The detention and public humiliation of Australian citizens aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla raises broader questions about whether Australia applies its human rights principles differently when the state involved is a close ally.
The footage released this week by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, quickly spread across social media and international news outlets. In the videos, activists and Australian citizens detained aboard the “Global Sumud Flotilla” appear kneeling on the ground with their hands restrained while Ben-Gvir walks past them mockingly.
The flotilla had been attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge the ongoing blockade. According to reports, more than 300 activists from different countries were detained, including 11 Australians – among them doctors, students, academics, filmmakers and peace activists.
But what disturbed many people was not only the interception itself. It was the public humiliation that followed.
Some detainees were restrained with plastic ties, others forced to kneel while the Israeli national anthem played through loudspeakers. For many observers, the scenes looked less like a routine security operation and more like a deliberate display of domination and humiliation.
Even in situations involving detention or maritime interception, civilians remain protected under basic principles of humane treatment. That is why figures across Europe described the scenes as degrading and unacceptable. Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, also called the footage “shocking and unacceptable”.
Still, the broader issue is not only Ben-Gvir’s behaviour itself. It is the contrast between the seriousness of the incident and the relatively restrained political response that followed in Australia.
Israel is not viewed in Canberra as a geopolitical rival or hostile state. It is regarded as a close strategic partner and an ally within the so-called “rules-based international order”. Yet a senior minister in that allied government publicly mocked restrained Australian citizens, and the response remained cautious and measured.
That raises a deeper question which has received far less attention: can the defence of Australian citizens become uneven depending on the geopolitical context?
Australia frequently frames its foreign policy around the protection of human rights, opposition to arbitrary detention and the defence of its citizens overseas. When Australians have previously been detained or mistreated abroad, those incidents often became major national political issues.
The circumstances of those cases are obviously different. But they still show how quickly the treatment of Australians overseas can become a serious diplomatic and public concern.
Yet when it comes to Israel, the political response appears noticeably more restrained – even when Australians themselves are directly involved.
This is also not the first time Australians have been caught up in incidents connected to Israeli military actions. In 2024, Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom was killed in an Israeli strike while delivering humanitarian assistance in Gaza for World Central Kitchen. Australian activists have also previously been detained during attempts to challenge the Gaza blockade, including six Australians released in Crete after an earlier flotilla interception who later alleged mistreatment during detention.
The significance of the current incident lies not only in the humiliation itself, but in the message embedded within it.
French philosopher Michel Foucault argued that modern power is not exercised only through direct force, but also through spectacle, discipline and the shaping of public meaning. Seen through that lens, the scenes involving Ben-Gvir were not simply about controlling detainees. They were about publicly displaying power.
The forced kneeling, restraints and ridicule were not random details. They formed part of a political performance designed to send a wider message: that attempts to challenge the blockade or publicly align with Gaza can be met not only with detention, but with humiliation.
In that sense, the spectacle was aimed not only at those on the flotilla, but at wider international audiences watching online.
Johan Galtung’s concept of structural violence also helps explain why incidents like this continue to repeat themselves. Violence is not limited to physical harm. It can also exist within political and diplomatic structures that allow abuses to occur without meaningful consequences.
When governments know international reactions are likely to remain limited to statements of concern and cautious diplomacy, the political cost of mistreatment becomes much lower.
What this incident ultimately exposes is not only a dispute over Gaza or Israel. It exposes the uneven way human rights language can operate in international politics.
Some incidents rapidly become global moral crises. Others – even when western citizens are involved – are handled through restrained diplomatic language when the state responsible is a close ally.
And that is the contradiction now confronting Australia.
If the dignity of Australian citizens and the defence of human rights are truly universal principles, then the strength of political responses should not depend on the identity of the offending state or the strategic value of the alliance involved.
Otherwise, the idea of a “rules-based order” risks becoming less a universal principle and more a selective political language, applied firmly to adversaries but far more carefully to allies.
Shamikh Badra
Shamikh Badra holds a Masters degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney and is a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong where he researches Palestinian resistance, diplomacy and settler colonialism. His publications in professional journals cover appraisals of academic theory and activism to advance global solidarity for Palestine. His non-violent work includes a theoretical framework for the Great March of Return and leadership (2015) to foster Palestinian unity.’