There has long been an element within the Australian Labor Party that elevates the Palestinian cause far above Australia’s deep and abiding historical support for Israel.
There has long been an element within the Australian Labor Party that elevates the Palestinian cause far above Australia’s deep and abiding historical support for Israel.
Labor’s pro-Palestinian wing is largely led by former Foreign Minister and ex-NSW Premier Bob Carr, who is presently upset by a proposal that Australia move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the nation’s capital, Jerusalem.
“Australia has rewarded a nationalist Israel spreading settlements, all illegal under international law,” Carr wrote online. “And we blow our influence with Malaysia and Indonesia. The Israel lobby must be flushed with success!”
Carr tends to see the power of that lobby in many government decisions. He could be more than slightly fixated. Carr also took issue with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s exposure of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s frequent and vile anti-Semitism
“I can’t believe Josh Frydenberg has taken it on himself to attack [the] Malaysian PM. Federal Treasurers don’t assail leaders of friendly countries. What got into him?” Carr asked.
Sense and reason, most likely. Mahathir’s shameful anti-Semitism is a matter of record. “The Jews are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively,” he wrote in 1970.
“The Western media is biased and are controlled by Jews,” Mahathir wrote in 2009. “I am glad to be labelled anti-Semitic. How can I be otherwise?” he asked in 2012, adding: “We had sympathised with the victims of the Holocaust. That sympathy was wasted and misplaced.”
Read the article by Tim Blair in The Daily Telegraph.