Adam Bandt Insists We 'Must Not Weaponise This Moment'
... and I don't need to tell you what he does next
Greens leader Adam Bandt last week fired off a series of tweets about peace in the Middle East.
It all started well enough. And then, well, just see for yourself …
The Green-in-cheif began promisingly.
“We cannot allow the movement for justice and peace to be compromised by hate.”
Ok. Fair call. No-one likes hate.
Then he tweeted …
“I condemn any move to weaponise this moment of immense suffering to advance an agenda of bigotry.”
When you won't denounce an organisation that beheads babies for fear of appearing a "bigot", you might as well just pack up and go home.
But whatever. That’s not the part I wanted to draw your attention to.
Check out his concluding tweet …
“For there to be a lasting peace there must be an end to the State of Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. End the occupation.”
Right.
So Bandt condemns his opponents “weaponising of this moment to advance agendas of bigotry”, while in the very next breath weaponising the moment to advance his agenda of bigotry.
It’s a clever sleight of hand. Denounce bigotry right before you say something bigoted so no-one notices that you just did the bigoted thing.
Which brings us to yesterday, the first sitting day of Parliament since war broke out in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved a motion of support for Israel. Well, of course, he would. And of course you’d support it. Wouldn’t you?
Israeli civilians, remember, were ruthlessly attacked by Islamic jihadists just nine days ago, many of them as they slept in their beds.
The question of whether or not to condemn baby killing terrorists is a no-brainer, so I’m tempted to say it was set up for the Greens leader to get right.
But Bandt couldn't bring himself to condemn terrorists without seeking to amend the motion so as to include condemnation of Israel for war crimes “that will likely be committed” when they launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza later this week.
Bandt hates Israel so much be wanted to condemn them for war crimes in advance of any war crimes actually being committed!
The amendment, supported by a couple of Teal MPs no less, failed.
When it came time to vote, Bandt and the Greens voted against the motion supporting Israel.
The motion still passed, but not before Adam Bandt who is dead set against any “weaponising of this moment to advance agendas of bigotry” had weaponised a moment of support for Israel to advance his agenda of anti-Jew bigotry.
The photo above will live in infamy. Four Greens sitting apart from the rest of our political class, refusing to back a motion supporting Israel at the very moment Israeli hostages were still being held by Hamas!
The motion passed 131-4. Adam Bandt, Max Chandler-Mather, Stephen Bates and Elizabeth Watson-Brown were the four who voted against it.
James, you mentioned the decapitated babies a few times now, so I want to point out that this is a completely unverified claim. The CNN journalist who started it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Sidner) has since retracted her claim. It was unbelievable in the first place, and had a strong "Saddam's soldiers killed babies in their cribs" vibe.
Some people (such as https://twitter.com/CJHopkins_Z23/status/1712938332726902906) might say that now the propaganda has done its work, it can be retracted to preserve an appearance of actual journalism.
I know you have a high regard for truth and honesty, so I hope you will take note that the "decapitated babies" is the fakest of fake news.
It is time Mr Bandt grows up.
The “refugee problem” was caused by the Arabs. Following resolution 181 in UN Haj Amin al-Husseini the then Mufti of Jerusalem in radio broadcasts urged Palestinians to move across the borders to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt so they would not be killed in crossfire while the Arab League forces would drive the Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea. That operation failed.
The leaders within the Arab League eventually got sick and tired of these squatting Palestinians inside their respective borders and using military forced the back across the borders, thus creating the “refugee dilemma” and blaming Israel for the situation. (A point here is that the “West Bank” refers to the west bank of river Jordan. Before the final resolution in UN the border between Israel and Transjordan was to be River Jordan, which the Arab League refused to accept.)
It has always been the purpose of the Arab League to maintain this status quo. The infiltration on Hamas is Shi’a inspired rather than Sunni, the latter is Arab League. You cannot call Hamas being Palestinians. Hamas was formed in 1988.