When opponents of the military build-up and critics of the genocide in Palestine went to protest outside the Indo-Pacific Maritime Exposition in Sydney, they were confronted by a huge force of New South Wales police.

It is surprising that the state government found it necessary to deploy such a large force. It is also strange that the police did not place protection around the Darling Harbour exhibition building instead of taking an aggressive approach.

Within the building were firms which are implicated in the Israeli genocide in Palestine. Politicians at both state and federal level — sadly Labor politicians — said that the sponsored “exposition” was important for the future of the “defence” industry. The media generally found such explanation sufficient. They repeated the terminology with its self-contained version of reality.

There was no criticism of the hyperbole and hypocrisy endemic to the term “defence” when used in its current context. But the “exposition” is of weapons of war, meant for offence, not defence. That great peace prize aspirant, President Trump of the US, let the cat out of the bag when he renamed his Department of Defence as the Department of War.

No longer will US weapons go by the euphemistic description as weapons of defence – they will be called weapons of war. They no longer have a secretary of Defence but a secretary of War. At least, Trump did not opt for the Orwellian option and call it the Ministry of Peace.

What a pity Australian politicians cling to the defence myth. They do it, no doubt, because it makes the weapons seem innocuous and their policies pro-Australia and people-friendly. In reality, weapons undermine Australia’s security and threaten people with death, destruction and annihilation. Perhaps “defence” could have an honourable meaning, but not under the current conditions imposed by generations of politicians.

Chances are that the politicians speaking in favour of the offence industry and the merchants of death can look forward to seats on the boards of these war corporations. It goes without saying that what Dylan identified decades ago as these “Masters of War” “who build all the guns … who build the death planes” and, of course, the submarines, will think very favourably of their mouthpieces and minions in governments across Australia. They could not do it without the Marles and Minns brigade. Well, people become known by the company they keep.

As to the “professional” military, their role in the promotion of the war industry probably has more to do with career necessity than personal belief. They might justify their existence by arguing that they are in the peace business because they deter attack, but I doubt that many members of the military really believe this. In the meantime, those who have constructed the cynical paradigm which misleads people about the role of weapons, give no option to members of the military but to endorse the “defence” deception. They, like the NSW police personnel forced to suppress dissent, are caught right in the middle of this fiasco.

Neither Defence Minister Marles nor NSW Premier Minns have any right to adopt such aggressive attitudes in selling the deadly weapons responsible for the genocide in Palestine. The idea that Israel is engaging in self-defence when it has killed so many thousands of Palestinian children, orphaned thousands more, maimed thousands more and traumatised thousands more is illogical, bizarre and cynical.

Regardless of the narrative spun by media and politicians, the protesters at the Darling Harbour exhibition are standing up for humanity and doing this courageously against tremendous odds. They will be assaulted, arrested, vilified and punished according to outdated laws.

Meanwhile, that champion of secrecy, ASIO, tells us that they know of three countries which might carry out assassinations of dissidents in Australia. Without naming these countries, it left us to wonder whether they meant Russia, Iran and China. Yet Britain, the US and Israel have much longer track records in this regard.

How do people reconcile membership of the Labor Party with their exploitation of workers in the military and the police? How can they know of incidents such as Israel’s recent extermination of 4000 Palestinian embryos in an IVF clinic in Gaza and then look us in the eye and tell us what a great exhibition it is at Darling Harbour? Are they great actors or totally naive? If that seems like a choice between being cynical and mercenary or ignorant and insensitive, we have to hope that the tenure of these “masters of war”, as the Dylan song describes them, will soon end and let’s hope that it comes soon.

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