Albanese’s ‘strongly worded’ statements shouldn’t fool anyone

Anthony Albanese has made his strongest declarations to date on the genocide in Gaza, calling on Israel “to comply immediately with its obligations under international law”. The prime minister’s official statement, released on Friday, was followed by comments on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday that Israel’s behaviour is not only “quite clearly” a breach of the law, but also “a breach of decent humanity and of morality”.

That these are Albanese’s most strongly worded statements to date only shows what an absolute monster he is. His remarks on Sunday alternated between banal (“International law says that you can’t hold innocent people responsible for what is a conflict”) and insulting (“A one-year-old boy is not a Hamas fighter”).

The press is reporting all of this as though it’s news; as though hundreds of thousands of people have not been crying out, demanding an end to the genocide and warning of worse to come for months and months and months. In his statement on Friday, Albanese said the situation in Gaza has gone “beyond the world’s worst fears”.

But his government has been demonising the people expressing those fears from the very beginning: the people who have protested week in, week out for nearly two years; people like Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, who Albanese’s party sanctioned this week for holding a sign in parliament calling for sanctions on Israel.

Criminally, his government has been approving weapons exports to Israel and then lying about it. The federal government is complicit in the genocide.

The one-year-old boy the prime minister referred to ​​is Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, whose photo has appeared in media outlets around the world. Muhammad is so severely starved, down to his tiny, frail skeleton, that he is barely recognisable as a human child. The Gaza Health Ministry estimates that 900,000 children are going hungry. The United Nations and aid agencies have repeatedly warned of the likelihood of mass starvation being the result of Israel’s calculated barbarity.

So Anthony Albanese, 21 months into the genocide, offers us a “strongly worded” statement of the bleeding obvious: that this acutely malnourished child is not a Hamas fighter. What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Every time Albanese mentions Hamas, he is recycling the excuse Israel has used for every shot fired, every bomb dropped, every ounce of food denied in Gaza.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced France will recognise a Palestinian state. That was one empty gesture too far for the Australian prime minister. Albanese maintained that a Palestinian state could not be recognised until it is certain that Hamas will not be a part of it and that it poses no threat to Israel.

Imagine the same standard being applied to the state of Israel: that it could exist only if it posed no threat to the Palestinians. It would be necessary to dissolve almost every political party in the Knesset. There wouldn’t be much point in having a Knesset either, because the majority of Israelis, who support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, presumably would have to be denied the vote.

At any rate, while the “international community” debates whether to recognise a Palestinian state, Israel is preparing to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip and annex more and more land in the West Bank. The territorial basis for a Palestinian state is being annihilated before our eyes.

The sign that got Mehreen Faruqi censured in parliament read: “Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them.” She is dead right. Albanese’s empty words—21 months into the crime of the century—won’t do anything. But his government has done worse than issue a few belated words. As long as Albanese’s government continues to arm Israel and vilify Palestine solidarity protesters, his words are worse than useless.