Warning, satire: In international news this week, the Israeli government has announced it plans to send a special envoy to Australia to investigate the shocking death of a friend of Israel on Australian soil two years ago. Reports from a close associate of the deceased female Labor senator suggest she was bullied relentlessly by three high-profile Labor colleagues, all women, two of whom now occupy senior positions of authority in the Australian federal government. Rumours abound that the levels of stress caused by the alleged harassment and repeated passive aggression from these three individuals may have contributed to the senator’s untimely death. The special envoy from Israel, a place the victim had visited and held an affection for, will be demanding full accountability and answers from the Australian federal government as well as access to all materials pertaining to the senator’s death. The Israeli government also expressed extreme dissatisfaction at the fact that the Australian Labor party has failed to sufficiently investigate its own culpability, if any, in the events leading up to the senator’s tragic death.

The above was, as was noted, written for satirical purposes. But it’s no more ridiculous than the Australian federal government’s two latest pronouncements on Israel; firstly, that Australia is sending a special envoy to investigate the tragic death of an Australian aid worker, Zomi Frankcom, in Gaza – a result of friendly fire – and secondly, that the federal Labor government is moving towards formal recognition of a ‘Palestinian state’. Both actions indicate a level of hostility towards Israel and adherence to profound left-wing ideology that are hallmarks of this government.

(Virtually any policy dished out by Labor these days can be summed up by the three i’s: ideology, idiocy, incompetence.)

The deaths of the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Ms Frankcom, is deeply regrettable and tragic. But the blame for the deaths rests with Hamas, whose barbaric murders, rapes, hostage-taking, beheadings and grotesque actions of 7 October made this war unavoidable. Some blame must, inevitably, also lie with the aid organisation itself. To send anyone into an active war zone, no matter what assurances are given from those involved in the military side of the conflict, will always carry a dangerous level of risk to the brave volunteers. There is no large-scale, bloody conflict in which such accidental deaths have not occurred. By sending in its own investigative team, the Australian government, without a shred of justification, is suggesting a) that there is something suspicious about these deaths and b) that the Israeli authorities cannot be trusted to investigate and account for the specific actions and errors that led to the deaths and, in the highly unlikely event that a crime has been committed, bring the perpetrator or perpetrators to justice. To treat a close ally in this manner is an outright act of hostility, and the Israelis should treat the demands of the envoy and of the Australian Labor government with the disdain they deserve.

All this is in keeping with a long line of anti-Israeli actions taken by this government, primarily, it would seem, at the behest of Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Including, of course, refunding Unrwa.

It is also worth noting that Labor did not demand such an investigation into the death of Galit Carbone, another Australian woman, who died at the hands of Hamas on 7 October. Why not? Why no special Australian envoy sent to Gaza – or perhaps to the gilt-laden palaces of Qatar – to demand answers from the blood-thirsty terrorist leaders of Hamas? Was her death less important?

Ms Wong, in her push for recognising ‘Palestine’, told an ANU audience that peace ‘cannot proceed without progress on Palestinian statehood’. This is unadulterated nonsense. Firstly, the greatest recent concrete steps towards permanent peace in the Middle East came under President Donald Trump and his Abraham Accords, which were specifically built on the very opposite premise – that peace could only come between Jews and Arabs by ignoring and bypassing the Palestinian grievance industry. Secondly, any hope of a ‘two-state solution’ died on 7 October, 2023, thanks to the primitive savagery of Hamas aided and abetted by chanting, gleeful Palestinian citizens, who indulged in a blood orgy of psycho-sexual violence that makes any suggestion of Israel ever again being gullible enough to hand over ‘land for peace’ to its neighbours a distant fantasy.

The conflict in Gaza is the sorry but predictable result of Israel in 2005 naively handing over Gaza to Palestinians who chose to elect and then live under a murderous and viciously antisemitic regime that boasts unequivocally in its own charter about its genocidal intent.

There can only be one outcome from the current IDF operations in Gaza and that is the complete eradication or arrest of every member of Hamas and every Palestinian who participated in the 7 October butchery, along, of course, with the release, or return of the remains, of all hostages. Anything less delivers victory to terrorism and barbarity. This war is pernicious and evil enough without Australian politicians marinated in leftist undergraduate politics broadcasting their asinine opinions.