Gaza – what can we do about Australia’s complicity in this abhorrence? It is a question that rots the soul…
Indiscriminate destruction of civilian populations on an industrial scale as a legitimate weapon for war started, in the West, with the attack on Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. The outage depicted by Picasso’s painting of the same name has long since dissipated, dwarfed by much larger crimes.
Bomber Harris put together the 1,000 bomber raid on Dresden, important because it was the first openly planned indiscriminate targeting of a civilian population rather than just collateral damage to military targets. US general Curtis LeMay took this approach further, adding a barbarity to the mix with full use of incendiaries added to the bomb loads to immolate the wooden houses of the civilian population in Tokyo.
Only one of these was a war crime because apparently only the enemy commits these. Winners are exempt from the charge.
We had hoped not to see the likes of these barbaric monsters again. Netanyahu has not just surprised the world by their continued existence, but he has also shown just how shallow and fragile our outrage is and how unsophisticated we are beneath the cloak of advanced precision weapons. These are the weapons that have targeted, with precision, almost every square metre of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, and which destroy entire housing blocks, and their inhabitants, in pursuit of a single target.
How have we come to this? What can we do about it? These are the two questions the so-called ‘greatest generation’ struggled with at the end of World War II. Australia played a leading role in developing answers. Their response was the United Nations.
Now our response is to undermine the UN, its operations and its meaning in a contemptible attempt to support American interests. Defence Minister Marles and others may think the attacks on Irish peacekeepers are of little importance only because these are not Australian peacekeepers. But even if they were, there is more than a whiff of doubt about just how strong the Australian reaction would be.
The outrage about the targeted death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom turned out to be barely a candle in the wind, easily overwhelmed by Israeli intransigeance.
How complicit are we if we allow our leaders, our parliamentarians to avoid being actively involved, or to mutely stand by, turning their eyes away from the scrolling stories on their screens.
We could reasonably argue that the allies didn’t know about Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, despite the persistent rumours and the intimate knowledge of the US and British intelligence services at the time.
Today we cannot argue that we do not know about the deliberate massacres in Gaza, the targeting of aid and humanitarian services, attacks on UN peacekeepers and the broadening destruction writ-large upon the cities of Lebanon.
Literally in goose step with Netanyahu, our political leaders seem immune from hearing the other side of the story. They make a conscious choice not to see. Like 7-year old children in Gaza, they cover their eyes against the horror, and hope this makes it disappear or go away. Of course there are no sound effects in the comfort of the Qantas Chairman’s lounge, around the cabinet table, or in the halls of parliament.
Foreign Minister Wong, Defence Minister Marles, Prime Minister Albanese and others from the Opposition could be excused. They have no experience of conflict and are happy to believe the carefully curated propaganda delivered as news by the Murdoch, Israeli and US media. With monstrous titillation they seem delighted to solemnly speak of the horror of 40 beheaded babies – a story that has been well and truly shown to be just IDF propaganda. Like automats operating with limited artificial intelligence, they endlessly repeat the figure of 1400 dead in the Hamas attack even though the IDF later revised it to 1,139. They use this to justify the indiscriminate slaughter of more than 40,000 in Gaza, and thousands of others across Israeli borders. Never mind that reputable Israeli media sources have months ago identified the operation of the Hannibal Directive where Israeli forces fired upon Israeli civilians, accounting, by some estimates, for more than a third of the civilian casualties on October 7, 2023.
Perhaps the deepest contempt of all is reserved for the reactions of those Parliamentarians who are proud to promote their military service. These ‘wolverines’ deserve more approbation because they, above all others in the Parliament, know the meaning of the rules of engagement and the constraints they impose on combat. They, above all others, should recognise the war crimes that are being committed and should be the first to cry out.
Instead, a deadly, deathly silence is protected behind doors carrying childish logos.
What can we do? That is a question that rots the soul. For my part I support Medecins Sans Frontieres and I write analysis and commentary in the vain-glory hope that it can somehow make a difference because when it comes to voting for change at the upcoming election, I can only wish a pox on both their houses. But at least, when an accounting of history is made, I hope I can say I tried.
Daryl Guppy
Daryl Guppy is an international financial technical analysis expert. He has provided weekly Shanghai Index analysis for mainland Chinese media for more than a decade. Guppy appears regularly on CNBC Asia and is known as "The Chart Man". He is a former national board member of the Australia China Business Council. The views expressed here are his own.
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