SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Time for Anthony Albanese to stop weasel words and stand up to Iranian menace

There are few more uttered phrases in news bulletins than “the Middle East teeters on the brink”.

Through the last week, as throughout most of the last year, and too often over decades, these words and their derivatives have been repeated ad nauseam.

It is easy for some to become complacent or disinterested, while others contemplate doomsday scenarios.

As we approach the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, there is no denying it has been a shocking year.

For Israelis, the trauma of the October 7 attacks remains real. More Jews were killed in a single day than at any time since the Holocaust.

Women, children, infants and the elderly were brutally slaughtered by Hamas. Innocent civilians were brutalised and raped. Young people at a music festival were hunted down to be killed or kidnapped.

For so many of those kidnapped and their loved ones, they have endured a hell of uncertainty. To this day, Hamas still holds around 100 innocent hostages who were taken last October 7.

For Palestinians living in Gaza, a hellish existence has also confronted them. Hamas’s use of Gazans as human shields puts everyone in harm’s way.

Israel has rightly shown determination to remove the Hamas terrorist threat on its western border. But doing so when Hamas has built a military tunnel network bigger than the New York subway system — beneath hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure — has seen a heavy toll in lives lost and destroyed.

Hamas could have stopped the conflict at any time by releasing hostages and surrendering terrorist capabilities. Instead, they have chosen to use the suffering of Palestinians to advance their cause internationally. Too many governments, including the Albanese Government, have fallen into this trap.

As the conflict with Hamas has raged, their fellow terrorists in Hezbollah and the Houthis have expanded the attacks on Israel, the United States and broader democratic interests.

Since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, Hezbollah has used its bases in Lebanon to fire more than 10,000 missiles and rockets at Israel. It is due only to Israel’s superior defences that these attacks haven’t had devastating consequences, beyond the more than 60,000 northern Israeli residents who’ve had to flee their homes.

The Houthis have also struck at Israel, while deploying even greater effort to disrupt global trade by attacking ships travelling through the Red Sea, to or from the Suez Canal. The Albanese Government has been nothing short of neglectful in its response to international efforts to secure this crucial shipping channel.

As Israel now seeks to also remove the terrorist threat to its north, we have seen Iran launch, for the second time this year and only the second time in modern history, direct attacks against Israel. One hundred and eighty ballistic missiles launched which, again, would have had devastating consequences if not for Israel’s superior defences.

This is where the dots join together. It is easy to see a series of disparate or somewhat disconnected conflicts. Yet behind it all lies Iran, sponsoring each of the terrorist organisations to do their dirty work against Israel, the US and democratic nations in general.

As Iran has now brought itself sharply into focus through their direct attacks on Israel, it is crucial that the world unify in support of efforts to isolate Iran and neuter its destructive capabilities.

For too long the Albanese Government has cited excuse after excuse for not listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp as a terrorist organisation, despite it helping to co-ordinate, arm and fund these attacks. Surely Iran’s latest actions should provide the final straw for our reluctant Prime Minister to act.

The world cannot and should not tolerate an Iranian regime with nuclear weapons capabilities. The world cannot and should not accept that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis get every opportunity to rearm, regroup and repeat their attacks.

The defeat of these terrorist organisations will not only reduce the scope of Iran’s destructive reach but provide an opportunity for Palestinians and Lebanese to regain control from those who oppress them and subject them to such danger.

Rather than weasel words, the Albanese Government should be clear on the “necessity”, as the Biden administration has called it, of dismantling terrorist infrastructure.

War is never anything to celebrate and none of us wish to see conflict broaden. But repeating the mistakes of the past by seeking one-sided outcomes that fail to prevent future terrorist attacks, will only destine the world to keep hearing headlines of the Middle East teetering on the brink, year after year.

As we confront the current conflict, and the first anniversary of October 7, it is time to be true to the words spoken by many in the aftermath of these attacks, never again is now.

Simon Birmingham is the shadow foreign affairs minister