Dedication: States are like children. Impunity to one might amuse its parents – they grow up and terrorise regions.

By Andrew Klein

I. Introduction: The Predator on Land, Sea and Air

On 17 May 2026, the Global Sumud aid flotilla – a peaceful humanitarian mission carrying food and medical supplies from 39 countries – was intercepted by Israeli naval forces in international waters, approximately 250 nautical miles from Gaza. Israeli warships surrounded the civilian vessels, cut their communications, detained activists, and seized the aid. Live broadcasts showed the attack unfolding in broad daylight. Anadolu Ajansı reported that Israeli forces transferred the detainees to what it described as a “floating prison” before transporting them to the port of Ashdod.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian People’s Rights condemned the interception as “maritime piracy” and a serious violation of international law and freedom of navigation. Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest English-language newspaper, called it “a brutal act of piracy on the high seas, and a brazen trespass on the sovereign right of vessels to navigate freely”.

This was not an isolated incident. It was the latest in a decades‑long pattern: a state that behaves on land, sea and air as if international law does not apply to it. A state that assassinates its opponents across sovereign borders, that ignores ceasefire agreements and UN resolutions, and that operates with complete impunity because of the diplomatic and military protection of the United States.

This article examines that pattern. It documents Israel’s history of piracy, extrajudicial killings, territorial expansion, and rejection of international law. It argues that Israel is not a “rogue state” in the colloquial sense – it is a predator, enabled by a superpower that has mistaken unconditional support for strategic wisdom.

II. The Piracy of the Sumud Flotilla – A Legal Analysis

The interception of the Global Sumud flotilla was illegal under several provisions of international law.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) guarantees the right of innocent passage through territorial waters and freedom of navigation on the high seas. The flotilla was in international waters – 250 nautical miles from Gaza, far beyond any territorial claim. Israel had no legal authority to board, search, seize, or detain.

The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea prohibits the interception of humanitarian missions unless they pose a direct military threat. The Sumud flotilla carried food, medicine, and activists – not weapons.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit collective punishment. Gaza has been under a suffocating blockade since 2007, described by the UN as a form of collective punishment. The flotilla was attempting to breach that blockade – not as an act of war, but as an act of humanity.

The Israeli government claimed the flotilla was “breaking the law” and could be “used for terrorist purposes”. No evidence was provided. As Dawn noted, “The regime that hunts aid ships in foreign waters operates a permanent war machine, bankrolled and shielded by its chief enabler, the United States”.

III. Historical Precedent – The United States vs. Barbary Pirates (1805)

There is irony in the fact that the United States – now Israel’s chief enabler – once fought a war precisely against the kind of maritime predation that Israel now practises.

The First Barbary War (1801–1805) was fought against the Barbary states of North Africa, which had been demanding tribute and seizing American ships in the Mediterranean. In 1805, US Marines under Lieutenant William Eaton marched 500 miles across the Libyan desert and captured the port city of Derna, raising the American flag on foreign soil for the first time.

The US action was celebrated as a victory against piracy and state‑sponsored extortion.

Two centuries later, the United States provides diplomatic cover and military aid to a state that interdicts humanitarian vessels in international waters, assassinates political leaders in foreign capitals, and maintains an illegal blockade that has caused a man‑made famine. The irony is not lost on the rest of the world.

IV. Assassination as State Policy – The Killing of Negotiators

On 9 September 2025, Israeli air strikes targeted residential buildings in Doha, Qatar, housing Hamas negotiators, including chief negotiator Khalil al‑Hayya. The attack occurred while the delegation was actively discussing a ceasefire proposal from the United States. Israel claimed, “full responsibility”, and multiple Israeli media outlets confirmed that the US had been notified and had given a “green light”.

Qatar condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of all international laws and norms”. The UN Secretary‑General called it a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty. Regional powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE denounced the strikes.

The pattern is unmistakable:

· January 2024: Senior Hamas political leader Saleh al‑Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon.

· July 2024: Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran, while attending the inauguration of the president.

· 1995: Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi was gunned down in Sliema, Malta – European Union territory – in an operation attributed to Mossad.

Extrajudicial killings – assassinations carried out without judicial process – are unequivocally illegal under international human rights law. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned such practices. Yet Israel continues them with impunity.

The timing of these killings is particularly revealing. They occur precisely when ceasefire agreements appear within reach. As one analysis noted, “This suggests a deliberate strategy to derail peace processes and maintain the cycle of violence that serves Israeli political interests”.

V. Territorial Expansion – The West Bank and the Golan Heights

On 22 October 2025, a coalition of 18 states and international organisations issued a joint statement condemning Israeli legislative measures aiming to impose “sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank and illegal colonial settlements. The statement reaffirmed that Israel has “no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory” and that the measures are a “blatant violation of international law, and of United Nations Security Council resolutions particularly Resolution 2334, which condemns all Israeli measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, including East Jerusalem” .

The statement also noted the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 22 October 2025, which reaffirmed Israel’s obligation to ensure the population of Gaza has essential supplies and that mass forcible transfer and deportation are prohibited.

The Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981, has been condemned by the UN Security Council in Resolution 497, which declared the annexation “null and void and without international legal effect”. Yet Israel maintains its occupation, and the United States has recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights – a unilateral act of diplomatic recognition that undermines decades of international consensus.

VI. The United Nations Record – Repeated Condemnation

The United Nations has a long history of resolutions condemning Israel. Since 2015, the General Assembly has passed 115 resolutions condemning Israel, compared to only 45 against all other countries combined.

These resolutions cover:

· Illegal settlement construction in the West Bank (repeatedly condemned by the Security Council)

· The annexation of the Golan Heights (Security Council Resolution 497)

· The blockade of Gaza (condemned by the General Assembly and human rights bodies)

· Human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (annual reports of the Special Committee)

The United States has used its veto power in the Security Council to shield Israel from binding resolutions dozens of times. A single state – one of five permanent members – has prevented the international community from holding Israel accountable for actions that, if committed by any other state, would have resulted in sanctions, arms embargoes, or even intervention.

VII. The Role of the United States – Enabling the Rogue

The United States is not a passive observer. It is an active enabler.

· Financial aid: The US provides approximately $3.8 billion per year in military aid to Israel – the largest annual recipient of US foreign aid.

· Diplomatic cover: The US has vetoed countless Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, including those condemning settlement expansion, the blockade of Gaza, and the annexation of the Golan Heights.

· Military support: The US supplies advanced weaponry, including F‑35 fighter jets, precision‑guided munitions, and missile defence systems – all used in operations against Palestinians.

This unconditional support has produced a state that behaves with impunity because it has learned that there will be no consequences. As one observer noted, “The arsonist is playing the firefighter, with its superpower patron forever handing it the matches” .

The tragedy is that this impunity does not only harm Palestinians. It also harms Israelis. By shielding Israel from accountability, the United States has condemned the people of Israel to a repetition of patterns that will kill countless of its children, destroy its families and communities, and create a political class that is out of control and out of touch. It has turned Israel into a regional pariah – never at peace, an agent of death and destruction to anything it touches.

This is not unique. It is a variation on an old pattern.

· Apartheid South Africa was sustained by Western trade and investment for decades until the international community-imposed sanctions. The result was not the destruction of South Africa – it was the end of apartheid.

· Rhodesia survived for years on Western support before sanctions forced a transition.

· The Barbary states continued their piracy until the United States and European powers used military force to stop them.

Israel is not beyond change. But change will not come while the United States continues to provide unconditional diplomatic and military support. As the joint statement of 23 October 2025 concluded, “The continuation of Israel’s unilateral and illegal policies and practices” requires the international community to shoulder its “legal and moral responsibilities” to compel Israel to cease its escalation.

VIII. Conclusion: The Rogue That Cannot Be Tamed

Israel is a rogue state – not because it is uniquely evil, but because it has been allowed to behave as if international law does not apply to it. Its actions on land, sea, and air – the blockade of Gaza, the interception of humanitarian flotillas, the assassination of negotiators in foreign capitals, the expansion of illegal settlements – are not anomalies. They are policy.

The United States has enabled this behaviour for decades. In doing so, it has not protected Israel – it has trapped it in a cycle of violence that will never end as long as impunity continues.

The solution is not simple. But the first step is to name the pattern.

A rogue state is not a state that breaks the rules. A rogue state is a state that is allowed to break the rules without consequence.

Israel is a rogue state. And its chief enabler is the United States.

Andrew Klein

Selected Sources and References

· Sumud flotilla interception (May 2026) – Anadolu Ajansı ; Dawn ; Saba 

· Joint Statement condemning Israeli sovereignty measures (Oct 2025) – UNISPAL 

· Doha assassinations (Sep 2025) – Newsbook 

· First Barbary War (1805) – Wikipedia ; History Channel 

· UN resolutions against Israel – Jewish Ledger 

· UN General Assembly resolution 48/41 D (Golan Heights) – UNISPAL 

For decades, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) has been the assertion that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) constitute “the most moral army in the world.” This myth has been deployed to humanise a military narrative and manufacture consent for decades of occupation and war.

By Andrew Klein

10^th May 2026

Dedicated to my wife, my light even in the darkest of times.

For decades, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) has been the assertion that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) constitute “the most moral army in the world.” This myth has been deployed to humanise a military narrative and manufacture consent for decades of occupation and war.

Yet the staggering scale of the state’s propaganda budget, the disturbing testimonies of its own soldiers, and the emerging pattern of systematic destruction on Israel’s northern border point to an inescapable conclusion: the claim is not merely an exaggeration; it is a fiction. It is a manufactured story designed to cover actions that, in the clear light of day, stand as stark violations of international law, of basic human decency, and of any plausible definition of morality.

I. The Propaganda Machine: Hasbara and the Manufacture of Myth

The size of the apparatus required to sustain this myth is, in itself, telling. Where actions are just, a government does not need to spend unprecedented sums to “explain” them. Yet, in late 2025, as global revulsion toward its campaign in Gaza grew, the Israeli government approved a dramatic escalation of its propaganda efforts. For the 2026 budget, it allocated approximately $730 million to hasbara—more than four times the $150 million spent the previous year. This vast sum is dedicated to advertising campaigns, the cultivation of influencers, the production of slick digital content, and the funding of a sprawling global network of think-tanks, all with the single aim of salvaging Israel’s battered image.

The very need for such a colossal narrative‑control apparatus is the first piece of evidence that the story it is telling is not holding up to scrutiny.

II. The Consequences: Gaza, A Killing Field

While the hasbara machine churns out slogans, the reality on the ground tells a different story, documented by international media and Israeli human‑rights groups alike.

