and a former ALP State secretary with three decades’ experience in Labor campaigns.