‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’: the Australian establishment and Gaza
After almost two years of horror, two prominent Israeli human rights organisations have finally spoken the truth about the situation in Gaza. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have released reports arguing that Israel has been conducting a “genocidal” policy against Palestinians.
“Based on a careful legal analysis of the facts, we state with a heavy heart this is a genocide”, Guy Shalev, executive director of the physicians’ group, told reporters in Jerusalem. “The systematic destruction of the health care system, the denial of access to food, the blocking of medical evacuations and using humanitarian aid to advance military objectives—all indicate a clear pattern of conduct, a pattern that reveals intent.”
Following the release of these reports, 31 high-profile Israelis—including Academy award recipient Yuval Abraham, former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, and former speaker of Israel’s parliament and former head of the Jewish Agency Avraham Burg—accused the Israeli government of “starving the people of Gaza to death and contemplating the forced removal of millions of Palestinians from the strip”. They also urged states to “impose crippling sanctions on Israel until it ends this brutal campaign and implements a permanent ceasefire”.
Gaza is being starved, with forethought and deliberation, by the Israeli state. This is genocidal state policy. It is denied, of course. Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Canberra, Amir Meron, argues: “We don’t recognise any famine or any starvation in the Gaza Strip. Israel has never acted in a policy of starvation. There is no such policy. There is no starvation in the Gaza Strip and there is no willingness of Israel that such a thing will happen in the Gaza Strip”.
But just as there could be no more credible denials of the American use of napalm in Vietnam after the publication of the image of 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc naked, burnt and sobbing on a smoky road, there today is no credible denial of Israel’s genocide. Even the New York Times, one of Israel’s staunchest public defenders, has been forced to shift its tone, last month publishing a piece by Israeli-American holocaust historian Omer Bartov titled “I’m a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it”.
While a few Israelis are defying the fascism of their own government and calling for serious action against the state in which they live, the most Australia’s political leaders can do is deny and deflect. Anthony Albanese claims Israel’s actions are now “indefensible”. But he refuses to sanction the country. Albanese can’t even muster the willpower to engage in the weak symbolism of recognising a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Penny Wong maintains that selling Israel key components to its F-35 fighter jets is morally justifiable because they are purportedly the “non-lethal” parts.
The Australian establishment is committed to the global military order of the Trumpian United States and its fascist compatriots in Israel. There is no red line for these slaves to the capitalist order. No number of dead children will be enough for them to break with the Western imperialist order of which they are a part.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”, wrote William Shakespeare in The Tempest. The aphorism is appropriate for today’s political landscape. The devils sit in Israeli cabinet meetings, the Australian parliament, the US Congress and elsewhere.
