If people want to know how genocide can occur, just look to our politicians who have done nothing to stop the crime of the century, Israel’s live-streamed mass slaughter of Palestinians and erasure of Gaza.
We are witnessing a moral and intellectual breakdown in which the respectable position is not to condemn Israel’s grotesque crimes but to defend them.
By trashing the international law framework, Western governments, including our own, have ended the pretence of a global rules-based order, creating a future in which anything is possible.
With a few principled exceptions such as the Greens and Senators Thorpe and Payman, our politicians have not uttered one word of criticism of Israel’s genocidal war.
In the interests of realpolitik, our politicians and other Western governments are legitimising genocide as “self-defence”, turning a blind eye to the mountain of material evidencing genocide.
In January 2025, the attorney-general, Australia’s top lawmaker, visited Israel “to demonstrate Australia’s longstanding friendship” with the “great nation”, and to make clear “Australia’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of terrorism”.
His visit occurred almost a year to the day after the ICJ’s finding of Israel’s plausible genocide, and two months after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Gallant for committing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
At the time of the visit, Israel had killed at least 47,161 Palestinians and injured 111,166. It had killed at least 14,500 children with many thousands more injured. More than 90% of housing units had been damaged or destroyed. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced, many multiple times.
In a blatantly hypocritical display of verbal gymnastics, our politicians declare that Australia has an “unwavering commitment to upholding fundamental rules of international law and the integrity of the Genocide Convention”, while failing to hold Israel accountable for its total disregard of international law.
Our politicians have ignored Australia’s own binding legal obligations, flowing from the ICJ’s rulings, to punish and take all measures to prevent genocide, and not to aid or assist in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which the court ordered must be returned to Palestinians.
Instead of upholding international law, our politicians condemn and smear as “extreme” and antisemitic opponents of Israel’s genocide who demand justice for Palestinians and adherence to international law.
Our invertebrate toady PM has not denounced Trump for placing sanctions on the ICC, unlike at least 80 other nations that have done so.
Nor has Albanese denounced Trump’s illegal, racist, capitalist-imperialist “solution” to steal Gaza and forcibly displace Palestinians from their homeland. In a glitzy real-estate developer’s iteration of Israel’s plan since its establishment to create Eretz Israel, Trump envisages a Riviera lifestyle playground for the rich and powerful, constructed over the human remains and bombed homes of Palestinians.
The alternative PM, Peter Dutton, barracker-in-chief of Israel, praised Trump for his “gravitas” and “thinking outside the box with [illegal] new ideas”.
The legacy media, which ranges from ignorant, indifferent, supine or fervent backers of Israel’s crimes, has failed utterly to hold our government to account for its inaction.
If you care about justice, equality, human rights and the upholding of international law, you should care about where your political representatives stand on Israel’s genocide.
When deciding how you will vote at the forthcoming federal election, bear in mind Francesca Albanese’s observation:
“Every choice that we make, from the products we choose to purchase, to the people who we vote into power, are deeply interconnected with the Palestinian struggle.”
People should be in no doubt about what they are voting for if they preference either of the major parties. Both parties have demonstrated a shocking indifference to international law and to the lives and human rights of Palestinians, giving Israel carte blanche to commit atrocities including mass slaughter, maiming and starving of Palestinians.
Before casting your vote, consider where the political candidates in your electorate stand on the following:
- condemning Israel’s genocidal war;
- support for a permanent, unconditional ceasefire in Gaza;
- ending arms exports to Israel;
- recognising the state of Palestine;
- supporting the ICJ’s decisions on Israel’s plausible genocide and illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and supporting Australia’s binding legal obligations to take action consequent upon those decisions;
- supporting sanctions on Israel; and
- expelling the Israeli ambassador until Israel adheres to the ICJ’s rulings on Israel’s plausible genocide and its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is the world’s first live-streamed genocide. No genocide has been so well documented by its victims as it is taking place.
No-one — our politicians, other Western governments, Israel’s apologists, and the legacy media — can say they didn’t know. No excuses. Nowhere to hide.
Vote yes to justice, freedom and equality for Palestinians, and to holding Israel accountable under international law.
Vote no to genocide and Israel’s impunity.
Angela Smith
Angela Smith is a former lawyer with broad legal experience including in refugee law and the university sector. Her writing has been published widely and can be found in such places as The Guardian (online), Griffith Review, Meanjin, New Philosopher and Overland.