Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has sharpened the government’s language around the siege of Gaza and called for an end to what he termed “competitive grief” over the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying the civilian population of Gaza was “moments away from horrific impacts” as water, fuel and food run out and Hamas terrorists prioritise themselves.
In a lengthy interview this morning on the ABC, Burke used information he said his own constituents in his western Sydney seat of Watson had received from on the ground in Gaza to describe conditions resulting from Israel’s siege, with dramatic consequences for water supply and hospitals. Burke twice mentioned the Israeli defence minister’s description of Gazans as “human animals” in the wake of the October 7 Hamas atrocities in Israel that saw more than 1,400 Israelis murdered.
“We need to be able to distinguish in the debate in Australia between Hamas and Palestinians,” Burke said. “There have been too many occasions when the two have been conflated, and the military conflict is meant to be against Hamas.”
He also strongly endorsed the Canterbury-Bankstown Council’s decision to fly the Palestinian flag and said that in his electorate “pretty much everybody knows somebody who has lost someone. And until the council made that decision, there was nowhere in Australia where those colours were being acknowledged as worthy of grieving … It’s a flag that gives people the chance to know that there is recognition and not selective grief. We can’t say we only grieve for certain people who are slaughtered.”
Burke’s comments both shift the government’s tone around the impact on Palestinian civilians of Israel’s response to Hamas’ atrocities and point to a glaring failure in media coverage, which has tended to play down the death toll of Palestinian civilians. Gazan sources put the death toll at nearly 7,000, but those estimates have been dismissed as inflated and propaganda. There have also been more than 100 Palestinian deaths in the West Bank, according to Palestinian sources there.
“The concept of competitive grief that has driven some in the media is not something I want to see in Australia,” Burke said.
The presence of large numbers of voters of Middle Eastern heritage in western Sydney electorates has been portrayed in some parts of the media as a political problem for Labor, preventing Labor figures like Burke and Energy Minister Chris Bowen from offering the level of support to Israel deemed necessary by journalists. In discussing what he’s hearing from his own constituents, however, Burke has turned that purported problem around and shifted the focus to why the media has been so selective in its coverage and levels of outrage.
Long before October 7, Palestinians were erased and othered by the Australian media, existing only as a security threat to Israel without basic rights of their own. The lack of interest in the media in the death toll in Gaza and the consequences of Israel’s curtailment of fuel, food and water continues this tradition, with the focus instead on when Israel will launch its invasion and weapon-porn articles extolling the wonders of Israeli military technology.
Burke’s remarks will inevitably be used by the opposition and the media to argue Labor is soft in its support for Israel and thus soft on terrorism. For large numbers of voters with relatives in the region, the stakes are much higher than media games.
It’s good to see some spine being shown and a direct challenge from a senior ALP Minister to the corporate LNP-friendly mainstream media. I’m not surprised it’s come from Tony Burke as he’s a throughly decent human being.
Probably more to do with his electorate, as Bernard indicates. But nevertheless a decent politician will represent his constituents with a degree of humanity.
It is supposed to be all about his electorate – he was elected to represent their views.
This is what representative democracy should look like, not the reprsenting interests of corporations and the USA that we’ve become used to.
There’s a little context missing on ‘“We need to be able to distinguish in the debate in Australia between Hamas and Palestinians,’, i.e. offshore the narratives have been quickly submerged within the broader Palestine-Israel context that gives PR advantage to both Hamas leadership and Netanyahu’s, after their recent behaviour?
Russia’s Putin is chummy with both Netanyahu and Hamas leadership, what’s that all about, simply supporting disruption when allied with Iran and Syria?
Some including Sam Vaknin posit that we are observing two codependent narcissistic regimes whose end games are unclear but include authoritarianism and antipathy from their own (Sunni) Gulf State neighbours & alleged allies, while Palestinian and Israeli civilians are collectively thrown under the bus?
I listened intensely to Tony Burke being interviewed by Patricia Karvelas this morning on ABC Radio National. One mildly pleasing aspect of that interview, to me at any rate, was the tentative impression I gained that the ALP might, at last, be growing at least the semblance of a primitive, nascent backbone on this issue. Tony Burke’s welcome comments come on the tail of those made by ALP frontbenchers, Ed Husic and Anne Aly. To the best of my knowledge, no similar remarks have been made by senior politicians on the Liberal Party side (nor would I expect any from that mob).
So far, The Greens seem to be the only (relatively) major party that has the guts to take a firm stand against the Israeli propaganda onslaught. I noted that Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, was a speaker at a Pro-Palestine rally that I attended in Melbourne last Sunday at the Victorian State Library (there will be another rally this coming Sunday at the same venue commencing at 12.00 noon).
The treatment that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian population by the colonialist, occupying forces for more than 75 years has been shocking and despicable. I only hope that more Labor politicians will have the courage to take a stand against the ethnic cleansing and outright genocide that has been occurring in occupied Palestine for decades. Palestine has a right to self-defense which, according to my moral compass, far exceeds the right of their colonialist occupiers to their ‘right to commit genocide’.
I would invite the current gathering of Labor politicians to do a little reading of history and study the policy that the party adopted in relation to the Vietnam War back in the 1960s and 70s. It involved taking a stand against the United States warmongers, something the current batch of Labor politicians seem incapable of bringing themselves to do.
“I would invite the current gathering of Labor politicians to do a little reading of history”
Ah, you see that’s the problem (not just in Australia).
As shown in relation to other past and current issues, we prefer to ignore historical context when it’s inconvenient, doesn’t suit our agenda and shows our self-proclaimed civility and enlightenment, and our respect for human rights and international laws for what they are – mostly just pretty words with no basis in reality.
To acknowledge history would oftentimes mean that some who so eagerly ascribe blame to others, so easily sacrifice countless lives would have to admit their own culpability. They’d have admit to their machinations designed to benefit themselves without any regard for laws, national sovereignty and lives of others. They’d would have to take responsibility. It’s an anathema.
I support Burke and thed Palestinians. We should distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians. We have no beef with Palestinians. They are in early stage colonisation with Israel actively stealing their land and suppressing them in every way. Israel kills on average about 200 Palestinians per year, year in year out. Thats in addition to regularly bulldozing peoples house and water cisterns, olive groves, you name it. Even going to work each day through a border crossing is a nightmare opportunity for Israel to make Palestinian lives miserable, and they do.
We need to support Palestinians.
First of the west should stop hiding behind the two states solution,it isnt going to happen
Yes. When you think about it, what does it even mean. It’s a nice 3 word “sound bite” but that’s all it is.
BTW. I do know what it means but it has less support than ever. It’s a non starter as Graham said above.
It’s not been likely for 20yrs and is dead as the proverbial since NastyBB’s stated intention to legislate “Israel as a Jewish state!”
This was anathema to every sane Israeli politician for the first 40-50yrs – even when PM Menachem Begin, erstwhile commander of the Irgun Zvai Leumian which blew up the King David hotel in 1946 when it was the British Mandate HQ.
It began, as widely agreed by the West, as “a state for Jews” – quite a different cup of hemlock.
Yes, we need the single state of Israel-Palestine, with all residents being able to be citizens and have a vote.
At last an acknowledgement from Labor that Oct 7 wasn’t the start of it.