UN lawyer lists concrete steps Australia must take to stop Israel’s atrocities

Australia is currently not practising what it preaches regarding international law, nor is it doing what it could to ensure that international systems remain intact. 

The sight of more than 40 IDF soldiers competing in the Sydney Marathon was a reminder of the acquiescence in Canberra. In this and many other ways, the veil of ‘concern’ expressed towards Israel’s UN declared genocide in Gaza has lifted to reveal a sophisticated network of compromise and capture that dominates political outcomes in this country.

For three years, Australia’s levels of Zionist influence over our political, media and business class have been exposed. But somehow not yet to its limit. In those three years, Israel has been committing a genocide in occupied Palestine, and the Labor Government has proven to be an enthusiastic friend of Zionism at state and federal levels. In that time, the Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Convention on Genocide, and all the human rights treaties, of which Australia is a signatory, have been cherry picked for self-serving rhetoric by Penny Wong, Anthony Albanese and the Labor Government. It’s an ugly, ugly look.

There is an obligation for Australia, under the Genocide Convention, that stipulates we must prevent genocide and punish genocide. There are legal requirements to observe the Geneva Conventions and also to ensure that other states that have signed the Geneva Conventions observe them: states like Israel. This applies to the soldier/marathon runners who had their passports stamped by Tony Burke’s Home Affairs Office, and who were given plainclothes NSW police entourages at the event by the Minns government in NSW.

UN international lawyer Chris Sidoti recently joined the Bogan Intelligentsia Podcast where he raised these glaring obligations, and detailed the imperative to investigate the former and current IDF ‘peace delegation’ running in Sydney. Sidoti outlined, in very clear manner, the correct way the situation should have been handled:

1. The UN Commission of Inquiry has found that Israeli forces in Gaza have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
2. Therefore, anyone who served in those forces on the ground, in the air, or at sea must be considered a suspect.
3. Anyone who enforced the blockade of Gaza that resulted in starvation of civilians must also be considered a suspect.
4. They retain the presumption of innocence.
5. The first step is to identify them as persons of interest (the phrase Australian police use).
6. Then investigate them.
7. Then question them.
8. If there is evidence, refer them to the prosecutor.
9. If they go to court and are convicted, punish them.
10. This is the ordinary criminal-law process, not a special or extra-legal demand.
11. That process should apply to anyone already in Australia or seeking to enter who is a person of interest for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.
12. Australian authorities have an obligation to investigate.

Every single day that the government allows IDF soldiers to come into this country, like it’s fine and normal, is more than a poor judgement at Home Affairs. It is a shift into the uncharted realm of the unacceptable, and an attempt from within to sabotage the moral and ethical resting state of a country that says it follows the rules and champions them.

The pharma companies may have the government wrapped around via the Pharmaceutical Guild of Australia. The Minerals Council sits around the neck of our politics like a ball and chain. And the housing developers, banks, duopoly retail giants all have their pound of flesh. But for as diabolical as their small interest lobbying is on our democracy, they ultimately don’t demand the continued right to support the massacre of innocents in Gaza. They don’t try to stifle our civil liberties when 80% of Australians have decided they’ve had enough of the wanton slaughter. The Zionist lobby is using its influence in uniquely dangerous, malevolent fashion.   

Hospital partnerships between Victoria and Israel, Cellebrite contracts with NSW — when did these become Aussie values and the highest priorities of elected governments?

As a middle power, whether ultra-loyal to Washington or a sovereign minded rationalist, all of us can agree that it is the preservation of international rules and norms that allow smaller nations like Australia to survive in a world of uncertainty. Australia should be a champion of global consensus driven outcomes, not giving Israel the benefit of the doubt as it breaks everything that dares to get in its way. And if Gaza, a war on Iran, and Lebanon has gone through to the keeper, maybe a good place to start at redemption is with the badly treated memory of Zomi Frankcom. It’s never too late.

Australia sits on the wrong side of history, drastically so. With the world watching, and our prestige evaporating abroad, Australia needs to rectify the current position that has it militarily, economically and diplomatically supporting Israel. Later in the same interview, Sidoti listed actions that could be taken at any time to set the record straight, by taking a stance that reflects the consensus of the international community and the sentiment of Australian public:

1. Support an independent international inquiry into the killings (modelled on the MH17 approach).
2. Provide all information Australia holds to the International Criminal Court and make a formal Australian request that the Court investigate these killings (including Zomi Frankcom and the World Central Kitchen convoy).
3. Join South Africa’s Genocide Convention case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
4. Work with like-minded states to increase pressure on Israel in United Nations forums.
5. Break off all military-related trade and relationships with Israel (two-way: parts, technology, drones, surveillance systems, defence liaison, etc.).
6. Do not allow Australian citizens or anyone else who has served in the IDF to enter or return to Australia without investigation.
7. If the evidence warrants it, prosecute them in Australian courts.

Actions count. Hollow words and empty concerns do not. Even the implementation of one or two of Sidoti’s recommendations would signal a change that realigns detached, complicit politicians with the values of ordinary Australians.

The fact that such measures seem so impossible right now — against a backdrop of freely returning IDF soldiers, presidential visits, and bilateral deals covering hospitals, police, intelligence and the military, all after the genocide, all after the lid on the Zionist project has blown off — shows that Sidoti’s list is not a difference of view. It is a set of obligations the government will not touch.

The UK is banning trade with West Bank settlements. In contrast in Australia, every statement, however meek, made to reprimand Israel is not coined by Australia, nor do our diplomats rush to be the first signatories. Any opposition is done reluctantly, selectively void of real consequence, motivated by political calculus. Wong’s response for the lack of action in Frankcom’s death is a few sanctions on West Bank settlers, known by all parties not to impact the uninterrupted flow of death. Not enough. The UK issued settlement trade bans, Wong lumped in and fluffed her settler-specific sanction. Australians rallying under the name of Zomi Frankcom can see the difference.

The government must eventually take these actions, not only because it can, or because it should, but because it must if it wants to survive politically. The moral and ethical slide is already beyond the pale, and many in Canberra have signalled that they can sleep at night in this status quo. But the political, reputational, and electoral damage is something it must consider to remain in power.

Most Australians do not like active IDF killers running over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or the Israeli president having secret meetings with ASIO, or the idea of Israeli intelligence software granted to NSW police. Public figures have lost their jobs, images of broken and destroyed children cover social media, and most people don’t understand why those in power are so keen in propping Netanyahu’s Israel up. And like a bad political decision that haunted the coalition, it is Labor that has clocked on and managed this genocide the way it has. The scandal is not carpark or sportsclub funding, it is supporting the nation committing genocide. A true scandal.

Several nuclear weapons worth of conventional ordnance has been dropped on the Gaza Strip to eradicate one of the most concentrated human populations on the planet. The Palestinians who have suffered within have seen and experienced crimes that no Hollywood Holocaust film can portray, and no vapid and morally moribund Labor government can play down. It’s appalling that we are still here, allowing an open diplomatic channel with the country that mocks Zomi’s memory by closing their responsibility for her death. It’s no longer a surprise that we are here under an Albanese government, but it is a kick in the guts.

The list that UN lawyer Chris Sidoti provides isn’t drastic given the circumstances. It’s not unreasonable in its recommendations. But it sits like another flashing light on a cockpit full of critical malfunctions, piloted by political animals in Canberra ignoring them, without the humanity or the wherewithal to care what their actions are doing to the soul of this country. By letting IDF marathon runners trample over our bridge, and granting Israeli software access to infiltrate Australian phones, on the week that Zomi Frankcom is scoffed at by the Israeli ambassador, the political class of Australia has proven where their loyalty rests.