My new favourite word is ‘pusillanimous’ which seems to so rightly describe this mob of invertebrates and fence sitters we have somehow managed to elect into government. Take for example the term ‘antisemitism’, an ironic misnomer itself on the basis of etymology, evolving as it has as a descriptor of a vile attitude and behaviour toward people of Jewish ancestry and yet cannot be uttered without the corresponding reference to ‘Islamophobia’. This ridiculous insistence on balance and moral relativity.
In honesty, there probably is a something of a reluctance readily to trust people of Islamic heritage but we here in Australia are on the whole an egalitarian mob ready to embrace anyone who will chip in and have a go; so long as they don’t go inflicting us with their religious extremism. Surely this is the same healthy scepticism with which we observed the Greek and Italian immigrants in the late 40s and 50s of the last century. Yet within a generation these people were all just Aussies who had come here to embrace a better way of life and escape a European landscape destroyed by war. And, we are the richer for their contribution.
By contrast, our ready acceptance of people of Jewish extraction has brought us to a place where per head of population we have more Jews, arguably, than any other Western nation apart from Israel itself. Providentially the ‘A’ in Australia meant that Australia was one of the first countries to recognise the re-established state of Israel in 1947 but our history with Israel goes back further than this. It was the Australian light cavalry under Harry Chauvel who were largely responsible for freeing the then known Palestine from the Ottoman Turks in the ‘Great War’ of 1914-18. History attributes the liberation of both Damascus and Gaza specifically and only amongst other strongholds thus emancipated. Not the least of these was the taking of David’s wells at Beersheba, immortalised as the last great cavalry charge in history, both in the 1940 classic, Forty Thousand Horsemen and the more recent film adaptation in 1987 The Lighthorsemen.
Then, after the machinations and the division of the land after that great conflagration, when the world was once again plunged into war and we saw the savagery of the German war machine in their intifada against European Jewry and the ethnic cleansing of the Stalinist pogroms; it was Australia, who when other Western Democracies refused to allow the settlement of expatriate European Jews, generously opened our doors and welcomed them. We indeed have a shared history, with both Jews and Israelis, notwithstanding the Judeo-Christian foundation of our societal framework.
Without exception, generations of European Jews have settled among us. Integrated with us and stood strong beside us in forging our national identity. Sure, some of them wear funny little hats and choose to worship on Friday evenings according to the traditions of their faith, but they fit in. They don’t disrupt society, they don’t demand that all must conform to their religious norms, they don’t call for war or ethnic cleansing, they just get along and so it should be.
These people, shamedly now under threat in our own country, don’t call for the elimination of other races within our society, they don’t call for the burning of mosques or set fire to cars, neither do they graffiti churches or private homes. So, what is it within one ethnic group that causes them to rise up in such a way against another and seems to pass from one generation to another.
I’ve no doubt that there are indeed many among the Muslim population who similarly just want to fit in and to get along yet far too many of them still harbour a generational animosity that their religion demands when it calls for the subjugation and elimination of ‘The People of the Book’. It is time to have a deep look into this travesty we choose to call multiculturalism, another misnomer having assumed a meaning in Australia far from consistent with its origins in the segregationist South of the United States and Canada.
Surely it is time for those weaklings we have in our various Parliaments, to get a backbone and stop pussy-footing about and say this attitude is plain wrong. It’s un-Australian and if you want to persist, then you should consider going someplace else and away with this whole moral equivalence thing.
This is an indictment on both sides of the political aisle who for years have had by-partisan agreement on what they call a ‘Two State Solution’. Historically, they would have had this back in the 1920s. The two states would have been Israel and Jordan but in modern parlance, the idea is to annex Gaza and East Jerusalem and call it a Palestinian State. Such an idea was never going to work, but it provided a safe haven for fence sitters because it was seen to be a neutral position. Now the whole thing has come back to bite them in the buttocks because it has become clear to all that the so-called Palestinians, another modern construct, have made it clear that they don’t want two states but one and it involves the elimination of the nation of Israel. Notwithstanding Arafat’s rejection of a two-state solution when it was offered two decades ago or the fact that in all practicality a two-state solution was in place on October 6, 2023, the day before Hamas orchestrated incursion into Israel.
It is past time our political leaders, developed some backbone and stated boldly if not simply admitting that the entire Palestinian cause is no more than a violent ideology, empowered by religious dogma, masquerading as some sort of national identity and as such needs to be identified and condemned to history. Let the chips fall as they will as the price we pay for honesty and the protection of an Australian way of life.
