An Australian is killed, and Israel is still protected

From Zomi Frankcom and the IHRA definition, to the royal commission and gambling reform, Australian governments repeatedly promise accountability while protecting powerful interests.

The killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in 2024 should have produced a major crisis in the relationship between Australia and Israel. Instead, two years after Frankcom was killed by Israeli drone strikes – along with six other World Central Kitchen workers – the Israeli military has cleared itself of any wrong-doing and its repulsive ambassador is still defending the indefensible and unapologetically churning out his pro-Israel propaganda.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said that she is outraged and has “no confidence” in Israel’s investigation but these are the same weasel words that she’s used over the past two years which resulted in no action at all against Israel. Ambassador Hillel Newman has indicated that he won’t be offering an apology to Frankcom’s family and will continue to support the actions of the Israel government.

If Australia – and Wong – genuinely regarded the killing of Frankcom as unacceptable and were seriously “outraged” about it, Newman would already have been booted out of the country and on his way to Tel Aviv. At the very least, the Australian government should be pursuing a high-level independent investigation and pressuring the Netanyahu government, release all available evidence and review its military arrangements with Israel, which includes sales of weapons parts.

Instead, Prime Minister Albanese will probably make yet another announcement after yet another futile consultation. It’s an official outrage which the government has no intention of forcing Israel to accept the consequences of its actions.

And this follows on the usual behaviour and acquiescence of this government: defence-industry relationships, the likely flow of dark money and the fear of a backlash from Israel always hampers Australia’s responses, even when it’s so obvious what their responses should be. We all know what the responses would be it if was any other country, but when it comes to Israel, power and political cowardice always go together.

Another legal victory against the forces of Zionism

There was a peculiar case in New South Wales where anti-Israel graffiti painted in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney by Mohommed Farhat was wrongly identified as “antisemitic”. Farhat was paid by “unknown foreign actors” (usually code for Mossad) to perform these acts – and also provided with the exact text to use – and Justice Desmond Fagan found that evidence of his sole financial motivation (and not ideological) was not provided in earlier court hearings, and this resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice.

Fagan’s findings also challenged the IHRA working definition of antisemitism – which is not applicable in any legal system in Australia – where he described it as “verbose and imprecise” and rejected the proposition that hostility towards Israel and opposition to Zionism is automatically a hostility directed towards Jewish people. This also follows on from Justice Angus Stewart’s findings in 2024, that criticisms of the state of Israel and Zionism cannot be deemed to be antisemitic.

As a part of a pro-Israel and Zionist Labor government in New South Wales, the Attorney–General Michael Daley is now taking steps to launch an appeal – of course he is – and pro-Israel groups in Australia have denounced the findings. Apparently, the independence of the judiciary is always sacrosanct, except for when they make a decision the Israel lobby doesn’t like.

Antisemitism is real and must be reduced – we always have to keep pointing that out. But expanding its meaning to stop the criticism of the state of Israel or Zionist zealots won’t do anything at all to protect Jewish people. In fact, it will only do the opposite.

A royal commission in search of the right answers

Justice Fagan’s recent rejection of the IHRA definition within the legal system will hang heavily over the final hearings of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which are due to wrap up this week.

The Commission has adopted the IHRA definition, and it will be interesting to see how this affects its final findings, which are due in December. It’s also coming under more pressure from Coalition figures and Jewish organisations to extend its hearings, call on more ministers and community leaders to appear, and also interrogate the organisers of pro-Palestine actions and protests.

But those who are making these demands don’t want to find out what’s happened in the past, but wish to overwhelm the Commission and get the main conclusion they were always expecting to receive: that any criticism of Israel and Zionism is antisemitic.

These demands should be ignored: an inquiry that purports to inspect the issue of “social cohesion” can’t lump the advocacy of Palestine, criticism of Zionism or opposition to Israel’s genocide as inherently suspicious, and then relegate Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism and threats against Palestinian Australians and push it over to the margins.

A real royal commission should test all of these viewpoints and arrive at conclusions that benefit all the community, and not just allocate special privileges to a select few at the expense of everyone else.

Gambling reform: Terms and conditions apply

The Labor government wants take credit for taking gambling out of sport but, as usual, there are many terms and conditions that do apply – and these seem to be taking more precedence, because it’s giving the gambling industry six more years to keep selling the same product to the same audience, and then give it ample time to target new and younger groups of people.

Gambling logos will remain on many sporting jerseys – mainly within the National Rugby League – until 2032 because existing sponsorship agreements have been granted a remarkably generous transition period.

The legislation does introduce some worthwhile restrictions on advertisements during sporting events, inside stadiums and to children online, but waiting for six years before the impacts come fully into effect is an indication that the government has caved in to vested interests, as it usually does.

The package offered by this government falls short of the much stronger recommendations made by the cross-party parliamentary inquiry that was led by the late Labor MP, Peta Murphy. In the meantime, media companies have already started complaining about age verification, compliance costs and the proposed national opt-out register, as if protecting corporate revenue is far more important than a clear public-health objective.

This is the familiar pattern of the modern Labor Party: announce a position based on principle and promise to do everything possible; then negotiate extensively with the industries causing the harm and arrive at solutions that do as little as possible, and then provide them with several years to get to this point of doing not much as all.

Gambling advertising will eventually be restricted – just a little bit – but only after everyone who needs to profit has gained their filthy lucre, and people who are susceptible to gambling, have been harmed.