A call to ceasefire is only the beginning

With Australia joining other nations in favour of a Gaza ceasefire, it's time to put more pressure on our leaders to take further action in ending Palestinian suffering, writes Tom Tanuki.

LOCAL SUPPORTERS of unchecked Israeli bloodshed continue to pour into my DMs to tell me that rallying in aid of a ceasefire is naïve because you can't get rid of Hamas any other way than to continue to indiscriminately slaughter everyone in sight, even when they're holding white flags. Currently, I am replying to these supporters: well, now you live in a country where we've officially joined the call for a ceasefire, so perhaps you are the naïve one.

I'm one of many who believe that happened because a sustained campaign of ten weeks of nationwide protest action has taken effect. We have not sat around inventing breezy excuses for the mass murder of children, borne of some sick notion of loyalty to another nation’s nationalism. Now our leaders have – sort of – buckled before our demands. I wish I could feel more satisfied. But it's a start.

I was naïve enough to think we'd never get to this point. Australia is a nation of bipartisan Israeli state worship and collusion. I have previously written here to show that most of our living prime ministers' track records consist of undisguised kowtowing to Israel and active obfuscation of decades of Palestinian suffering.

United Nations failing to find Middle East solution

An open letter to His Excellency, the president of the United Nations, Mister Dennis Francis.

But PM Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong made this call, under duress and amid a growing crowd of 152 other nations who supported a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire. Labor has managed to underpin its support for this resolution by reinvoking the same maddeningly meaningless phrasing of a “humanitarian pause” in statements surrounding this shift — the very same weasel words it spent October and November using to avoid uttering the dreaded C-word.

Labor has made statements reasserting Israel’s right to defend itself. It is also letting the more rabidly pro-Israel of its MPs attend junkets to show off their support. So what they are doing is not nearly enough. But it's a shift.

The humanitarian disaster in Gaza is more apparent than ever and this is doubtless a factor. But we've had a wealth of evidence to go on from independent media and human rights organisations since October about the nightmare unfolding for millions of innocent Gazans, so I'm forced to assume that evidence wasn't what forced this shift. I believe we did that. We, who did not shut up, online or on the streets. People who sat in politicians' offices or in public places; people who blocked ships on kayaks, or trucks by lying in front of them; people who daubed red paint on MPs' offices, chased Albanese through Darwin restaurants or held up traffic heading into the Melbourne Cup.

Rarely has as sustained a popular, ongoing series of peace actions and demonstrations occurred in Australia. It's been very inspiring to take part in. It has effected a great deal of pressure on our leadership. And despite that leadership's enduring hesitation to upset the U.S.-Israel apple cart, we've forced the beginnings of a change in tune.

The rallies and actions will, of course, continue. We are about more than the business of forcing one Anthony Albanese to relocate his political and moral spine. Israel will likely ignore any and all nations up to and including its chief benefactor and enabler, the United States. Tactically, pressuring Australia's political leadership into change was only but one more domino along the long path to finally forcing America to call an end to the slaughter (which it – and only it – has the power to make Israel do).

Then and now: How support for Palestine became a prominent movement

Rallies in support of Palestine are a reminder of the anti-Iraq War protests of 2003, only now the people are raising their voices from a different perspective.

We are also expressing mass-scale, urgent solidarity with and support for our Palestinian brothers and sisters under fire. We demand tougher government measures, including sanctions, against Israel. We demand boycotts, divestments and sanctions.

And our movement is reflective of a moral urgency. We cry for the uncounted, untold dead of Gaza, men women and children. We reject the brutal worldview of those who would endorse and run cover for the ongoing slaughter of children, the wanton bombing of schools, refugee camps and hospitals. We demand to live in a world in which this insanity is stopped and then called to account. We will continue — over Christmas, into 2024, until we see freedom and safety for Palestinians.

The Zionist Federation of Australia and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry issued a statement on the UN ceasefire resolution questioning the very notion that ‘Hamas can somehow be defeated without there being any large-scale impact on the civilian population’.

By this ‘large-scale impact’, they mean 25,000 dead Gazans in two months. You just have to accept that kind of thing now. This barbarous new low in the popular consensus on war – that it's now okay to murder as many kids as you like because a bad man may be hiding around them – goes against international law and any sense of human decency.

Anyone who fights to prove that thousands of dead children have been a worthwhile measure to enact vengeance should be taken seriously only at their thirst for war. Not for their integrity, politics or morals. On those, they are a disgrace.

We want nothing less than complete freedom, safety and sovereignty for Palestinians. We will continue to pressure our leaders to summon the necessary spine to act in accordance with our demands.

Tom Tanuki is a writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist. Tom does weekly videos on YouTube commenting on the Australian political fringe. You can follow Tom on Twitter @tom_tanuki.