November 2, 2024
Rabbi – thank you for yet another warm welcome to your beautiful Shule. If I spend any more time here I might have to start asking about the conversion process.
I want to start this morning with a confession. In doing so I am going to utter the four hardest words for a politician to say in Australia today.
I know what you are thinking. But it’s not “I got it wrong.” It’s not even “I am very sorry.”
The four hardest words for a politician to say today are: “I am a…Zionist.”
Anyone who has seen Josh Frydenberg’s documentary could see how some political leaders twist and squirm to avoid saying those words.
But there should be nothing hard at all about admitting to be a Zionist.
After all, a Zionist is just someone who believes in the right of the Jewish people to a homeland on the territory where they have an unbroken connection of more than 3,000 years of history.
Anyone who believes that Israel has a right to exist, and to defend itself, as most politicians claim to, should be comfortable describing themselves as a Zionist.
And yet they aren’t.
“Zionist” has become a term of abuse, hurled by extremists at their opponents in an attempt to demonise them. And we all know it is also used as a code-word for Jew.
When hateful protestors chant in the streets of our major cities, “Zionists are not welcome here” and much worse, we all know what they really mean.
That’s why it is important for our political leaders to show moral courage and clarity, and openly talk about why there is nothing wrong or shameful about supporting Israel or being a Zionist.
I support Israel because of what Israel represents. It is a vibrant and strong liberal democracy. It has robust freedom of speech, a famously independent judiciary, and the rule of law.
Despite the lies often told about it, Israel offers its citizens equal rights, regardless of their faith or ethnicity.
And it has contributed to the world profound scientific and technological innovation which has improved all of our lives.
Like Australia, Israel is not a perfect country, nor does it have a perfect government. But just like us, Israel’s citizens strive to make it better, even in the most difficult circumstances.
I also support Israel because of who they are up against. If there was ever any doubt, on 7 October Israel’s enemies revealed themselves for who they truly are.
I have watched the uncensored video of the true horror of what happened that day. I have visited the site of the Nova Music Festival. I have walked the streets of Kibbutz Berri and stood in the home of Galit Carbone, the Australian citizen who was murdered that day.
I will never forget what I have seen. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. Because it made crystal clear to me what is at stake in this fight. It is civilisation versus barbarism. It is terrorism versus democracy.
And it’s not just about Israel. If the Israel-Palestinian conflict was just about land it would have been solved decades ago. But we all know it is not.
Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are not fighting for national self-determination of the Palestinian people. They are waging a genocidal proxy war on behalf of the Ayatollahs in Iran to wipe Israel off the map.
They are not interested in negotiation. They do not want peace.
And they have no remorse for the tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians who have tragically died in the terrible conflict they unleashed.
The people of Gaza, southern Lebanon and Yemen are just fodder in their war to delegitimise, isolate and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. And if they ever succeed in that goal we would be naive if we thought it would end there.
It was Bob Hawke who put it best when he said, “If the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.”
Because Israel’s enemies don’t just hate Israel or the Jewish people. They hate democracies all over the world and Western civilisation itself.
The troubling thing for us here in the relative safety and distance of Australia is they do not act alone.
As Scott Morrison presciently warned more than two years ago, there is a new arc of autocracy emerging in the world today which threatens the relative peace, stability and prosperity we have all enjoyed since the end of World War II.
Since then more worrying evidence has emerged of the deeper bonds being formed between these authoritarian states, in what the historian Niall Ferguson has warned is a new “axis of ill-will.”
On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, presidents Xi and Putin unveiled their “no-limits partnership.” The Chinese Communist Party today is the most important financial and economic sponsor of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
North Korea and Iran are its most important military suppliers. Iran has supplied countless missiles and drones. The North Korean regime has supplied more artillery shells to Russia than all of Europe has provided to Ukraine.
We learned this month North Korea has deployed troops to the frontline in an attempt to help Russia regain the Kursk region from Ukraine, in an alarming internationalisation of that conflict.
We also learned Russia provided intelligence to the Houthis to help them target Western shipping in the Red Sea - a reckless act of terrorism.
Israel was so concerned about Russian assistance to Hezbollah that they reportedly took the significant step of striking a Russian base in Syria.
China is Iran’s biggest customer for oil, propping up an insecure regime, and even openly hosted a delegation from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
You're far more likely to encounter pro-Hamas content on the China headquartered social media platform TikTok than any other platform.
And in October the Chinese government was exposed for using bots to target four Republican members of Congress on social media ahead of next week's election.
Among other things, bots attacked them over their support for Israel.
I lay out these facts not to depress you, but to make the point that we cannot neatly divide the world into distinct regions or theatres. It is all connected. And it all matters to Australia.
Our authoritarian friends are working closely together to undermine the U.S.-led world order.
It's time we clearly recognized this and acted accordingly.
Ukraine matters to Australia. Taiwan matters to Australia. And Israel matters to Australia.
And they don’t just fight for themselves. They fight for all of us and the principles we all hold dear.
If Israel can defeat Hamas, degrade Hezbollah and restrain Iran they will have done the world a favour. It will help deter other acts of aggression around the world and in our own region.
We face a choice as a country. Either we stand with our fellow democracies as they face existential threats from authoritarian foes, or we abandon them to fight alone.
We can’t pick and choose which democracies we stand with.
We either stand with them together, or none at all.
For me, the choice is easy.
I choose to stand with Israel.
ENDS
