Pearls and Irritations

Notwithstanding efforts to censure and bully journalists such as Antoinette Lattouf, Mary Kostakidis, John Lyons and Sophie McNeill, as well as grossly exaggerating anti-semitism on university campuses in an attempt to shut down pro-Palestinian encampments (and divert public attention from the genocide), I think it is a mistake to explain the Albanese Government’s Gaza policy shambles and moral degeneration as a testament to the power of the Israel lobby.

The performing arts have also been targeted, as have journalists who don’t reflexively endorse Israel’s right to slaughter anyone it considers a nuisance or a threat. Even those who consider Israel to be bound by international law are fair game and ripe for slander, including accusations of racism and “blood libel”.

Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong know in detail just how horrific the slaughter has been, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. They get daily briefings. That’s why they no longer run damage control, crisis management and the self-defence argument on Israel’s behalf as enthusiastically as they did last year.

But I don’t think Australian policy is simply in hock to the Israel lobby. I think a more convincing argument is that it is responding to pressure from Washington. The ALP doesn’t worry about a small, noisy local pressure group whose views they widely share. They can be irritating, but are not electorally or politically decisive.

However, in the post-Whitlam period they have always been paranoid about offending the Americans, even when they think the US might be wrong. How else can AUKUS be explained? Why would Canberra, under instructions from Washington, antagonise our most important trading partner, provoking it with nuclear submarines (which will never be built) just to help the US maintain its strategic primacy in the region?

The most aggressive and expansionist power in our part of the world is the US, not China. AUKUS is a recipe for destabilisation and for handing over $400 billion of Australian taxpayer dollars to US and British arms contractors.

This compulsive support for US strategic interests, whether it be in East Asia or the Middle East, is the key to Australia’s growing international isolation on Israel. It even trumps real-time video coverage of, until now, the century’s worst crime.

Every Western state which has rushed to supply and diplomatically support Israel in its destruction of Gaza, its ongoing colonisation of the West Bank and its second attack on Lebanon in 40 years, will reap unprecedented reputational damage from which honest historians and journalists should never let them recover.

We should not dismiss the influence of the Israeli lobby in Australia, but it is worth noting a couple of points.

First, the primary target of the lobby is the media, ensuring where possible pro-Israeli opinion pieces and news coverage. Intimidation, threats and pressure on journalists and editors to paint Israel in a positive light are all part of the mix. Conversely, those who don’t succumb to bullying can expect to be slandered and adversely backgrounded.

In the case of Murdoch media such as The Australian, nothing is required of the lobby: they are preaching to the converted. Or more accurately, to people more extreme in their one-sided views than you would find in the Israeli media. Gerard Henderson, Greg Sheridan, Cameron Stewart, Chris Mitchell, Henry Ergas, Gemma Tognini and others appear to be in a competition to see who can be the most fanatical defender of Israel’s crimes.

In other outlets, the lobby insists on “even-handedness”, meaning a right of reply to critics who raise uncomfortable questions about Israeli violence and colonisation. There are few, if any other, international subjects where this right is provided so routinely. Can anyone imagine The Age granting Russian spokespeople equal time to put their case on Ukraine?

Recently, The Age ran a link on the front page of its online version so those who disagreed with Louise Adler’s well informed and articulate commentary earlier in the week could have restorative balance in the form of readers’ letters. No matter how egregious Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians and the seizure of their lands, “bothsidesism” must prevail.

Secondly, on the question of policy formation, the lobby doesn’t need to work very hard on the major parties because both the ALP and the LNP share its position. As on Capitol Hill in Washington, many politicians in Australia’s major parties are equally, if not more, fanatically Zionist than the groups who pay for their “guided tours” around the Middle East.

That’s why nothing significant changes on Israel-Palestine policy regardless of who is in government. The views of MPs don’t need to be won over by the Israel lobby: they are already in lockstep. With some honourable exceptions, primarily among the Greens, fealty to Israel is bipartisan in Canberra: despite the Gaza genocide, expanding settlements on the West Bank, and now the attacks on Lebanon.

As far as the ALP is concerned, could there be a more propitious moment to recognise Palestine, when successive National Conferences have asked the Albanese Government to accept the right of these benighted people to self-determination? The answer is no, because by attaching the policy change to progress in a non-existent peace process while the Israeli Government and Knesset reject outright the possibility of a two-state solution, Albanese and Wong ensure that nothing can change. They even expelled a senator from the party for calling for the implementation of ALP policy.

It may be tempting to see dark conspiracies at play here, but the uglier truth is that in Australia the Israel lobby doesn’t need to work very hard to secure its political objectives. For the most part, they are pushing at an open door.

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