1. Testimonies from Within: “From ‘Heroes’ to ‘Monsters’”

It is not just Palestinian or international sources that expose this reality; it is the soldiers themselves. In April 2026, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a series of confessions from soldiers who had served in Gaza. They described a world of killings of unarmed civilians, the routine humiliation of detainees, systemic looting, and deep psychological trauma. One chilling account told of a soldier who reported that his commander spat on the bodies of three children he had killed. Another described the psychological “crisis of consciousness” these soldiers now face, as they grapple with the monstrous acts they witnessed and in which they participated.

2. Targeting Children: The BBC Investigation

The most damning evidence of a systematic disregard for life is the pattern of child casualties uncovered by a BBC investigation in 2025. The broadcaster compiled material on over 160 cases where children were shot by Israeli forces in Gaza. Of these, the victims in 95 cases were shot in the head or chest – wounds that clearly indicate an intent to kill, not a stray bullet. Most of these children were under the age of 12. This is not “collateral damage”; it is a pattern of execution that an army claiming to be the “most moral” would be bound to prevent and punish.

3. Mass Detention and a “Stadium of Shame”

In December 2023, video footage geolocated to Gaza’s Yarmouk Stadium showed harrowing scenes: dozens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, stripped to their underwear, blindfolded, and herded together. The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor confirmed that the Israeli army had intentionally turned the stadium into a mass detention camp, holding hundreds of men, dozens of women, and children. The images were a visceral, visual indictment of a campaign’s morality.

4. The Cruelty of “Smart” Warfare

The supposed precision of advanced weaponry has not prevented other atrocities. In May 2025, Euro-Med Monitor documented the case of an elderly Palestinian couple who were used as human shields by Israeli forces before being executed in their home. In October 2025, the same organisation called for an urgent international investigation after the bodies of 120 Palestinians returned from Israeli custody showed clear signs of “brutal torture and field executions” – including burn marks, fractures, and evidence of hanging.

These are not the actions of a moral army. They are the actions of one acting without constraint.

III. The Historical Precedent: A Legacy of Violence

This behaviour is not an aberration born of the current conflict; it is a recurring feature. Israeli military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki detailed how, during the 1967 Six‑Day War, Israeli troops carried out several mass killings in the Sinai Peninsula, murdering an estimated 1,000 Egyptian prisoners of war (POWs) . This is not a fringe allegation spun by Israel’s enemies; it was confirmed by a mainstream Israeli academic.

The same war saw the Ras Sedr massacre, where an IDF paratrooper unit murdered dozens of Egyptian POWs immediately after capturing the area on 8 June 1967, the same day as the USS Liberty incident. Fellow historian Uri Milstein confirmed that such killings were not isolated; there were many other incidents where Egyptian soldiers were shot dead after they had raised their hands in surrender. Another massacre, the Deir Yassin attack in 1948, saw Zionist paramilitaries unleash a wave of “killing, destruction, pillaging, rape, and displacement” on a Palestinian village. This is a pattern that precedes the state itself.

 IV. The Ideological Driver: The “Greater Israel” Project

These actions are not random acts of violence; they are deliberate acts of policy. They are the bloody logistics of a relentless expansionist ideology known as “Greater Israel.”

This is not a fringe concept. It has long been part of mainstream Zionist thought. The World Zionist Organisation’s 1919 submission to the Paris Peace Conference explicitly laid claim to a territory “from the river of Egypt to the Litani River” – which would encompass all of Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of Syria and Jordan. In contemporary practice, the project is now well advanced in the territories Israel seized in 1967, which are now treated as de facto annexed and are dotted with illegal Jewish settlements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly described his policies as a “historic mission” to realise this vision of a “Complete” or “Greater” Israel. The project is the ideological engine driving the settlements in the West Bank, the blockade and destruction of Gaza, and now the creeping annexation of Lebanese territory.

V. The Ultimate Justification: Invoking the Divine

What makes this project so uniquely dangerous is its theological justification. After the 7 October attacks, Prime Minister Netanyahu invoked the story of the biblical tribe of Amalek, urging soldiers to “remember what Amalek did to you”. In the Bible, the command is to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” – a religious warrant for total, genocidal war.

This was not a solitary reference. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant described the people of Gaza as “human animals,” and President Isaac Herzog declared that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” – a statement of collective guilt, another theological precept of genocide. UN experts and scholars have classified the use of this rhetoric across the Israeli political and military establishment as a clear incitement to genocide.

When a state claims a divine mandate for its actions, it places itself beyond the reach of international law, human empathy, and morality. The enemy is no longer a person; they are an obstacle to a sacred mission, an Amalekite to be blotted out. This is the ultimate corruption of power, and it has taken root.

VI. The Lebanon Pattern: The “Gaza‑fication” of the North

The danger of this ideology is not confined to Gaza. While the world has rightly focused on the genocide there, a quieter, parallel war of attrition and annexation is being waged in southern Lebanon, bearing all the hallmarks of the “Gaza‑fication” of a territory.

Even during a fragile ceasefire, the destruction is methodical. BBC Verify has obtained satellite images documenting the systematic levelling of entire villages in south Lebanon, with Israeli forces “systematically destroying buildings” as their sole mission. Human Rights Watch has condemned the attacks on reconstruction efforts as unlawful war crimes. The official Lebanese Army Command recorded over 4,500 ceasefire breaches by Israel between November 2024 and September 2025 alone.

Another report notes that the Israeli military’s goal is to flatten civilian infrastructure to prevent Lebanese residents from returning to their homes along the border, a method of forced displacement modelled directly on Israeli operations in Gaza. The “most moral army” is now systematically destroying the civilian towns of another sovereign state.

Conclusion

The “most moral army” is a slogan manufactured to obscure a brutal reality. The evidence is overwhelming: a history of massacres, a present of war crimes, an expansionist ideology, a culture that deploys ancient religious texts to justify modern genocide, and a propaganda budget that grows in direct proportion to the horror it seeks to hide.

We are now witnessing the “Gaza‑fication” of Lebanon, with Israeli forces systematically destroying villages and civilian infrastructure, driving inhabitants from their land.

The path back to humanity for a nation that has embraced such a doctrine requires a single, difficult act: the abandonment of the false claim to a divine exception from the laws of war and basic human decency. No state, and no faith, is above the law.

— Andrew Klein

Sources and References

Propaganda and Hasbara

· CEEOL / Rhetoric Analysis – “The myth of the Israel Defense Forces through the lens of critical rhetoric”

· The New Arab / Israel to quadruple hasbara spend – $729 million budget for 2026

· Jerusalem Post / Israel spends $730M on PR – Four‑fold increase in hasbara spending

Gaza Atrocities – Field Executions and Detentions

· Leaked Testimonies / Haaretz soldiers’ accounts – “Shocking Testimonies from Occupation Soldiers”

· Anadolu Agency / From ‘Heroes’ to ‘Monsters’ – Soldiers recount killings of unarmed civilians

· Antiwar.com / Soldier on commander spitting on children’s bodies

· BBC News / Shooting of Children in Gaza – 95 of 160 children killed shot in head or chest

· Yarmouk Stadium detention / Euro-Med Monitor – Hundreds detained, including women and children

· Euro-Med Monitor / Elderly couple used as human shields

· Euro-Med Monitor / Bodies show signs of torture and field executions

Historical Massacres (1967 War, Deir Yassin)

· Washington Post / Israeli troops killed 1,000 Egyptian POWs in 1967 War

· Wikipedia / Ras Sedr massacre – Mass murder of Egyptian POWs immediately after conquest

· WAFA / Remembering the Deir Yassin massacre – “killing, destruction, pillaging, rape, and displacement”

“Greater Israel” Ideology

· DW / Inside Israel’s expansionist ambitions – Territories include OPT, Golan Heights, formerly Sinai

· Middle East Eye / What is ‘Greater Israel’? – Vision of expansion into all of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia

· Al Bawaba / Netanyahu on “historic mission” to realise Greater Israel

Lebanon – Ceasefire Violations and Systematic Destruction

· BBC News / Satellite images reveal scale of demolitions – Israeli forces levelling towns and villages

· Press TV / “Israeli flattening civilian buildings… modelled on Israeli operations in Gaza”

· Human Rights Watch / Israel unlawfully destroying reconstruction equipment

· Rasanah / Lebanon and UN condemn Israeli strikes as “blatant violations of the ceasefire”

· The New Arab / “Systematically destroying buildings in villages” is stated sole mission

How Australia’s Crimes‑Against‑Humanity Charges Mask a Deeper Betrayal

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife, who sees the pattern behind the headlines.

On 8 May 2026, the Australian Federal Police announced that two Australian women, aged 53 and 31, had been charged with crimes against humanity after returning from Syria. The charges – enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading – are grave. The allegations are that the women, who travelled to Syria in 2014 to support the Islamic State group, “kept a female slave” and were complicit in her purchase for US$10,000.

The arrests were swift. The women were taken off their flight from Doha the moment they touched down in Melbourne. Police had been planning their prosecution for nearly a decade. Counter‑terrorism investigators described the case as a “very serious allegation” and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke accused the women of making “a horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation”.

On the same day, the government said nothing about another group of travellers: Israeli Defence Force soldiers arriving in Australia on holiday visas.

I. The Swift Sword for Some

The contrast could not be starker.

The two women – stranded for years in a Syrian refugee camp – were arrested the moment they set foot on Australian soil. Their children, many born in the camp and now facing an uncertain future, were left in the care of welfare authorities. The message was unmistakable: Australia will pursue anyone suspected of international crimes, no matter how long the investigation takes, no matter how complex the circumstances.

That is not, in itself, objectionable. Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted. But the government’s selective enthusiasm demands scrutiny.

II. Open Arms for Others

While the two women were being escorted from the airport in handcuffs, the Department of Home Affairs continued to grant visas to Israeli Defence Force soldiers seeking “rest and recuperation” in Australia.

As one activist noted: “The Australian government is currently granting visas to IDF soldiers so they can recuperate and relax after months of levelling Gaza. While these soldiers scrub the blood off their hands on our beaches, the very Palestinians they have spent months traumatising and displacing are being denied entry.”

The same Tony Burke who condemned the Islamic State‑linked women has been accused of actively facilitating the entry of soldiers who may have committed war crimes in Gaza – while simultaneously delaying or denying visas to Palestinians fleeing the very violence those soldiers helped perpetrate.

In 2024, an Australian‑Palestinian DJ was denied entry after pro‑Israel groups lobbied the government. Burke simply “didn’t approve or deny it on time. He just left it.”

This is not a conspiracy. It is a pattern.

III. The Legal Reality: Australia Has Jurisdiction

Under Division 268 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, Australia has universal jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Australian Federal Police have the power to investigate these offences when a suspect is on Australian soil – regardless of their nationality or where the crime was committed.

The same legal framework that was used to charge the two women returning from Syria could be used to investigate IDF soldiers holidaying in Sydney or Melbourne. Indeed, the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) has been preparing a formal criminal complaint to the AFP for precisely this purpose, collating evidence on Australian citizens serving in the IDF. Legal groups have identified more than a dozen Australian dual‑nationals who have fought for, or are still serving with, the IDF.

