Extending Stuart Rees assessment

February 16, 2026

In agreeing completely with Stuart Rees’ assessment, it is also worth mentioning Tasmanian senator Nick McKim’s suggestion that inviting Herzog to Australia was “deliberately inflammatory”.

While it is now beyond doubt that Albanese’s slogan of “social cohesion” is a euphemism to close down all opposition to genocide in Gaza, the means has now escalated beyond criminalisation of non-violent civil disobedience to violent state action against young and old Australian citizens.

It is also significant that Herzog’s presence in Australia coincides with Netanyahu’s presence in Washington at a time where Netanyahu is applying maximum pressure on Washington to destroy Iran.

From the perspective of Australian support for a US-Israeli large-scale war to destroy Iran, Herzog’s visit provides public confirmation of that commitment, while also providing an opportunity for the Australian political-intelligence class to further identify and estimate democratic opposition, and to publicly demonstrate its willingness to use state violence against the civilian population.

This is different to the opposition against the Vietnam War, or the opposition to apartheid in South Africa, because in those cases the ALP, the union movement, and significant sectors of the academy were principled supporters of international law.

That is no longer the case.