Johnson said that “since that appalling massacre of October 7,you’re seeing a kind of fog descend,a moral fog,and I just want to remind people of the absolute barbarism of what took place and to make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself”.
Asked about the massive pro-Palestine rallies that have broken out since the massacres and the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza,Johnson told Israel’s Channel 12:“I would say to everybody marching across the world right now,supposedly in support of ‘free Palestine,’ in fact what they are doing,whether they intend it or not,is condoning the brutality and the murder that was conducted by those Hamas terrorists,and which,by the way,they would do again”.
Destroyed vehicles in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Aza,which was attacked by Hamas on October 7.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Rejecting calls for a ceasefire,Johnson said,“When you have a crime on this scale,and when there’s the possibility of it happening again,I don’t think it’s the business of the world to tell Israel to stop”.
People should absolutely “be under no illusions about the savagery,the sadism,the lack of humanity of[the] Hamas terrorists”,he said.
Greens senators walked out of question time on Monday over the government’s refusal to back a ceasefire,with Senator Mehreen Faruqi calling “free,free Palestine” and raising her fist in the air.
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David Rich,a research fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism,said incidents of antisemitism had exploded worldwide following the Hamas attacks and Jews were being attacked as a proxy for the state of Israel.
“I think we shouldn’t underestimate the amount of denial that there is out there about what Hamas actually did on the seventh of October,” said Rich,who is visiting Australia for a trip organised by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.
“More broadly,a lot of the language of the anti-Israel protests revolves around denial of Israel’s right to exist – the idea that the way to resolve the conflict is for Israel to just disappear.
“I think there’s a lack of understanding of just how hurtful and harmful that rhetoric actually is and the impact that has on the Jewish community.”
Rich said he had “very little patience” for pro-Palestine protesters who chanted slogans such as “from the river to the sea,Palestine will be free”.
“We know what Hamas means by that phrase,” he said.
Hamas’s 2017 constitution says that it “rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine,from the river to the sea”,which is widely understood to refer to the elimination of the state of Israel.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.