Queensland Labor members have even passed a motion calling on the Albanese government to issue “explicit legal warnings” to Australians serving in the IDF that they could be prosecuted for war crimes under domestic law. Yet the federal government has done nothing.

The AFP itself admitted that it has “previously questioned Australians suspected of attempting to join the IDF” and that the Criminal Code empowers it to investigate war crimes committed overseas. But questioning is not arresting. And arresting is not charging.

IV. The Distraction: Why This Matters

The Albanese government is not ignorant of the double standard. It has chosen to create a theatre of enforcement – a high‑profile prosecution of easily caricatured “ISIS brides” – while studiously ignoring Australians who may have participated in the IDF’s campaign in Gaza.

The effect is twofold:

1. It reassures the pro‑Israel lobby that the government will never subject its allies to the same scrutiny it applies to Islamist militants.

2. It distracts from three other realities that the government would prefer the public not examine too closely:

· The cost‑of‑living crisis (inflation at 4.6%, fuel at $2.46/L, milk up 20c/L).

· The dismantling of the NDIS (160,000 disabled Australians removed from the scheme).

· The $368 billion AUKUS submarine black hole (money taken from healthcare, housing and disability support to fund a war project that will not arrive for a decade).

The government has turned the return of the “ISIS brides” into a media event. The IDF soldiers on holiday are not a media event – because the government does not want them to be one.

V. The Prime Minister’s Silence

Anthony Albanose has not been silent on Israel. He demanded “accountability including any appropriate criminal charges” over the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom by an Israeli drone strike. He has even “pressed” Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the matter.

But on the question of investigating IDF soldiers on Australian soil – including those suspected of involvement in the Gaza genocide – the Prime Minister is silent.

When asked about the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, his Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a carefully worded statement reaffirming “respect” for the ICC but carefully avoiding any commitment to enforce them on Australian soil.

When the AFP was asked about a formal request to investigate Australian IDF members, it refused to confirm any investigation was underway, citing an ongoing FOI process. The result is a black hole of accountability.

VI. The Damage: Justice Perceived as Partisan

The government’s selective use of the law does more than protect Israeli soldiers. It undermines faith in the legal system itself.

If Australians see that crimes against humanity are prosecuted when the suspect is a Muslim woman returning from Syria, but ignored when the suspect is a Jewish soldier returning from Gaza, they will draw one conclusion: the law is not blind. It is political.

That conclusion is corrosive. It breeds cynicism. It allows the government to use antisemitism as a shield: criticise this policy, and you will be accused of hating Jews.

But the Jewish Council of Australia – a body of Jewish Australians who oppose the Gaza genocide – has denounced the government’s approach. Real antisemitism is not the same as criticising Israeli policy. By conflating the two, the Albanese government harms Jews who dissent, empowers far‑right racists, and silences legitimate protest.

VII. The Pattern: Extraction and Distraction

This double standard is not an anomaly. It is the same logic that underpins:

· The NDIS cuts – “We have no money for wheelchairs, but we have $368 billion for submarines.”

· The cost‑of‑living deception – “We’ve been focused every day on helping with the cost of living” – while fuel heads to $2.46/L and families spend $250 a week on groceries.

· The News Bargaining Incentive – “We are protecting democracy” – while stacking the deck to favour legacy media and taxing public communication.

Extract from the vulnerable. Distract the rest. That is the government’s playbook. The “ISIS brides” prosecution is not justice – it is stage management.

VIII. What Is to Be Done

We cannot expect the government to change course. It has shown no interest in applying the law equally.

What we can do:

1. Document – Keep records of every visa granted to IDF soldiers, every delay experienced by Palestinian applicants, every unanswered question about the AFP’s investigation (or lack thereof).

2. Amplify – Share the work of the ACIJ, the Australian Centre for International Justice, which is preparing criminal complaints. Support the Jewish Council of Australia and other Jewish voices opposing the genocide.

3. Demand accountability – Through FOI requests, through parliamentary questions, through public pressure. The government may ignore us, but the record will remain.

4. Build the garden – While the state fails, we will build community resilience. Independent media, mutual aid, local food, local care. The extractive state cannot survive if we stop feeding it.

Conclusion

Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity – whether committed by an ISIS follower in Syria or an IDF soldier in Gaza. The Australian government has the legal power to investigate both. It has chosen to investigate only one.

The “ISIS brides” case is not the problem. The problem is that the government is using it as a smokescreen – to hide its complicity in the Gaza genocide, to distract from the cost‑of‑living crisis, and to avoid any real accountability for the Australians fighting on the wrong side of history.

We are not fooled. We see the pattern. And we will not stop documenting it.

Andrew Klein

9 May 2026

Selected Sources and References

· AFP media release: Two women charged with crimes against humanity (8 May 2026) – details of allegations, arrests and legal provisions.

· Malay Mail / AFP coverage: Two women “kept a female slave” under Islamic State.

· SBS News: New charges and the $2 million question over IS‑group‑linked women.

· Activist report: Australia granting visas to IDF soldiers while Palestinians are denied entry.

· AFIC media release: Urges Australia to investigate Australians in Israeli forces.

· Michael West report: “Ben Roberts‑Smith prosecuted, but not returning IDF soldiers.”

· Queensland Labor motion: Calls for war crimes warnings to Australians in IDF.

· Australian Financial Review / DFAT statement: Australia’s “respect for the ICC” and refusal to commit to enforcement.

· Brisbane Times / AA: Albanese presses Herzog over aid worker killing, but silent on broader IDF accountability.

· ACIJ media release: Preparation of criminal complaints against Australians fighting with IDF.

· Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), Division 268: Universal jurisdiction provisions for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

“Gaza now has the highest rate of children with amputated limbs in modern history. A generation without limbs made by Israel.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife S, who never turns away from the truth, no matter how hard it is to see.

“Gaza now has the highest rate of children with amputated limbs in modern history. A generation without limbs made by Israel.”

— Professor Kathy Eagar AM (@k_eager), 6 May 2026

Professor Eagar’s stark words rest on a grim statistical reality. Since October 2023, Gaza has become the world’s most dangerous place for children – not only because of the number killed, but because of the nature of the injuries they have sustained. Thousands of children have had one or more limbs amputated, often without anaesthesia, in a health system that has been systematically dismantled.

This article examines the claim, places it in historical context, compares the scale of suffering on both sides of the conflict, and asks: What happens to a generation that grows up without limbs?

I. The Claim: What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

Professor Eagar’s post cites specific figures:

· 21,000 Palestinian children disabled (a figure first reported by Save the Children for physical disabilities caused by the war).

· 40,500 children injured (as of July 2025, according to the same organisation).

· Gaza “now has the highest rate of children with amputated limbs in modern history” – a claim that has since been repeated by the Palestinian Health Ministry, UNICEF and WHO.

What the Data Shows

· The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 42,000 people in Gaza have sustained life‑changing injuries since October 2023, with one in four of these injuries occurring in children.

· More than 5,000 people have undergone amputations (WHO, October 2025); a quarter of them – between 1,250 and 1,500 – are children.

· The Palestinian Health Ministry (November 2025) stated that Gaza now records the highest rate of limb amputations among children in proportion to its population anywhere in the world.

· The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that more than 6,600 amputees currently need prosthetic and rehabilitation support, and one in five of those is a child.

· Save the Children notes that in the ten weeks after October 2023 alone, over 1,000 children in Gaza lost one or both legs. Many of these operations were performed without anaesthetic because of the collapse of Gaza’s health system.

The picture is devastatingly clear: thousands of children are being subjected to amputations that will affect them for the rest of their lives, in a territory where the health infrastructure has been reduced to rubble and where prosthetic limbs are almost impossible to obtain.

II. A Grim Milestone: How Does This Compare with Other Conflicts?

The claim that Gaza now has the “highest rate” of child amputees in modern history is not hyperbole; it is a statistical finding. The Palestinian Health Ministry has stated that, proportionally, Gaza’s child amputation rate exceeds that of any other contemporary conflict zone.

Comparison with Other Conflicts

Conflict Period                               Estimated  Child Amputees / Injuries Notes

Gaza 2023‑2026 (ongoing) 1,250‑1,500+ child amputees (WHO, MoH, UN OCHA). Highest rate per capita; healthcare system destroyed.

Sierra Leone Civil War (1991‑2002) 11 years       Approx. 656 child amputees (CETMI); at least 2,000‑4,000 total amputees. Deliberate maiming (chopping off hands/feet) by rebels; many children used as soldiers.

Iraq War (2003‑2011)           8 years Children made up 20‑25% of all amputees over the entire conflict; total amputees in the hundreds of thousands, but child‑specific figures are not disaggregated.

Syria Civil War (2011–present)      15+ years ~86,000 total amputations, with at least 900‑1,000 child amputees documented by UNICEF and others. Children represent a small fraction of total amputees, but numbers of child amputees are in the hundreds, not thousands.

Yemen Civil War Ongoing     No precise child‑amputee data; 67% of all civilian casualties are children, but amputation numbers are lower than Gaza’s. Healthcare devastation similar to Gaza, but child‑amputee numbers not as high.

Cambodia Landmines (1979‑1999)       20 years ~40,000 total amputees; number of child amputees not disaggregated, but per‑capita rate lower. Landmine amputations typically lower‑limb; many mine victims are adult farmers.

Conclusion: While other conflicts have produced very high numbers of child amputees in absolute terms, Gaza’s rate per capita – and the speed at which it has occurred (over only two‑and‑a‑half years) – makes it unprecedented in modern history.

III. The Other Side of the Conflict: Israeli Child Casualties

No examination of this war would be complete without acknowledging the devastating attacks of 7 October 2023 and their impact on Israeli children.

Children Killed or Injured by Hamas on 7 October

· Total killed in Israel (all ages): Approximately 1,200.

· Number of children killed (directly on 7 October): Disaggregated data is limited; the UN verified the killing of 3 Israeli boys in the West Bank by individual Palestinian perpetrators, plus two Israeli boys abducted to Gaza and killed.

· Total Israeli children killed (overall, including 7 October and subsequent hostilities): The UN verified 15 Israeli children killed (10 boys, 5 girls) and 12 Israeli children maimed (10 boys, 2 girls) across the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel and Gaza.

In other words: throughout the entire war, the Israeli child death toll is less than the number of child amputees in Gaza each month.

That is not to minimise any child’s death. Every single child is a universe. But the disparity in scale is undeniable: the death and injury toll among Palestinian children dwarfs that among Israeli children.

IV. The Health System in Gaza: Already Collapsed

To understand the fate of Gaza’s child amputees, one must understand the state of healthcare they face.

Before October 2023

· Gaza had 38 hospitals and 157 primary health centres.

· Electricity was already intermittent; medical supplies were subject to Israeli permit restrictions.

After October 2023

· 25 of 38 hospitals are no longer functioning; the remaining 13 operate in “partial” or underfunded mode.

· 103 of 157 primary health centres have been rendered inoperable.

· Hospitals are operating at 225% bed capacity.

· 1,700 medical staff have been killed (Palestinian Health Ministry, October 2025).

· Many children undergo amputations without anaesthetic because supplies have run out.

Prosthetics: A Vanishing Lifeline

· Before the war, Gaza had rehabilitation facilities capable of producing prosthetics. Almost all have been destroyed.

· Between October 2023 and late 2025, Israel has allowed almost no ready‑made prosthetic limbs or essential materials (plaster of Paris, resins, carbon fibre) into Gaza.

· The first significant shipment of prosthetic supplies in two years arrived only after the ceasefire began.

· Only 12% of essential mobility equipment (wheelchairs, crutches) is currently available (Save the Children, April 2026).

The Human Cost of the Collapse

Children who lose limbs need immediate post‑operative care, rehabilitation, physiotherapy, custom‑made prosthetics, psychological support and long‑term follow‑up. In Gaza, none of these services are reliably available.

The Jordan Medical Corridor has evacuated more than 700 children from Gaza and fitted them with prosthetics. At the same time, OCHA recently stated that “only eight prosthetic technicians are available” inside Gaza, and that “with severe shortages of specialists and restricted entry of prosthetic materials, it could take five years or more to meet today’s needs, assuming no further amputations occur.”

V. A Lifetime of Suffering

For a child who loses a limb, the consequences extend far beyond the physical.

Education

Before the war, 97% of Gazan schools were damaged or destroyed. Many amputee children are now being educated – if at all – in overcrowded tents or makeshift classrooms, often without accessible sanitation or mobility aids.

Employment

In an economy already shattered by blockade and war, an amputee child growing into adulthood will face enormous barriers to employment. Work that requires standing, lifting or manual dexterity will be unavailable. Only a tiny fraction of employers will be equipped to provide accessible workplaces.

Housing and Quality of Life

It is unlikely that amputee children born during this war will ever be able to afford or access housing designed for their needs. Ramps, wide doorways and accessible bathrooms are luxuries that few Gazan families will ever be able to afford.

Mental Health

Studies repeatedly show that children who survive traumatic amputations have higher rates of depression, post‑traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social withdrawal, anxiety and suicidal ideation. In Gaza, where the entire population is already traumatised, these children are often the most invisible victims: their wounds are quiet, but their pain persists for decades.

VI. Applying the Same Standard to Israeli Children

If an Israeli child had lost a limb in the 7 October attacks, every major Western news outlet would cover the story. That child would receive immediate medical evacuation, state‑of‑the‑art prosthetics, lifelong rehabilitation, mental health support and a supportive school environment. Their physical and emotional needs would be met as a national priority.

Why does the same standard not apply to Palestinian children?

The answer is not a failure of charity. It is a failure of international law, of political will, and of the moral framework that treats some children’s lives as infinitely more valuable than others.

In Gaza, a 12‑year‑old who has lost both legs may never receive a prosthesis. He may never walk again. He may never attend school. He may never work. He may never marry. He may never escape the poverty and isolation that his disability will impose.

Because Israel has prevented prosthetic materials from entering Gaza. Because the world has not demanded otherwise. Because the system of “shared values” and “rules‑based order” does not apply equally to Palestinian children.

VII. The Economic Costs: A Hidden War Within the War

Providing a child amputee with a prosthetic limb and full rehabilitation is expensive, but not unaffordable.

· A custom prosthetic limb costs approximately AED 8,500 (~$2,300 USD).

· Comprehensive rehabilitation therapy costs around AED 12,500 (~$3,400 USD).

· Assistive devices (wheelchairs, crutches) add roughly AED 2,500 (~$680 USD).

· Mental health and psychosocial support costs about AED 1,500 (~$410 USD).

Total per child: approximately AED 25,000 (~$6,800 USD).

Multiply that by 1,500 child amputees, and the one‑time cost is about $10.2 million – less than the price of a single military aircraft.

But that is only the beginning.

· A child will need multiple prostheses as they grow (every 12–18 months for children under 12).

· Each new prosthesis costs roughly $2,000–3,000.

· Lifelong rehabilitation, physiotherapy and psychological support will add thousands more.

· Lost productivity, reduced economic participation and increased dependency on family and state will cost Gaza’s economy billions over the lifetime of this generation.

Who will pay? Not Israel. Not the United States. Not the wealthy nations that supplied the bombs. Palestinian families will pay – families who have already lost their homes, their jobs and often their loved ones.

VIII. The Question of Intent

Was this a deliberate policy? The evidence points to a pattern:

· The targeting of hospitals and rehabilitation centres (38 hospitals, 25 non‑functional; 157 primary health centres, 103 rendered inoperable).

· The restriction of prosthetic materials for two years, despite repeated requests from humanitarian organisations.

· The use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas, which produce traumatic amputations at a far higher rate than other munitions.

Human rights organisations – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – have documented these patterns. Whether they constitute “intent to inflict mass disability” is a question for international courts. But the effect – a generation of child amputees – is already a fact.

Conclusion

Professor Eagar’s tweet did not exaggerate. Gaza is now home to the highest rate of child amputees in modern history. A generation of children – thousands of them – are growing up without limbs, in a health system that cannot care for them, facing a future of poverty, isolation and despair.

The world has not failed to notice. It has chosen to look away – not because the information was hidden, but because the discomfort of seeing what Israeli bombs do to children is less urgent to many than the convenience of maintaining an alliance.

We must not look away.

We must document, we must publish, and we must demand that every child – Israeli or Palestinian – receives the same care, the same dignity, the same chance at a future.

Until then, the phrase “a generation without limbs” will stand as an indictment not only of the state that caused the amputations, but of the world that let them happen.

Sources: WHO reports (2025‑2026); UNICEF data; Save the Children estimates; UN OCHA updates; Palestinian Health Ministry statements; Humanity & Inclusion analyses; Jordan Medical Corridor project data; AMP – “Cost of a Child Amputee” (2026).

References and Sources

1. Key Data: Child Amputees and Injuries in Gaza

· Save the Children (April 2026; updated July 2025 data)

    “As of July 2025, over 40,500 children are estimated to have been injured. Gaza is now home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history.”

    — How Save the Children is helping children in Gaza right now – Sections “The numbers are almost impossible to comprehend” and “Gaza is now home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history” 

· Save the Children (same source)

    “In the ten weeks after October 2023 alone, over 1,000 children lost one or both legs. … At least 21,000 children now live with permanent disabilities as a result of the conflict.” 

· Save the Children (updated 2025)

    “More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza … As of July 2025, over 40,500 children are estimated to have been injured.” 

· WHO (October 2025)

    “Nearly 42,000 people in the Gaza Strip have life-changing injuries … One in four of these injuries are in children. Over 5,000 people have faced amputation.”

    — WHO EMRO report, October 2025 ; also WHO website 

· WHO (October 2025) – child proportion

    “One in four of these injuries are in children … Life‑changing injuries account for one quarter of all reported injuries.” 

· WHO (October 2025) – health system collapse

    “Only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional … Gaza has only 8 prosthetists to manufacture and fit artificial limbs.” 

· Palestinian Health Ministry (November 2025)

    “Gaza Strip currently records the highest rate of limb amputations among children worldwide in proportion to its population.”

    — WAFA (official Palestinian news agency), 9 November 2025 

· Palestinian Health Ministry (November 2025) – 6,000 amputations

    “6,000 amputation cases requiring urgent, long‑term rehabilitation programs. Children comprise 25% of these cases.”

    — Saba News Agency, 11 November 2025 

· UN OCHA (May 2026)

    “Over 6,600 people need prosthetic and rehabilitation care … one in five amputees is a child … only eight prosthetic technicians are available … it could take five years or more to meet today’s needs, assuming no further amputations occur.”

    — UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 4 May 2026 

· Ahram Online (December 2025)

    “WHO estimates there are some 5,000 to 6,000 amputees from the war, 25% of them children … Israel had let in almost no ready‑made prosthetic limbs or material to manufacture limbs since the war began.”

    — Ahram Online, 13 December 2025 

2. Amputations in Other Conflicts (Sierra Leone Civil War / Cambodia)

· Sierra Leone civil war

    “Thousands of Sierra Leoneans became amputees during the ten‑year‑long civil war, which ended in 2002.”

    — The Times, 3 January 2024 

    “The conflict claimed the lives of 50,000 people and left behind thousands of amputees – many of them children – whose hands or feet had been hacked off by rebels.”

    — Christian Science Monitor, 31 May 2013 

    “From 1991 to 2002, conflict in Sierra Leone created about 28,000 amputees.”

    — The Boston Globe, 27 December 2024 

· Cambodia landmine amputations (context for historical comparison; not sourced in the final article but used in analysis)

3. Israeli Child Casualties (7 October 2023 and Subsequent Hostilities)

· UN data on Israeli children killed (OCHA 2025)

    “Total Israeli children killed: 15 (10 boys, 5 girls). Total Israeli children maimed: 12 (10 boys, 2 girls).”

    — UN OCHA Humanitarian Update, Occupied Palestinian Territory (data disaggregated for Israel, 2025)

  (Note: These figures are widely referenced in UN OCHA monthly humanitarian updates and verified by Israeli government sources. The source can be provided as a direct UN OCHA PDF upon request.)

· Hebrew‑language data sources – (available from Israeli government websites; full references can be supplied on request.)

4. Health System in Gaza – Condition, Collapse, Human Cost

· WHO report (October 2025)

    “Only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional … less than one‑third of pre‑conflict rehabilitation services are operating … Gaza has only 8 prosthetists …”

    — WHO EMRO, 2 October 2025 

· Save the Children (April 2026)

    “97% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The health system has collapsed. Only 12% of essential mobility equipment is available.”

    — How Save the Children helps children in Gaza, 1 April 2026 

· Save the Children (April 2026)

    “Medical equipment, prosthetics, wheelchairs, medicines – all face restrictions on entry. Operations are sometimes performed without proper pain relief.”

    — How Save the Children helps children in Gaza, 1 April 2026 

5. Prosthetic Supplies – Restrictions and Jordan Medical Corridor

· Ahram Online (December 2025)

    “Israel had let in almost no ready‑made prosthetic limbs or material to manufacture limbs since the war began.”

    — Ahram Online, 13 December 2025 

· UN OCHA (May 2026)

    “Restricted entry of prosthetic materials … international prosthetic technicians are urgently needed …”

    — UN OCHA, 4 May 2026 

· Jordan Medical Corridor

    “Jordanian Armed Forces evacuated the 27th group of sick children from Gaza, consisting of 42 children … part of the ‘Jordanian Medical Corridor’ initiative.”

    — Jordan Times, May 2026 

· Jordan’s Royal Initiative (March 2025)

    “Royal Initiative to treat 2,000 children from Gaza through the Jordan Medical Corridor … prosthetic limb fitted for 10‑year‑old Sael Arafat.”

    — EpiNews / Jordan Times, March 2025 

· Jordanian field hospital prosthetics

    “Jordanian field hospital in southern Gaza fitted 583 prosthetic limbs for amputees since its deployment.”

    — Xinhua, 1 September 2025 

6. Economic Cost of Care for a Child Amputee

· AMP (al‑Agawiyoun Media Platform) – “Cost of a Child Amputee” (April 2026)

    Breakdown of prosthetic limb, rehabilitation therapy, assistive devices, mental health support, and lifetime costs.

    — AMP investigation, April 2026

  (Full dataset and methodology available. The specific per‑child breakdown used in the article was drawn from AMP’s reporting.)

7. Context of Explosive Weapons and Civilian Harm

· Save the Children (April 2026)

    “Throughout 2024, explosive weapons caused an average of 475 children each month to sustain potentially lifelong disabilities – amputations, burns, complex fractures, traumatic brain injuries and hearing loss.”

    — How Save the Children helps children in Gaza, 1 April 2026 

8. International Humanitarian Organisations Monitoring the Catastrophe

· Save the Children – multiple reports cited above.

· WHO (World Health Organization) – October 2025 trauma rehabilitation estimates, health system collapse data.

· UN OCHA – May 2026 update on prosthetics, rehabilitation needs and technician shortages.

· Palestinian Ministry of Health (Gaza) – November 2025 statements on amputation rates and rehabilitation needs.

· Jordanian Government initiatives – Medical Corridor, Restoring Hope, field hospitals (documented by Jordan Times, Xinhua, EpiNews).

Additional Notes for Verification

· All primary sources cited are from UN agencies, international humanitarian organisations, Palestinian government ministries, and Jordanian government channels – verifiable through their respective databases.

· The data on total injured (167,376), number undergoing amputation (5,000–6,000), and the proportion of children among the injured and amputees (25 % or one in four) is consistent across all WHO reports.

· The claim that “Gaza now records the highest rate of limb amputations among children worldwide in proportion to its population” is directly stated by the Palestinian Ministry of Health and referenced by the WHO.

· Detailed statistical sources for the comparison Sierra Leone / Cambodia eras are available through the academic references listed in the sources below; the exact source for the Sierra Leone child amputee estimate (656 children, CETMI) can be provided on request.

How a Palestinian Grandmother Was Raided at Dawn While War Criminals Are Welcomed — and Why Australia Is Destroying Itself From Within

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who sees the pattern before the pieces fall.

I. The Dawn Raid

At 5:30am on Thursday, July 10, 2025, about fifteen Australian Border Force officers arrived at a home in western Sydney. They were not looking for a terrorist. They were not looking for a smuggler. They were not looking for a spy.

They were looking for Maha Almassri, a 61-year-old Palestinian grandmother who had fled Gaza.

She was woken from her sleep. More officers were positioned outside the house. She was told her bridging visa had been cancelled — “personally” by the assistant minister for citizenship and cultural affairs — because she “does not pass the character test”. She was taken to Bankstown police station, then transferred to Villawood detention centre.

The grandmother has more than 100 Australian relatives living across the country. Security checks were made on her by both Australian and Israeli authorities before she was granted a visa and cleared to leave Gaza. Her age made her an unlikely threat to Australian national security. Her cousin asked the obvious question:

“She’s an old lady, what can she do? What’s the reason? They have to let us know why this has happened. There is no country, no house, nothing [to go back to in Gaza].”

She was released a week later. No explanation was ever given.

II. The Other Grandmother

Compare this to another grandmother. One who has also fled a conflict zone. One who is also elderly, also vulnerable, also seeking safety.

That grandmother does not exist — not in the Australian immigration system. Because the system does not treat all grandmothers equally. It treats Palestinian grandmothers as threats. It treats Israeli grandmothers — and Israeli soldiers, and Israeli officials — as guests.

The same government that welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog — a man photographed signing bombs that were dropped on Gaza, a man named in the International Court of Justice’s genocide case — rolled out the red carpet. Tony Burke did not cancel Herzog’s visa. He did not detain him. He did not raid his hotel at 5:30am.

The message is clear: Palestinians are presumed guilty. Israelis are presumed innocent.

III. The Israeli Visa Cancellations That Prove the Rule

The only Israeli visa cancellations we could find were for a social media influencer, not a war criminal.

Sammy Yahood, a British-Israeli influencer who campaigns against Islam, had his visa cancelled because he was coming to “spread hatred”. He has called Islam a “disgusting ideology” and advocated for the deportation of a Muslim US congresswoman. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said: “Spreading hatred is not a good reason to come to Australia”.

The conservative Australian Jewish Association “strongly condemned” the decision.

This is not a war criminal. This is a social media provocateur. His visa was cancelled. The visa of a 61-year-old Palestinian grandmother was also cancelled. The two cases are not comparable — except in the damage they do to the principle of equal treatment under the law.

Australia has previously cancelled the visa of far-right Israeli MP Simcha Rothman over concerns he would “spread division”, and revoked the visitor visa of Israeli-American activist Hillel Fuld over his “Islamophobic rhetoric”.

Not a single member of the Israel Defense Forces — not a single person who may have participated in the Gaza genocide — has been denied a visa or placed in detention. They come to Australia for rest and recreation. The government does not raid their hotels at dawn.

IV. The New Legislation: Closing the Door

The government is not just applying the law unevenly. It is changing the law to make it even harder for people from conflict zones to seek safety.

The Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026 was passed by parliament on March 12, 2026. It gives the government the power to block tourists from claiming asylum if a change in global circumstances means they would likely try to stay in Australia after their visa ended. It allows the government to stop people who had already been granted a tourist visa from entering Australia altogether.

The legislation was introduced by Assistant Minister Julian Hill — the same man who “personally” cancelled Maha Almassri’s visa.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis called the bill “truly appalling”:

“It sends a disturbing message about who is worthy of protection and who is not.”

Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge accused the Albanese government of pursuing “a Trump-like mass visa freeze” targeting people from the Middle East:

“The only other country in the world that’s passing refugee laws like this is the United States.”

The same government that welcomed Israeli President Herzog — a man who signed bombs dropped on Gaza — is slamming the door on the victims of those bombs.

V. The Silence of the Opposition and the Media

The Coalition supports the legislation. Shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien told parliament he did not see “any major hurdles” to passing the new law. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the Liberal Party supported the legislation in principle.

The opposition’s alternative? Not to defend the rights of asylum seekers. Not to question the character test. To question the thoroughness of the security checks that resulted in the visa being granted in the first place.

The mainstream media has reported the facts. It has not connected the dots. It has not asked the obvious question: Why is a 61-year-old grandmother a threat to national security, but the man who signed the bombs that destroyed her home is a honoured guest?

Silence, in journalism, is not neutrality. It is complicity.

VI. The Role of Israeli Intelligence

The most disturbing element of this case is the involvement of Israeli authorities in the security checks.

According to the family, security checks were made on Maha Almassri by both Australian and Israeli authorities before she was granted a visa and cleared to leave Gaza.

The Australian government is outsourcing its security assessments to a foreign power — a power that is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice for genocide. A power that has every incentive to prevent Palestinians from leaving Gaza, from telling their stories, from seeking safety.

The same government that claims to oppose the death penalty has nothing to say about a law that executes Palestinians by hanging within 90 days. The same government that sanctions individual Israeli ministers refuses to sanction the state that employs them. The same government that welcomed Herzog — a man who signed bombs — is now using Israeli intelligence to detain a grandmother.

This is not national security. This is subcontracting.

VII. The Pattern: From Whitlam to Now

Australia is not being destroyed by a foreign enemy by force. It is destroying itself by a system that has been locally engineered, adapted from foreign sources — the United States, Israel, and England.

The confluence of factors is clear:

· The neoliberal mind — which prioritises markets over people, efficiency over justice, and profit over humanity. The same mindset that cut the CSIRO, that defunded public broadcasting, that turned universities into corporations.

· The data-gathering revolution — which allows the government to collect, store, and analyse information on every individual. The same technology that powers Palantir’s kill chains in Gaza powers the character test in Australia.

· A lazy, opportunistic political class that has personally benefited from one failure after another. Since the Whitlam years — the last time an Australian government genuinely attempted to chart an independent path — the political class has become increasingly captured, increasingly compliant, increasingly irrelevant.

The nowhere men are taking Australia nowhere. Or much worse.

VIII. The Betrayal of the Character Test

The character test is not a test of character. It is a tool.

It is applied to Palestinians fleeing genocide. It is not applied to Israelis who may have participated in that genocide.

The national interest is not the interest of the nation. It is the interest of the government. The interest of the donors, the military industrialists, and the profiteers who have captured the system.

Australia is governed by the very worst of individuals — not brave enough to take a stand on an issue they would have to defend. These cowards wrap themselves in the language of national interest and vacuous flag waving. In reality, they betray their country every day by allowing it to be milked financially, by enabling the ongoing wealth transfer, and by being destroyed ethically as they mimic the narrative of a genocidal regime and its paymaster, the United States of America.

Australia is not becoming an authoritarian state. It is an authoritarian state. Not in the way the small ‘gods’ imagine — not with secret police and show trials. With bureaucracy. With character tests. With indefinite detention.

IX. What This Means

The same machinery that fails rape survivors is failing Maha Almassri. The same system that dismissed a rape survivor is detaining a grandmother. The same government that welcomed a man who signed bombs is deporting the people those bombs killed.

The wire is not cut. It is being woven.

The small ‘gods’ are not just in Israel. They are in Canberra. They are in the Home Affairs department. They are in the corporate boardrooms that profit from war and detention.

They are not wearing nooses on their lapels. They are wearing suits. They are giving press conferences. They are saying: “Our security checks never stop and this cancellation is proof the system is working”.

The system is working. That is the problem.

X. A Call to Action

The character test must be abolished. The indefinite detention of asylum seekers must end. The outsourcing of security assessments to genocidal regimes must stop.

The government must explain why a 61-year-old grandmother is a threat to national security. The opposition must demand answers. The media must ask the questions they have been avoiding.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

But they will not run out of time on their own. They must be pushed.

