The Amsterdam incident exposes Australian supine and servile dishonour and dishonesty
Nov 20, 2024
The subservience of the Labor-Coalition political class to Washington is now almost complete. It is no longer possible to consider the Albanese-Dutton political groupings as anything other than propagandists for US imperial interests. This has been apparent for some time, but it has now reached the stage of making John Howard’s role as “deputy sheriff” appear as a form of forceful independence.
It is now almost a weekly occurrence for senior Australian politicians to repeat almost verbatim what was said by senior US officials. Thus, for example, when Penny Wong falsely described the people of Amsterdam as “antisemitic” for opposing hundreds of Israeli thugs who flew to Amsterdam for a soccer match and proceeded to vandalise Dutch property, chant racist slogans, and refuse to observe a minute’s silence for Valencia’s flood victims, she used language almost identical to that of US official Anthony Blinken.
Wong described the Dutch reaction to Israeli mob violence in Amsterdam as “abhorrent”, and had nothing to say about the instigators or their chants expressing support for the murder of children in Gaza and the rape of Palestinian prisoners. So now it is antisemitic to stop Israelis from brazen violent behaviour in a foreign country. Would Wong endorse a Blinken statement that the Israeli soccer team being beaten 5 – 0 was an example of anti-semitism?
Just to drive home how flagrantly and egregiously Penny Wong distorted the truth about what happened in Amsterdam one only has to watch and hear video recordings of the events, and read what reputable witnesses had to report.
Two highly credentialed journalists, Patrick Lawrence and Johnathon Cook, among others, have written at length about the truth of the matter, the video evidence embedded in their articles. Cook made the point that it was an Israeli politician, Ofer Cassif, who made clear what Penny Wong refuses to acknowledge, that “[Israeli] fans go on a violent rampage, carry out beatings, tear up Palestinian flags in the streets as if they were an occupying force, and shout Nazi slogans in favour of the extermination of a nation [Palestinians], and then whine when the situation degenerates into complete chaos and violence returns to them like a boomerang.”
Lawrence, in noting some of the “obscene, probably criminal slogans” used by the Israelis — “Kill the Arabs,” “Fuck you Palestine,” “There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left,” “Let the IDF fuck the Arabs,” – identifies the last slogan as support for IDF soldiers found to have gang-raped Palestinian prisoners.
This is some of the evidential context within which the Australian foreign minister chose to depict these hooligans as victims of antisemitism.
Cook also articulated the wider context, that Israelis “were celebrating in someone else’s city the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza”. Furthermore, as Ben Burgis and Professor Djene Bajalan have written, using the designation of “antisemitism”, and even more outlandishly “pogrom”, in defence of outrageous behaviour of Israeli citizens in Amsterdam, to “opportunistically smear global dissent against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as classically antisemitic only serves to trivialize genuine horrors”, as well as being dishonourable, disreputable and deceitful.
The narrative espoused by the Australian political establishment in relation to Amsterdam lies in ruins, but it is tellingly representative of Australia’s vassalage to the US. We won’t be hearing any retractions from Penny Wong, or any corrections to her false statements, in the light of now-established facts. She’ll be keeping to the script of the Biden-Blinken misinformation package.
All evidence on the ground, no matter where, no matter how strong, no matter how indisputable, which demands effective preventive action, is completely ignored by the Albanese government and Dutton Coalition.
It goes without saying that the daily slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza is simply ignored, as is the on-going scorched-earth erasure of south Lebanon, as is the obvious ethnic-cleansing of north Gaza in order to create an Israeli settler enclave, as are the latest statements from Israeli officials that they are preparing for the annexation of the West Bank now that Trump has been elected.
It goes without saying that Australia will do nothing of any meaning to stop the measures of starvation now being employed by Israel in Gaza, especially in relation to Israel imposing a ban on UNRWA to work there.
It is abundantly clear that Australia does not support international humanitarian law, except on the very rare occasions a minor and meaningless difference with the US cynically conveys a sense of independence. Exceptions do not apply to internationally determined rules of war, rights of self-defence and rights of occupied territories, the definition of apartheid, and the rights of civilians – including children.
Thus, Australian political leaders have no interest in the eye witness accounts of health workers, journalists and humanitarian agencies in Gaza, nor in the massive photographic record of atrocity after atrocity. They ignore doctors’ accounts of children being deliberately shot by drones and snipers. They ignore all war crimes committed by the Israeli military.
Australia has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention to comply with the requirements of the International Court of Justice to cease “All transfer and trade agreements with Israel, including but not limited to equipment, weapons, munitions, parts, components, dual use items and technology.”
Australian airports are being used as refuelling bases for US long range bombers to attack Yemen, obviously in direct defiance of UN attempts to prevent assistance being given to Israel in its destruction of Palestinian society and its aim of creating Eretz Israel incorporating all Palestinian land.
The Australian response to the “Amsterdam incident” aptly represents the ignominious, decrepit and contemptible puppet status the Labor-Coalition political class aspires to as its singularly most important objective.
Peter Henning was an activist small farmer in Tasmania who opposed the building of Gunns’ pulp mill in Tasmania, and the destruction of water catchments and agricultural land by MIS monocultural agribusiness and the industrial pulpwood industry.
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