In the past weeks, an estimated 500 more Gazans have been killed, bombed out of existence by the IDF or killed while queuing for food.

At the same time, the public, in meetings across Australia, have pleaded to their government, “can you hear the children cry?” Meanwhile Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles repeat that thoughtless cliché, “Israel has a right to defend itself”.

Western democracies have also failed to prevent the illegalities and inhumanities of the Israeli killing fields, but their reluctance to confront Israel should not divert attention from similar Australian cowardice.

Only drastic intervention could save Palestinians’ lives and cease governments’ lame explanations for the horrendous slaughter in Gaza, but such a change in policy requires courage to take a risk, to respond to children’s cries, to confront Israeli thuggery and thereby replace a cautious, cowardly tradition of doing nothing.

Intervention to stop the slaughter has not occurred. Courage is missing.

What is courage?

What is that cardinal virtue? Who shows it? Why is it not displayed by the Australian Government and by leaders of other institutions, in state governments, universities, churches and branches of the media?

Appraisals of early Greek households and communities show courage linked to friendship, loyalty, justice and even humour. Together those qualities built coherence and solidarity in a household or community.

In Icelandic sagas, a wry sense of humour gave insights into the exercise of power and encouraged a need to question authority. This meant that chiefs should not be consumed by self-importance, otherwise they would be seen as standing for nothing, as having no clothes.

A courageous leader would admit to avoidance of responsibility, even to being wrong.

In response to today’s slaughter in Gaza, prime ministers and their colleagues should be able to say that the blank cheque previously given to Israel to do what it likes has to end, that intervention to protect Palestinians has to start now.

Apparently, individual traits of courage had been developed in alliance with commitment to collective interests, as in contribution to a fair-minded social order and the ideals of a responsible citizen. Those ideals represented inner held principles which required deliberation about ethics, as in an assessment of a need for courage in relation to strongly held ideals and goals.

Acting courageously reflected and bolstered a social order, respect for a common humanity, in contemporary terms for human rights and international humanitarian law.

How to act courageously

To argue for intervention to cease the horrendous slaughter in Gaza and on the West Bank, politicians, public servants, media commentators, university vice-chancellors, will have to overcome the fear of offending the convention that Israel’s sovereignty must be respected, notwithstanding the hypocrisy in that argument. If sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, why in heaven’s sake not against Israel over Gaza?

Overcoming fear is inherent in courage. Nelson Mandela explained: “I have learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid but he who conquers that fear.”

How to explain why a government is frightened to protect Palestinians’ lives, or even to follow the rulings of the International Court of Justice? Are they frightened of admonishments from Washington, lectures from Netanyahu, by derision from the Zionist lobby and their media acolytes? Do they prefer to be men and women for all seasons, their fingers held in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, keeping their heads down, standing for nothing while children are slaughtered?

The keep-quiet, do-nothing response has allowed bullies to have their way, telling the world that antisemitism is the issue, not decades of ethnic cleansing across Palestine. Dealing with bullies requires a line in the sand which says, :we do not tolerate this behaviour, not in the home, not on streets let alone in international relations".

Arguments for intervention in Palestine have to overcome the entrenched assumption that even the principle of the Responsibility to Protect should be used only as a last resort. Protocol, bureaucratic convention, factional time-wasting in the ALP have contributed to cowardly traditions of not interfering. Minds pondering how to be courageous are hobbled. Proposals that an international peace boat sailing to Gaza laden with water, food and medical supplies should break the Israeli blockade fall on deaf ears. When at crowded public meetings I asked “why no naval escort of humanitarian aid yachts to Gaza?” a public servant explained, “That’s going too far”.

“Too far” meant that the minds of potentially influential people were hemmed in by uncritical acceptance of culture-bound rules as to what governments could and could not do. How to break that unimaginative mindset?

The actions of courageous people

By expressing courage in diverse ways, physical, moral, social or intellectual, significant groups and individuals have shown that if their conduct was reflected in countries’ foreign policies, slaughter would end, Palestine could be free. The list of courageous protests and other acts is long and inspiring.

Palestinian journalists, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers have shown incomparable physical courage but instead of their actions becoming central to the policies of a country such as Australia, they are portrayed merely as peripheral actors, the soon-to-be-killed witnesses to their country’s fate.

As reported in recent editions of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, certain Israeli soldiers have shown moral courage by admitting they were ordered to fire on Palestinians queuing for food at one of four distribution centres. Under the UN, there used to be 400 such centres. At the very least this cruel development should have prompted one powerful Western government to defy convention and intervene.

For 18 months in the world’s cities, tens of thousands have marched each weekend demanding that Palestine be freed, yet the mismatch between public outrage and government inaction remains, which is why individuals are left to hit the headlines by making a stand.

On ABC radio, journalist Antoinette Lattouf protests the Gaza slaughter, is sacked by a frightened management but in recent days, her dismissal has been judged illegal. On the basis of her respect for universal human rights, former SBS newsreader, gutsy freelance journalist Mary Kostakidis crafts her posts in support of Palestine but is attacked and prosecuted by a powerful Melbourne law firm for allegedly being antisemitic.

In politics, former Labor MP Fatima Payman and the recently dismissed minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic, have shown how courage can be displayed even in a political context where punishment quickly follows those who are exceptions to the rule.

On the sports field, cricketer Usman Khawaja has refused to comply with the International Cricket Council’s cowardice in ruling that clothing with a message in support of the rights of Palestinians cannot be displayed. Courageous actions on sports field look like an appeal for fair play but do not appear to affect Cabinet ministers attitude to Israel’s indifference to international law even if the ministers like watching cricket.

Courage remains a cardinal virtue, the social, cultural quality to nurture commitments to common decency, to humanity, let alone the rule of law, but in the shameful controversy over governments’ unwillingness to act in the face of Israeli aggression, a concern with self-preservation — offending the least number of people in foreign policy establishment circles — has overlooked the value of being courageous. That trend is surprising, given the evidence that acts of courage enhance self-respect, self image and are admired by others.

In the opening days of the new Australian Parliament, more than 60 new Labor backbenchers can be reminded that courage is good for mental and physical health, it would be life enhancing if they made sure that ending the Palestinian carnage remained a political priority.

That goal will take courage. Try it. It’s good for you.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations..