Labor or Liberal, Australia gives a standing ovation to genocide

The standing ovation by both sides of US Congress last week as Benjamin Netanyahu demanded “the tools” to get “the job done” — and the thunderous applause that echoed fascist rallies of the early 20th century — is yet more evidence that the genocide in Palestine is fundamentally about Global Israel versus Global Palestine.

Abhorrent as the spectacle of genocide celebration, it was a clarifying projection of the essence of Western democracy.

A crystal-clear reminder that Western democracy — Democrat or Republican in the US, Labor or Liberal in Australia from where I write — depends on and is sustained by genocide, by final solutions, colonialism, carceral systems and fascist repression masquerading as "social cohesion."

In Australia, against the backdrop of the current Australian Labor Party government’s strong support of Israel, including through the provision of essential parts for F35, the backlash by the pro-Palestine movement against Labor has been fierce.

So too has the backlash to our backlash, with detractors deploying arguments that echo those we are hearing in the US championing the Democrats over a Trump presidency: it’s better the devil you know; it will be worse under a conservative government — in Australia, the Liberal National Party; the left is destroying itself. 

And yet, First Nations peoples, we Palestinians and our allies know too well that if Australia’s Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, or Foreign Minister Penny Wong were visiting the US Congress last week, they would have been there clapping along.

We can allow them one point though: Labor will seek to reassure us they would have offered a slower clap, less vigorous applause. And that is their abhorrent legacy, for they insist that slow-clapping genocide is any less depraved or forgivable.        

The fact of the matter is that in Australia, both Labor and Liberal, across Federal and State governments, have all given the Zionist state a standing ovation every single day since Australia was the first country to vote in favour of the 1947 UN partition resolution and the first to formally recognise the state of Israel under Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley.

There is absolutely no doubt that the settler colony of Australia, whether governed by Labor or Liberal, is a loyal member of Global Israel, committed to maintaining Western colonialism and hegemony. And so this is Netenyahu’s genocide just as much as it is Joe Biden’s genocide. As much as it will be Kamala Harris’ genocide. As much as it is Anthony Albanese’s and Penny Wong’s.

There has been no shortage of Labor’s standing ovations to genocide. It was a standing ovation when, in the state where I live, New South Wales Labor Premier Chris Minns lit up Sydney Opera House with the colours of Israel’s flag but the slaughter of over 186,000 Palestinians and continuing has not elicited one word of condemnation. It is a standing ovation when the Minns’ Labor government has institutionalised systematic suppression and disciplining of children and teachers in schools for expressing support for Palestine.

White supremacy with a friendly face

Under Labor state governments across Australia, Departments of Education have created a rampant culture of anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia and targeted censorship in schools. Under Federal Labor, our universities have become sites of McCarthyism and repression as the government aids and abets Israel’s scholasticide in Gaza.

As in the US, Canada and the UK, the Palestine liberation movement must contend with white liberals who refuse to see that Labor is not the alternative to fascism and genocide.

Labor and Liberal, Democrat and Republican, are all explicitly telling us what they stand for. One has to credit them: they are not pretending or lying about their position. You’re either all in against genocide, or you’re not. There’s no in-between.  

They are telling us when the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel is committing a plausible genocide and the Australian government continued to not only flagrantly defy its duty to prevent genocide but continues to refuse to stop enabling and arming Israel.

The ICJ has just delivered sweeping findings against Israel. Rather than impose a comprehensive arms embargo, sanctions, divestment and sever trade relations, Penny Wong responded to this monumental ruling by imposing sanctions against a measly seven Israeli settlers and Hilltop Youth. 

The fact is that Labor insists that Palestinian slaughter, defiance of international law and the continued enabling of a rogue, belligerent regime is an existential necessity for its government’s survival. All the while its supporters dare to tell our movement that Labor is the safer option.

To claim that it will be worse for Muslims, Arabs, and minorities, under the alternative Liberal party. What could be more Islamophobic and racist than enabling the slaughter of Palestinian children?

Fearing the backlash from Muslim voters, the Australian government is seeking to appoint an Islamophobia envoy, following the Canadian government's own appointment last year.

Labor seeks to be congratulated for an envoy who will count how many hijabs have been pulled off Muslim women’s heads here, whilst Labor enables the bombing and starving of Muslim women in Gaza.

In Australia, the lesser of two evils is still evil

White liberals can no longer pretend that they do not grasp the connection between state-sanctioned genocide in the name of Islamophobia and white supremacy, and domestic state-sanctioned Islamophobia and white supremacy.  

Labor has clear choices to make and indeed knows when to make them. Penny Wong knows how to condemn the bombing of children and a hospital. But only when the victims are white. Labor knows how to impose sanctions, arms embargos and recall ambassadors. It knows how to cut trade relationships and hold brute force to account. But only when the victims are white.

Labor is showing us that the racist logic that underwrites its policies is white supremacy. The difference between Labor and Liberal — indeed just as resonant to Republicans and Democrats — is that Labor packages their white supremacy in colourful wrapping paper.

It is the job of white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism to convince the masses to internalise their own inferiority and defeat, believe the lie that they have no power, that they are only worthy of the lesser of two evils.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil and those demanding justice for Palestine continue to collectively refuse to accept that they have no power, dignity or worth. Those who oppose genocide do not bear the onus of saving sham democracies.  

It is time progressives understand that nobody is safe from the imperial boomerang. Gaza is the laboratory and the tactics, methods, and repression are being brought back here against all who stand in the way of the imperial project Australia is wholly invested in.

Palestinians are paying the price now as we speak. First Nations peoples have and continue to always pay the price. Those who think their whiteness or apathy will shield them from the normalisation of fascism we are witnessing across every sphere of society are sorely deluded.

If a moral conscience could not wake liberals to the fact that we are all threatened by a genocidal global order, then maybe a Dutton (or Trump) government will. Is it going to get worse for those who are already racialized and marginalised? Yes. Will moving the needle toward liberation demand sacrifices be made? Yes. Will the fight be uglier? Yes. However global systems of oppression are not overcome through change.org petitions and weekly protests alone. And hasn’t the ultimate sacrifice been paid? Is 186,000 slaughtered not enough sacrifice?

Racialised peoples in Australia have survived Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. We have survived Bush, Obama and Trump. We will survive the alternative because we believe another world is possible and we refuse to accept anything less than our intrinsic dignity.

We refuse to coexist with oppression and mute our lives to genocide. "The process of national liberation is irresistible and irreversible," declared the 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Indeed, we are just getting started. There is no turning back. 

Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Future Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University researching Arab/Muslim Australian radical social movements from the 1970s to date. She is also the award-winning author of over 12 novels. 

Follow her on Twitter: @RandaAFattah 

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.