[Salon] Denial of Australian visa to anti-Palestinian racists disturbs some Liberal Party leaders

Denial of Australian visa to anti-Palestinian racists disturbs some Liberal Party leaders

Ali Kazak

23.11.2024

On 21 November 2024, the Australian government refused to grant a visa to former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked, known for her anti-Palestinian views. She had been invited to attend a security conference in Canberra and other events organised by the Israeli lobby, Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

Shaked described the government’s decision in the Australian newspaper as “a hostile anti-Semitic act”.

While the government implemented policies preventing racists from entering Australia, the opposition Liberal Party unashamedly attacked the government in defense of Israeli racism against Palestinians. Birds of a feather flock together!

In this context, Liberal Party leaders criticised the government for its commitment to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The Israeli prime minister and former defence minister are accused of "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts".

Canada, Britain, and the EU declared their commitment to the ICC decision. In a statement, in his statement, the EU's foreign policy chief said, "These decisions are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute, which includes all EU member states".

All 124 members of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, are now compelled to arrest the two Israelis and hand them over to the court. But the Liberal Party puts Israel's interests above international law, Australia's interests and its international obligations.

The following are some quotes by and on Ayelet Shaked:

“Israel is a Jewish state. It isn’t a state of all its nations. That is, equal rights to all citizens but not equal national rights, there are places where the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish state must be maintained and this sometimes comes at the expense of equality.”

Ayelet Shaked, Israeli Justice Minister, “Justice Minister: Israel Must Keep Jewish Majority Even at the Expense of Human Rights”, 13.2.2018.

“For all to know that we will be here, in all parts of Israel, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, forever.”

Ayelet Shaked, Justice Minister, 'We're here, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, forever', Arutz Sheva, 13.02.17
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/224919

"Shaked is going and taking her place in the pantheon of the extreme right, and represents an ideology where her own racism doesn't embarrass her."

Michal Rozin, Israeli legislator, “Israel’s new justice minister considers all Palestinians to be ‘the enemy’”, The Washington Post, 7.5.2015.

The justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, in a Facebook post on 1 July 2014, during the Gazan war, called for a genocide of the Palestinian people, declaring that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and called for their destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” The following day Jewish extremists kidnapped Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir and burned him alive.

Ben Norton, “Netanyahu appoints Ayelet Shaked—who called for genocide of Palestinians—as Justice Minister in new government”, Mondoweiss, 6.5.2015.

Ayelet Shaked posted on her Facebook page an article whose author, Uri Elitzur, a settler leader she admired, wrote that “Israel should target not only the militants but the mothers of the martyrs who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

An Israeli prime minister who appoints as his minister of justice an advocate of the murder of mothers of Palestinian terrorists and considers Palestinian babies little snakes that should be exterminated cannot disclaim his paternity of settlers who celebrate the incineration of Palestinian babies.’

Henry Siegman, “Does America really ‘share values’ with today’s Israel?”, Haaretz, 30.12.2015

"We [the New Right Party] want to gain a lot of power so that even if left-wing parties come and want to join the Netanyahu government, we can ensure that a right-wing government is established and no Palestinian state is established."

Ayelet Shaked, Justice Minister and co-founder of the New Right (Hayamin Hahadash) Party, “Leaving Jewish Home was hard for me - but decision is right”, Arutz Sheva, 12.2.2019.

· “Jerusalem will never be a joint capital, and a Palestinian terror state will not be established in the West Bank, under any circumstances.”

Ayelet Shaked, Justice Minister, “Israel said to fear US peace plan includes Jerusalem as Palestinian capital”, Arutz Sheva, 21.10.2018.

‘According to the concepts of Smotrich, Zohar [Miki Zohar a Knesset members] and Shaked, a Jew from Brooklyn who has never set foot in this country is the legitimate owner of this land, while a Palestinian whose family has lived here for generations is a stranger, living here only by the grace of the Jews. “A Palestinian,” Zohar tells Hecht, “has no right to national self-determination since he doesn’t own the land in this country. Out of decency I want him here as a resident, since he was born here and lives here – I won’t tell him to leave. I’m sorry to say this but they have one major disadvantage – they weren’t born as Jews.”’

Zeev Sternhell, is a Polish-born Israeli historian, political scientist, commentator on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and writer. He is one of the world's leading experts on fascism. Sternhell headed the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism”, Haaretz, 19.1.2018.

“When, he [historian] will ask, did people in Israel start to realize that the state that was established in the War of Independence, on the ruins of European Jewry and at the cost of the blood of combatants some of whom were Holocaust survivors, had devolved into a true monstrosity for its non-Jewish inhabitants. When did some Israelis understand that their cruelty and ability to bully others, Palestinians or Africans, began eroding the moral legitimacy of their existence as a sovereign entity?

The answer, that historian might say, was embedded in the actions of Knesset members such as Miki Zohar and Bezalel Smotrich and the bills proposed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. The nation-state law, which looks like it was formulated by the worst of Europe’s ultra-nationalists, was only the beginning.”

Zeev Sternhell, “In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism”, Haaretz, 19.1.2018.