Being pro-Israeli means backing murder anywhere, anytime

Paul Howes is national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. He loves Israel like it’s a woman he’s dying to take to bed. In other words, any flaws are utterly ignored.

His latest piece, in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, totally backs Israel’s murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai:

Let’s be clear: the death of al-Mabhouh is a positive outcome for those who believe in peace and justice.

es, I accept that a liberal conscience will worry about the compelling moral arguments against extrajudicial killings.

But we’re talking about a man who has turned Palestinian children into human bombs to murder and terrorise Israeli civilians, not to mention the terror Hamas has waged against Palestinians who are deeply worried about Hamas’ fundamentalism being imposed by authoritarian diktat.

Al-Mahbouh and his Damascus military faction are said to be responsible for undermining the negotiations between Israel and Hamas to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The question of the use of Australian passports in the operation in Dubai raises many issues for the Australian Government.

Traditionally, Australia has been a loyal friend of Israel, no matter which party is in government. This is something that should make us all proud.

Some have argued that if Israel has illegally used Australian passports, this is not the action of a friend. Maybe.

But in my view, friends stand by each other in the good times and the bad, and a friend is someone who lends a hand when the going gets tough.

That’s why I’m proud that our nation has played a small, and accidental role, in the removal of the terrorist al-Mabhouh from our planet.

Many may say that’s to be expected of a pro-Israeli. But it should be clear that al-Mabhouh’s death is quietly welcomed by the vast majority of the moderate Arab world.

Al-Mabhouh will be mourned only in the capitals of the despotic Middle East regimes such as Iran and Syria.

Many anti-Israel activists around the world, and in Australia, have seized on the passport issue to develop a new front to push their anti-Israeli propaganda. That, too, is to be expected.

But Australians shouldn’t fall for the giant lie they are pushing. Israelis are actually allied with a clear majority of the Arab world fighting a war against the forces of anti-democratic Islamo-fascism.

The world defeated Nazism. Now the world must support those countries fighting Islamo-fascism.

It is a war that is being fought on the streets of Tehran, where democratic forces battle that Islamic dictatorship; it’s being fought on the streets of Gaza, after Hamas launched their coup there; it’s being fought in Lebanon against Hezbollah and in the mountains of Afghanistan against the remains of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The fighters had a small victory in a Dubai hotel.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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