Herzog visit sparks questions over Australia’s ‘core values’

Israeli President Herzog’s visit has reignited questions about whether Australia’s “core values” align with its stance on Gaza, writes George Grundy.

“...our policy will also be about putting Australians first and putting Australian values first. We want people who come to this country to believe in our core values.” ~ Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor’s maiden speech as Opposition Leader may have focused on immigration, but it was delivered in the same week that the President of Israel’s visit was met with state-sponsored chaos on Sydney’s streets, so the contradiction in just when and to whom these “values” apply seems more acute than ever.

By inviting Isaac Herzog to visit Australia, following the appalling atrocity at Bondi Beach, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese placed himself in an impossible position. On the one hand, the Prime Minister appeared to feel the need to provide a symbolic gesture of solidarity with Australia’s Jewish diaspora, understandably enraged at the Bondi attacks.

On the other hand, Albanese must have known that Australians overwhelmingly condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and that to invite a man who literally signs bombs would be perceived as a tacit endorsement of a slaughter that has claimed at least 70,000 Gazan lives. Herzog’s visit always seemed destined to undermine the “social cohesion” for which Mr Albanese’s Royal Commission was reluctantly established.

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Taking Angus Taylor’s words at face value, Australians need to consider if Isaac Herzog, as representative of the state of Israel, truly embodies “our core values” and that means addressing the actions of Israel in Gaza over the last two years, which hundreds of human rights and humanitarian organisations have described as a genocide.

The Prime Minister rarely addresses individual outrages, preferring to deal in generalities, but it would be interesting to know his view on whether Australian “core values” align with how Israel has:

employed U.S.-made (and legally questionable) thermobaric weapons against Palestinian civilians, munitions that burn at such high temperatures that no trace was left of the 3,000 Palestinians that the weapons killed;
used quad-copters in so-called “double tap” strikes against medics and first responders providing aid to survivors (including children) of an initial bomb strike. Israeli drones have also played the recorded sounds of crying babies and screaming women, to lure Palestinians outside so they can be slaughtered, and executed humanitarian paramedics, burying the bodies to hide the evidence;
used torture and sexual abuse against Palestinians in their captivity, doing things like smashing the hands of surgeons (so they can never work again); and
specifically targeted children and infants for sniper and drone attacks. In fact, Israel has clearly sought to decimate Palestinian civil society, arresting and assassinating civic leaders and individuals such as doctors, lawyers, journalists, writers, even poets, as well as destroying schools, health care facilities and hospitals, fresh water treatment plants (over 250 times) and electrical infrastructure. A recent UN report suggested that Israel was conducting ‘ethnic cleansing’ aimed at a ‘permanent demographic shift’ in Gaza.

Israel attacked six nearby nations last year alone. It has killed and injured thousands, including children, with exploding pagers. Australian war graves have been bulldozed in Gaza City. The list of horror goes on, and on, and on.

Many of these actions are very clearly war crimes, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a wanted war criminal according to the International Criminal Court (ICC — a court officially recognised by Australia). No other nation on Earth could carry out this kind of mayhem and expect to be welcomed to Australian shores with open arms.

Government pressed on legal implications of Isaac Herzog visit

As Israeli President Isaac Herzog begins his visit to Australia, the Federal Government faces mounting legal pressure over its obligations under international and domestic law.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack at Bondi, Netanyahu said that the Australian Government had “let the disease” of antisemitism spread, and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today”. Every other allied nation issued statements, uniformly expressing horror and solidarity. Only Netanyahu chose to exploit such a desperate occasion to blame this country for what had happened.

By Netanyahu’s logic, any nation making even the tiniest concession towards Palestinians is directly responsible for violence against jews. It is Netanyahu who most regularly conflates the state of Israel with broader Judaism, something many Jewish groups condemn.

The invitation offered to President Herzog represents the most catastrophic misjudgment of Anthony Albanese’s prime ministership. Our leaders speak airily of Australian values while welcoming the head of a state carrying out an ongoing genocide and when the people of Australia expressed their horror, many were beaten senseless by police thugs, even when praying in the street.

Herzog may have returned to Israel, but the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank continue every day and Anthony Albanese has done far too little to distance this country from a horror recognised by nearly every nation on Earth.

Antisemitism is a scourge in our society. Every right-thinking person condemns it unequivocally. But Judaism and the political direction of Israel are not the same thing, and the Prime Minister has failed the nation in not drawing the distinction.

Australians can and should be able to be outraged at the horrific attack in Bondi and sickened by the carnage in Gaza at the same time.