On April 28 1996 35 people in Tasmania were shot and died in an attack by a lone gunman.
Politicians immediately rallied around in bi-partisan support of the Prime Minister John Howard.
On December 14 2025 14 Jewish people on Bondi Beach were shot and killed.
This time there was no bi-partisan reaction and instead the first prominent voice heard was that of John Howard claiming it was all the fault of Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
John Howard wasn’t reading the room but was instead making a tragic national event into a political attack point – an enduring aspect of the fallout from the latest and biggest Hamas-Israel conflict.
After the Hamas attacks there was almost unanimous support among Australians for Israel.
That support has gradually, and then rapidly, been eroding.
As even The Age’s reliably right-wing correspondent, Peter Hartcher conceded in an otherwise long rationale as to why Australians should be nice to Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. “When Hamas launched its barbaric savagery against Israeli civilians on October 7 2023 it was impossible for civilised, fair-minded societies not to sympathise with Israeli victims. Twenty months later, it was impossible for civilised fair-minded societies not to sympathise with Palestinian victims of Netanyahu’s atrocities.”
The key difference from 2023 to today was the massive campaign – now beginning to unravel, to silence criticism of Israel over its campaign.
Only the very brave risked challenging the conventional wisdom, even as Palestinians deaths rose to 70,000 and Israeli settlers took the opportunity to take over even more land.
Most of us practised self-censorship after initial comments on the war ended long-term friendships with Jewish Australians.
A friend suggested I write something on the Jewish lobby’s PR campaign to silence critics. After several drafts shared with friends and family, there was a universal belief that it was not worth the resulting pile on. It now sits morosely in a folder waiting for the right moment.
I did attend one Palestinian rally but couldn’t stomach the ‘from the river to the sea’ sloganeering – a maximalist demand ironically shared by both some Israelis and some Palestinians.
An alternative was a subscription to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. That didn’t last long because, while it was reassuring that there was opposition within Israel to Netanyahu and the conduct of the war, it proved to be overwhelming. Readers, however, ought to try to dip into Haaretz’s Gideon Levy for some alternative views on voices from Israel.
But then things started to change. Rallies resumed. A few journalists braved attacks. But when The Age cartoonist Cathy Wilcox published a cartoon about the issue in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the outlet cravenly apologised for the hurt caused by the cartoon, which had been strongly criticised by Jewish community groups for perpetuating ‘Jew hatred’ and “invoking a contemporary form of antisemitism”. Craven behaviour by media outlets is still far too common.
What was actually done was criticise Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, the Albanese Government accepted the Jillian Segal recommendation that criticism of Israel could be considered antisemitism and has adopted the controversial Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
70,000 Palestinians’ deaths later, the dispersal of Palestinians after the destruction of their homes and the subsequent occupation by Jewish settlers – many of whom evade military service on religious grounds – of former Palestinian land – has destroyed the possibility of a two-state solution.
Nevertheless, the mainstream media is also showing some hope. The terrorist bombing attack on a First Nations rally in Perth is finally being recognised as terrorism, well after the attack. It took nine days compared to the nine minutes of Bondi.
And to their credit, the WA government was quicker to recognise reality than the Australian War Memorial has been in failing to recognise the Australian Frontier Wars.
Nevertheless, an important alternative to the rest of the media is John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.
For instance, Pearls and Irritations analysed a recent excellent example of media double standards in the mild reaction of most Australian media outlets to the Israeli destruction of Australian War Graves in Gaza – not by Hamas but by Israel. P&I covered it in detail. Other P&I posts that highlight what the rest of the Australian media might be writing can be found at the following links.
Anzac graves in Gaza were desecrated. Where’s News Corp’s ire?
The graves of Anzac soldiers in Gaza have been desecrated. Where is The Australian’s outrage?
Australian doctors protest Israel’s destruction of health rights in Gaza | Pearls and Irritations
Herzog’s visit exposes Australia’s legal weakness on human rights | Pearls and Irritations
Don’t mention the war | Pearls and Irritations
Like a gambler who lost his fortune, Israel wants another war | Pearls and Irritations
Hartcher might think we should still give Herzog a warm welcome.
…and the police will no doubt play an important role in protecting him from the inevitable warm welcome of protestors rather than arresting him under an international warrant – showing double standards are a permanent part of most international policy.
But his presence – shutting down of demonstrations or not – will not be welcomed by many.
Discover more from Noel Turnbull
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.