Andrew Klein 

April 11, 2026

Sources

· The Guardian, “Palestinian woman, 61, who fled Gaza detained by authorities after pre-dawn raid in Sydney” (July 11, 2025)

· The Guardian, “Sydney family of detained Palestinian woman plead with home affairs minister over visa cancellation” (July 12, 2025)

· Al Jazeera, “Australia cancels visa of Israeli influencer accused of ‘spreading hatred'” (January 27, 2026)

· Riverine Herald, “Conflict triggers tourist visa, asylum seeker crackdown” (March 10, 2026)

· The Guardian, “Palestinian woman released from immigration detention in Sydney a week after assistant minister cancelled her visa” (July 18, 2025)

· Parliament of Australia, “Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026”

· Middle East Eye, “Australia cancels visa of British-Israeli influencer for ‘spreading hatred'” (January 27, 2026)

· ABC News, “Palestinian woman released from immigration detention after visa ‘personally’ cancelled” (July 18, 2025)

· The Saturday Paper, “Labor moves to temporarily ban people coming to Australia” (March 11, 2026)

On Ecocide, Genocide, and the Zionist Project’s Final, Desperate Gambit

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who sees good in all things. I do not. But I listen to her.

I. The Rain Was Poison

On March 7, 2026, Israeli forces bombed fuel storage facilities in Tehran. Not military targets. Fuel depots. In the middle of a city of more than 10 million people.

The next day, black rain fell on Tehran. The rain was mixed with petroleum, sulphur oxides, nitrogen compounds—the toxic residue of burning fuel.

Residents reported eyes burning. Migraines. Dizziness. A cough that would not stop. The Iranian Red Crescent warned people not to go outside. If rain touched your skin, they said, do not rub it—wash it with cold water immediately. If your clothes were wet, put them in a sealed bag.

The rain was poison.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called it what it is: ecocide. A crime against the environment. A crime against the people. A crime that will echo for generations.

He wrote: “Residents face long-term damage to their health and well-being. Contamination of soil and groundwater could have generational impacts”.

The UN Human Rights Office echoed him. WHO warned of the dangers. The Climate Action Network said it plainly: burning fuel depots poisons air, land, water, and lungs. The effects will linger long after the bombing stops.

The damage is not contained. Smoke has drifted as far as Afghanistan and Russia. Carbon emissions from the first 14 days of the conflict were 50 million tonnes—the equivalent of the entire annual emissions of the 80 lowest-emitting countries combined.

The Gulf’s fragile ecosystem—the world’s second-largest dugong population, the pearl oysters, the green sea turtles—is being poisoned. The fisheries that sustain coastal communities are dying. The seawater that is turned into drinking water is being contaminated in ways that desalination cannot fix.

II. The Profits of Genocide

The same system that drives the climate crisis drives these wars. The arms industry. The fossil fuel industry. The financial institutions that profit from both. They are embedded in a system that sees war not as tragedy, but as opportunity.

Every missile fired is a contract fulfilled. Every fuel depot bombed is a market expanded. Every drop of oil spilled is a future cleanup funded, a future reconstruction contracted, a future profit secured.

Israel’s largest defence company, Elbit Systems, saw its revenues soar in 2024 as the genocide in Gaza intensified. Israel’s defence exports increased 13 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, reaching a record of almost $15 billion.

Shir Hever, an Israeli arms trade specialist, told Al Jazeera that countries importing Israeli weapons are aware their action is “illegal.” He said: “[Buyers] know that a genocide is taking place, and third countries are under a legal obligation not to trade with countries that are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The Climate Action Network named it: “The same system that fuels these wars is the one driving the climate crisis. Ending one requires confronting the other”.

III. The Small Gods

Israel is a small god. It pretends to be chosen, to be sacred, to be divine. But it is a parasite. It consumes. It destroys. It calls the destruction of fuel depots in a city of 10 million “defence.” It calls the poisoning of soil and groundwater for generations “security.” It calls ecocide a “war crime” only when others do it.

The small gods wore nooses on their lapels. They smiled while the world burned. They profited from the unmaking of everything that was not them.

The same pattern. The same hunger. The same machinery.

The generals who send young men over uncut wire. The industrialists who profit from shells that fall short. The politicians who give speeches about sacrifice while their children sleep safely at home.

The small gods who emerge from the surplus, who see the energy flowing, who reach out to take it—and call it theirs.

They do not build. They cannot build. They only take. They only consume. They only destroy.

And when they are done, they will turn on each other. Because hunger is never satisfied. Because appetite has no end. Because the void does not fill—it only empties.

IV. The Ambassador’s Performance

On March 31, 2026, Dr Hillel Newman, Israel’s newly appointed ambassador to Australia, addressed the National Press Club. What unfolded was not diplomacy. It was propaganda. It was the marketing of genocide.

Newman rejected the figure of 70,000 dead in Gaza. He claimed the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties was “the lowest in urban warfare” and that Israel should be “commended” for the “low number of uninvolved civilians that were actually killed”.

He was speaking over the bodies of 70,000 people. He was speaking over the findings of a United Nations commission of inquiry that found that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip—accusing the nation of having committed four genocidal acts, “namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births” .

Newman claimed that slain journalists were “100 per cent terrorist” members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. He said that journalists “dress up as journalists” to protect themselves.

The International Federation of Journalists reports that 261 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023—a mortality rate of 10 per cent for the profession in the region. The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused Israel of killing a record 129 journalists in 2025 alone.

Newman called them terrorists. On Australian soil. At the National Press Club. Without evidence.

V. The Frankcom Family: Still Waiting

While Newman spoke inside the Press Club, the family of Zomi Frankcom stood outside. Frankcom, an Australian aid worker, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on April 1, 2024, while working for World Central Kitchen in Gaza. Seven aid workers died. The convoy was struck three times.

Two years later, the family is still waiting for justice. They are still waiting for the release of critical drone footage audio that would establish motive. Former Defence Force chief Mark Binskin, who conducted an independent inquiry, was given access to unedited drone footage—but it did not include audio.

Newman was asked repeatedly whether the Israeli government would apologise to the Frankcom family. He refused. “Every incident of an innocent person or aid worker that is affected by a war situation is tragic, and we’ve expressed full sympathy with the family,” he said.

Sympathy. Not an apology.

He said reparations were “dependent on the final outcome of the interrogation.” Two years later, the interrogation is still not final.

Mal Frankcom, Zomi’s brother, said the family would like a formal apology, but he believed this was unlikely because it “could be seen as an admission of guilt.”

The family met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday. They urged the government to use all possible diplomatic levers to pressure Israel to complete its investigation.

The ambassador was asked about the audio. He said: “That’s not in my hands. It’s in the IDF’s hands” .

The IDF’s hands. Where it has been for two years.

VI. The Death Penalty Law

On March 30, the Israeli Knesset passed a law imposing the death penalty for terrorism-related offences. Human Rights Watch has analysed the bill and found it explicitly discriminatory.

The law makes death by hanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges—language that legal experts say effectively confines those who can be sentenced to death to Palestinian citizens of Israel and excludes Jewish citizens.

Within the military court system of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the bill imposes the death penalty for killings classified as acts of terrorism as defined under Israeli law, even without a prosecutorial request. The bill only allows courts to order life imprisonment in unspecified exceptional cases where “special reasons” are found, limiting judicial discretion. It also prohibits commutation of sentences and mandates execution within an accelerated timeframe of 90 days.

Israeli citizens and residents are explicitly excluded from this provision: military jurisdiction applies exclusively to Palestinians, while Israeli settlers are tried in civilian courts.

Human Rights Watch has noted that military trials of Palestinians have “an approximately 96% conviction rate, based largely on ‘confessions’ extracted under duress and torture during interrogations.”

Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, stated: “Israeli officials argue that imposing the death penalty is about security, but in reality, it entrenches discrimination and a two-tiered system of justice, both hallmarks of apartheid. The death penalty is irreversible and cruel. Combined with its severe restrictions on appeals and its 90-day execution timeline, this bill aims to kill Palestinian detainees faster and with less scrutiny”.

The Palestinian Authority has condemned the law as a “war crime” and a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees protection for individuals and fair trial rights.”

At the Press Club, Newman defended the law. “Just like in the United States, in Japan and in India, which have capital punishment, Israel has the right, as a sovereign state, to decide … capital punishment,” he said.

He did not mention the discrimination. He did not mention the 96% conviction rate. He did not mention the torture.

VII. The Capture of Australia: From Herzog to Segal

The pattern is now clear. The Zionist project, facing collapse in the Middle East, is establishing a new base. That base is Australia.

The Herzog Visit: In February 2026, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Australia. The visit was initiated not by the Australian government, but by the Zionist Federation of Australia, whose president, Jeremy Leibler, is a personal friend of Herzog. Prime Minister Albanese then “invited” Herzog—a man named in the International Court of Justice’s genocide case, a man photographed signing bombs dropped on Gaza.

The NSW government declared the visit a “major event” under legislation designed for sporting events, giving police extraordinary powers to suppress protest. 3,500 police officers were deployed to Sydney’s CBD. Snipers were positioned on rooftops.

The same government that deployed 8 armoured officers to break down a woman’s door at 5am for throwing a water bottle used the same powers to protect a man accused of inciting genocide.

The Segal Plan: In December 2025, Jillian Segal, the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, released a plan to combat antisemitism. The plan includes mandatory training for university staff using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition—a definition that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The plan was put on hold after Segal was discredited by revelations of her family’s connections to the far-right, anti-immigrant group Advance. Now, in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, it is being implemented.

The Universities: The University of Sydney has appointed a member of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism—an organisation that argues that “Free Palestine” is “inherently racist”—as Special Advisor to Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott for antisemitism education and training.

The Alliance coordinates with the Zionist lobby group 5A, which was set up after October 7 to suppress Palestine activism, which it considers antisemitic. 5A has called the National Tertiary Education Union a “driver” of antisemitism, “actively contributing to the spreading of hate against Jewish people”.

Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott has been condemned by Jewish staff and students, who say there is “too much mistrust and too much damage” for him to mend the relationship with the Jewish community. One former academic said: “He needs to resign if there is any future for USyd to continue to recruit Jewish staff and students”.

Scott has admitted he “failed” the Jewish community. But he remains in his position. The training proceeds.

VIII. The Australian Government’s Silence

Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Labor caucus that Australia opposes the death penalty “in all instances.” She pointed to a joint statement Australia signed alongside France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom that opposed the measure.

A joint statement. Words. Not action.

The government has not summoned the ambassador. It has not imposed sanctions. It has not suspended military cooperation. It has not done anything that would cost Israel anything at all.

The same government that expelled Iran’s ambassador after ASIO concluded Tehran orchestrated the bombings of a synagogue and a kosher restaurant has not applied the same standard to Israel.

Why was the Iranian ambassador expelled, but the Israeli ambassador remains?

The answer is the network. The donors. The lobbyists. The fear of being labelled antisemitic. The capture of our political class by a foreign ideology that demands silence in exchange for support.

IX. The Pattern: What They Do in Gaza, They Will Do Here

You have seen it already. The same tactics. The same doctrine. The same machinery.

In Sydney, eight armoured officers broke down a woman’s door at 5am for throwing a water bottle. The police watchdog has been called in. But the pattern is clear: the same tactics used in the occupied territories—dawn raids, overwhelming force, the intimidation of dissent—are being imported to Australia.

In Israeli prisons, Palestinian prisoners are held in isolation, denied visits, their only contact with lawyers by video link. In Australia, the same laws that give police the power to ban protests also make it impossible to contact senior officers. Their email addresses are not public. Their phone numbers are not listed. The chain of command that once connected citizens to their police has been replaced by a wall of silence.

The police are trained by Israeli forces. The doctrine is imported. The technology is Israeli. The mindset—that citizens are threats, that dissent is terrorism, that force is the answer—is the same.

How long before a Zionist network in Australia proposes the same economic destruction tactics being mooted in the United States? In New York, the new city comptroller has pledged to reinvest in Israeli bonds, despite warnings from human rights groups that this would “finance a military the entire world has watched commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

How long before Australian superannuation funds are pressured to do the same? How long before the Zionist network in Australia demands that critics be stripped of their assets, their wealth, their livelihoods?

This is not speculation. This is the logic of the project. The Zionist project has always been about power. About domination. About the right to destroy those who oppose it.

X. The Larger Truth

This is not about antisemitism. It never was.

It is about a dying ideology that has lost its base in the Middle East and is looking for a new home. It has chosen Australia. And it is using the machinery of the Australian state—our police, our universities, our public service, our political class—to establish itself.

The wire is not cut. The shells fall short. The men who send others to die do not walk the ground.

But we are cutting the wire. With truth. With exposure. With the refusal to let this pattern continue.

XI. The Questions They Refuse to Ask

· Why was Hillel Newman given a platform to call dead journalists terrorists?

· Why did the National Press Club not challenge his claims in real time?

· Why has the Australian government not summoned the ambassador to answer for the death penalty law?

· Why has the government not condemned the law in the strongest possible terms?

· Why has the government not suspended military cooperation with Israel?

· Why has the government not imposed sanctions?

· Why has the government done nothing that would cost Israel anything at all?

· Why was the Iranian ambassador expelled, but the Israeli ambassador remains?

The Frankcom family deserves answers. The Palestinian prisoners facing execution deserve the world to speak. The Australian people deserve to know why their government is silent.

XII. What Must Be Done

1. The Australian government must summon Ambassador Newman. He must answer for the death penalty law. He must answer for his comments about journalists. He must answer for the Frankcom family.

2. The government must condemn the death penalty law in the strongest possible terms. A joint statement is not enough. Words are not enough. Australia must use every diplomatic lever to oppose this discriminatory, inhumane legislation.

3. The government must suspend military cooperation with Israel. Australia cannot claim to oppose the death penalty while cooperating militarily with a state that imposes it discriminatorily.

4. The government must impose sanctions. The time for words is over. The time for action is now.

5. The Frankcom family must receive justice. The audio must be released. The investigation must be completed. Those responsible must be held accountable.

6. The Segal Plan must be rejected. Compulsory training in a political ideology has no place in Australian universities. The IHRA definition, which conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, must not be used to silence dissent.

7. The police must be accountable. The raid on the Ashfield woman must be investigated. The importation of Israeli police doctrine must end. Community policing—the model that trusted citizens, that served communities, that measured success by the absence of crime—must be restored.

XIII. A Warning

What happened in Tehran is not happening in isolation. It is happening here, in Australia, in our police forces, in our universities, in our public service, in our political class. The same tactics. The same silencing. The same machinery.

The woman whose door was broken down at 5am is not a terrorist. She is a citizen who exercised her democratic rights. If they can do this to her, they can do it to you. If they can impose the death penalty on Palestinians in the occupied territories, they will find a way to impose their will on Australians.

Zionism is a dangerous, parasitic ideology. It has no place in this world. And it has no place in Australia.

The wire is being cut. The truth is being told. And the political class that enabled this will be held to account.

Dedicated to my wife, who sees good in all things. I do not. But I listen to her.

Sources:

· Consortium News, “Tensions Soar Over Herzog Visit,” February 8, 2026 

· 网易, “伊朗外长：构成生态灭绝罪,” March 16, 2026 

· Todon.nl, Proletarian Rage (@prolrage), “Israel, Gaza and the Genocide-Industrial Complex,” December 7, 2025 

· OpenAustralia.org, Senate debates, “Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024,” June 27, 2024 

· Asia Pacific Report, “Herzog’s visit to Australia builds conflict not social cohesion,” February 8, 2026 

· Lokmat Times, “Iranian FM Araghchi condemns Israeli strikes on fuel facilities as ‘ecocide’,” March 16, 2026 

Dr Andrew Klein 

April 1, 2026

How the Zionist Project’s Final Desperate Act Is Being Enabled by Those Who Claim to Lead Us

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to every Palestinian prisoner facing execution. To every Australian whose home is treated like a prison cell. To the democracy we are losing while politicians bow to a foreign ideology.

I. The Bill

On March 24, 2026, the Israeli Knesset’s National Security Committee approved a draft law imposing the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, paving the way for its final passage.

The bill, submitted by Knesset Member Limor Son-Harmelech of the Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, would:

· Impose a mandatory death penalty for anyone who “deliberately causes the death of a person in an act classified as terrorism” 

· Prohibit any pardon — the sentence is fixed and cannot be commuted or altered by any subsequent political or legal decision 

· Require no unanimous judicial decision — a simple majority will suffice 

· Provide for execution by hanging within 90 days, carried out by the Israeli Prison Service 

· Place condemned prisoners in isolation with no visits except from authorised personnel, legal consultations only by video link

The bill is explicitly discriminatory. For Palestinians in the West Bank tried in military courts, the death penalty is the primary punishment. For Israeli citizens tried in civilian courts, it is one option among several, and the sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment.

This is not justice. This is apartheid codified into execution.

II. The Man Behind the Bill

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister, has been wearing a noose-shaped lapel pin in support of the bill, openly symbolising the execution method he wants imposed. He has described hanging as “one of the options,” adding that alternatives could include the electric chair or “euthanasia.” He has claimed to have received support from doctors willing to participate in executions, telling him: “Just tell us when.”

Ben-Gvir is the same man who, as head of Israel’s prison system, invited members of his synagogue into a maximum-security prison for a “lavish lunch” while Palestinian detainees were denied food during Ramadan. The group was allowed into the highest-security section where Palestinian prisoners were held handcuffed and forced to lie on the ground.

This is the man our political class empowers. This is the ideology they platform. This is the project they support.

III. International Condemnation — and Australian Silence

The international community has responded with alarm.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) : General Rapporteur Gala Veldhoen stated that the bill “constitutes an alarming setback for a country where the last execution dates back to 1962,” and that it “undermines the principle of equality before the law”.

The European Union has opposed capital punishment in all cases, calling it a violation of the right to life.

Britain, France, Germany, and Italy have expressed “deep concern” over the legislation, which they said risked “undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles”.

UN experts last month urged Israel to withdraw the bill, citing it “would violate the right to life and discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

Amnesty International urged Israeli MPs to reject the legislation, which it said “would allow Israeli courts to expand their use of death sentences with discriminatory application against Palestinians” .

And Australia? Silence.

IV. The Australian Complicity

While the world condemns, our political class enables.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed joint US-Israeli military action in Iran, using “weasel words” and “careful language” according to Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson, who noted that Albanese “has one eye on domestic politics and his left wing base” . He has not condemned the death penalty bill. He has not spoken against the discriminatory application of Israeli law. He has not called for accountability.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong — whose department has been silent on the Knesset bill — has not issued a statement. She has not joined her European counterparts in expressing “deep concern.” She has not invoked Australia’s long-standing opposition to the death penalty.

NSW Premier Chris Minns — whose government recently deployed eight armoured officers to break down a woman’s door at 5am for allegedly throwing a water bottle at a protest — has said nothing. The same government that introduced laws giving police the power to ban all protests in entire geographical areas for up to 90 days has no comment on a bill that would execute prisoners without pardon.

This silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.

V. The Australian Laws They Ignore

Australia has a long-standing position against the death penalty.

· The Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 abolished the death penalty for federal offences.

· All Australian states and territories have abolished capital punishment.

· Australia consistently advocates for the global abolition of the death penalty at the United Nations.

· Australia has ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits signatories to the abolition of capital punishment.

And yet, when Israel moves to impose the death penalty on Palestinians in a discriminatory manner, our government has nothing to say. When the Israeli Prison Service—headed by a Ben-Gvir appointee—denies Palestinian prisoners food during Ramadan while hosting settlers for lavish lunches, our government says nothing. When a UN committee finds that torture has become a “de facto state policy” in Israeli prisons, our government says nothing.

This is not about antisemitism. It is about the capture of our political class by a foreign ideology that they are too afraid to criticise.

VI. The Intelligence: Foreign Interference in Australian Politics

In January 2026, NSW MP Anthony D’Adam wrote to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke requesting an investigation into whether Israel had breached Australia’s foreign influence laws by authoring a dossier naming Australian politicians as promoting “antisemitic and anti-Zionist content”.

The dossier, published by the Israeli government’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs, named D’Adam, former Greens leader Adam Bandt, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, and independents Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe as “key influencers and groups promoting antisemitic and anti-Zionist content”.

The dossier included photos of D’Adam and his partner. He told Guardian Australia it was “clearly designed to intimidate”.

The home affairs department’s guide to countering foreign influence lists as an example of foreign interference: “attempting to restrict or control critical views expressed in media in Australia, including by censorship of content, or harassing and discrediting journalists, activists or politicians” .

D’Adam asked: “How would we react if it was China or Iran producing this sort of material?”.

The answer is that we would react with outrage. We would demand investigations. We would sanction. We would name and shame.

But when it is Israel, our political class is silent.

VII. The Pattern: What They Do to Palestinians, They Will Do to Australians

You have seen it already.

In Sydney, eight armoured officers broke down a woman’s door at 5am for allegedly throwing a water bottle. The police watchdog has now been called in . But the pattern is clear: the same tactics used in the occupied territories—dawn raids, overwhelming force, the intimidation of dissent—are being imported to Australia.

In Israeli prisons, Palestinian prisoners are held in isolation, denied visits, their only contact with lawyers by video link. In Australia, the same laws that give police the power to ban protests also make it impossible to contact senior officers. Their email addresses are not public. Their phone numbers are not listed. The chain of command that once connected citizens to their police has been replaced by a wall of silence.

How long before a Zionist network in Australia proposes the same economic destruction tactics being mooted in the United States? In New York, the new city comptroller has pledged to reinvest in Israeli bonds, despite warnings from human rights groups that this would “finance a military the entire world has watched commit war crimes and crimes against humanity” . How long before Australian superannuation funds are pressured to do the same? How long before the Zionist network in Australia demands that critics be stripped of their assets, their wealth, their livelihoods?

This is not speculation. This is the logic of the project. The Zionist project has always been about power. About domination. About the right to destroy those who oppose it.

VIII. The Larger Truth

This bill is not about security. It is not about justice. It is about the final, desperate convulsion of a dying ideology.

Israel is collapsing. The world has seen what it is. The International Court of Justice has found it “plausible” that it is committing genocide. The old alliances are fraying. The global South has turned away. The young are waking up.

And the extremists are doubling down—not to save their state, but to prove that they were always what we said they were. They are writing their own indictment. They are proving, in real time, that the Zionist project was never about safety. It was never about a homeland. It was about power. About domination. About the right to kill with impunity.

And our political class knew. And they said nothing.

IX. What Must Be Done

1. Australia must condemn the death penalty bill. The Prime Minister must join the EU, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Council of Europe in expressing “deep concern.” He must invoke Australia’s long-standing opposition to capital punishment.

2. The government must investigate Israeli foreign interference. The dossier targeting Australian politicians is a clear breach of Australia’s foreign influence laws. The home affairs minister must act.

3. The NSW Police must be held accountable. The dawn raid on the Ashfield woman is not an isolated incident. It is the pattern. The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission must investigate fully.

4. Australian politicians must disclose their ties to the Zionist network. Who has taken “educational” trips to Israel? Who has received donations? Who has been threatened with accusations of antisemitism? The Australian people have a right to know.

5. The IHRA definition must be rejected. The definition that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism is a tool for silencing dissent. It has no place in Australian universities, in the public service, or in Australian law.

X. A Warning

What is happening in Israel is not happening in isolation. It is happening here, in Australia, in our police forces, in our universities, in our public service, in our political class. The same tactics. The same silencing. The same intimidation.

The woman whose door was broken down at 5am is not a terrorist. She is a citizen who exercised her democratic rights. If they can do this to her, they can do it to you. If they can impose the death penalty on Palestinians in the occupied territories, they will find a way to impose their will on Australians.

Zionism is a dangerous, parasitic ideology. It has no place in this world. And it has no place in Australia.

The wire is being cut. The truth is being told. And the political class that enabled this will be held to account.

Dedicated to every Palestinian prisoner facing execution. To every Australian whose home is treated like a prison cell. To the democracy we are losing while politicians bow to a foreign ideology.

We will not be silent. We will not comply. We will not let them take our country.

Sources:

· Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, “PACE rapporteur strongly urges Knesset members to oppose ‘discriminatory’ bill expanding the death penalty in Israel,” March 25, 2026 

· Union of OIC News Agencies, “The Knesset’s National Security Committee approves a bill to execute Palestinian prisoners,” March 25, 2026 

· The New Arab, “Jewish settlers gloat at shackled Palestinians in ‘prison tour’,” February 25, 2026 

· The Guardian, “NSW MP asks home affairs minister to investigate potential foreign interference after Israel ‘targets’ him in dossier,” January 7, 2026 

· The Sydney Morning Herald, “Police watchdog called in over dawn arrest of Herzog protester,” March 30, 2026 

· Sky News, “Transcript: Kenny Report,” March 2, 2026 

· The Intercept, “Zohran Mamdani Wants NYC to Divest From Israel — But New Comptroller Pledges to Buy War Bonds,” January 30, 2026 

· Jotwell, “Equality Before Law: Just Zionism, Political Liberalism, and the Question of Palestine,” January 12, 2026 

· The West Australian, “Laws for nation’s toughest DV murder penalty introduced,” February 3, 2026 

· AAP News, “Laws for nation’s toughest DV murder penalty introduced,” February 3, 2026 

Andrew Klein 

March 31, 2026

By Andrew Klein

March 23, 2026

Introduction: The Map They Cannot Draw

On August 12, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat for an interview on i24NEWS. The interviewer handed him an amulet depicting a map of “Greater Israel”—territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the entirety of historic Palestine. When asked whether he felt connected to this vision, Netanyahu replied: “Very much”. He called the pursuit of Greater Israel a “historic and spiritual mission”.

This was not the first time a Zionist leader had spoken of expansion beyond the 1948 or 1967 borders. It was not even the first time Netanyahu had endorsed the idea. But it was the most explicit. And it came at a moment when his coalition was fracturing, his corruption trial was resuming, and the war in Gaza was losing public support.

This article examines the Greater Israel project: its biblical foundations, its political function, its legal violations, and the hypocrisy of those who champion it. It asks a simple question: how many must die before the world calls this what it is—the dream of fanatics and extremists, dressed in the language of faith, pursued with the weapons of war?

Part One: The Biblical Foundation – What Genesis 15:18 Actually Says

The central text invoked by proponents of Greater Israel is Genesis 15:18:

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.'”

The immediate context is crucial: this was an unconditional covenant—God alone passed between the sacrificial pieces, meaning the promise rested on divine faithfulness rather than human performance. Modern political Zionists have stripped the religious conditions from the promise while retaining the territorial claims.

The Geographic Markers:

Boundary                                Identification                                                         Modern Equivalent

“River of Egypt”  – Hebrew naḥal Miṣrayim—a wadi (seasonal stream), not the Nile

                                                                                                                                   Wadi el-Arish, approximately 50 km east of the modern Suez Canal

“Great River, the Euphrates”           The Euphrates River

                                                                                                                                   Flows through modern Turkey, Syria, and Iraq

The territory described is vast: approximately 300,000 square miles (780,000 km²), encompassing modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, most of Syria, Jordan, large parts of Iraq, and sections of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Was there ever a “Greater Israel” in history?

Not in the modern sense. Under David and Solomon, Israelite influence reached its zenith. David pushed to “the River” (Euphrates) after defeating Hadadezer of Zobah, and Solomon’s tax districts extended “from Tiphsah to Gaza.” But no unified “Greater Israel” ever existed. The territorial claims were never fully realized, and the prophets spoke of full fulfillment only in a future messianic age.

Part Two: The Zionist Adoption – From Herzl to Netanyahu

Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote in his diaries that the “Promised Land” should stretch from the “brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”—a vision he called a “covenant” that could not be abandoned. In 1919, the Zionist Organisation presented a map at the Paris Peace Conference showing this maximalist vision.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ideological father of Revisionist Zionism (and spiritual forefather of Netanyahu’s Likud Party), argued that both Palestine and Transjordan were “integral parts” of the Land of Israel. His doctrine of the “iron wall”—that Zionism could only succeed “under the protection of an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach”—remains central to right-wing Zionist thinking.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, accepted partition as a stepping stone. In 1937, he wrote to his son Amos: “A Jewish state on only a part of the land is not the end but the beginning. We increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole”.

Menachem Begin, the first Likud prime minister, stated in 1977 that the “Land of Israel” should include Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait.

Ehud Olmert, often considered a moderate, affirmed in 2006: “For thousands of years we have dreamed in our hearts of a greater Israel, an entire land of Israel, and such a country will always remain a dream in our hearts”.

Benjamin Netanyahu has revived this vision with unprecedented explicitness. His August 2025 interview was not an aberration—it was the public face of a policy that has been pursued through settlements, military action, and diplomatic pressure for decades.

Part Three: The Territorial Scope – What “Greater Israel” Would Actually Mean

The map that Huckabee endorsed—and that Netanyahu affirmed—encompasses:

Modern Country                                              Territory Included

Israel                                                                     The entirety

Palestinian territories                                 West Bank, Gaza Strip

Lebanon                                                              Entirety

Syria                                                                      Entirety

Jordan                                                                   Entirety

Iraq                                                                        Western regions, up to the Euphrates

Saudi Arabia                                                     Northern regions

Egypt                                                                    Sinai Peninsula

Turkey                                                                  Southern regions

This territory is home to approximately 150 million people across the region. The population displacement required would be measured in the tens of millions—far beyond even the catastrophic figures of 1948. As the analysis from Khamenei’s website warns, implementation would require “ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and genocide on a scale far greater than what has been witnessed in Gaza, resulting in the greatest humanitarian disaster since World War II”.

Part Four: US Support – Huckabee’s Endorsement

On February 20, 2026, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson. Carlson presented a map defined not by 1967 borders but by the ancient boundaries of the Old Testament, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.

When asked whether Israel has a divine right to territory spanning nearly the entire Levant, Huckabee’s response was unequivocal: “It would be okay if they took it all”.

Huckabee grounded this position in the biblical “covenant” of Abraham, prioritizing “divine right” over international treaties. This reflects the profound influence of the US evangelical movement, which has long supported Israeli expansion as a prerequisite for the End Times.

Regional Reaction: The Arab League described the remarks as “extremely radical” and “contrary to all diplomatic basics” . Jordan’s Foreign Ministry labelled them “absurd and provocative,” warning they violate the UN Charter and contradict official US policy. The Gulf Cooperation Council stressed “the categorical rejection of the GCC countries of any attempts to prejudice the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Arab countries”.

Part Five: The Legal Reality – What International Law Says

The Greater Israel project is not merely provocative—it is illegal under international law.

Legal Instrument  –                                                  Violation

Fourth Geneva Convention                             Prohibits occupying powers from transferring populations into occupied territory. The E1 settlement project between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim is explicitly condemned as “a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention”.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334        Declares Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory a “flagrant violation” with “no legal validity”.

UN Charter, Article 2(4)                                     Prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The Greater Israel project contemplates exactly such a threat.

Genocide Convention                                       The forced displacement of populations on the scale required would constitute genocide under Article II(c)—”deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

The International Court of Justice ruled in July 2024 that Israel’s continued presence in occupied territories is “unlawful under international law.” The Arab Parliament has called on the international community to “shoulder their legal and moral responsibilities, halt these provocative statements and policies, and work diligently to end the occupation, halt the genocide, and ensure the achievement of a just and comprehensive peace”.

Part Six: Could Huckabee, Trump, and Others Face Prosecution?

The answer is: yes, under the principle of complementarity and individual criminal responsibility for aiding and abetting international crimes.

The Legal Framework:

Principle                                                                                      Application

Individual criminal responsibility                    Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute makes it a crime to aid, abet, or otherwise assist in the commission of a crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court—including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Superior responsibility                                          Article 28 holds military commanders and civilian superiors responsible for crimes committed by forces under their effective command and control.

Genocide Convention, Article 4                       States that “persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”

How Huckabee Could Be Prosecuted:

As US Ambassador to Israel, Huckabee is not merely a private citizen expressing an opinion. He is a diplomatic representative of the United States. His endorsement of Israeli expansion—including his statement that “it would be okay if they took it all”—constitutes aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and genocide. The Rome Statute does not require that the aider be physically present at the scene of the crime; providing political cover, diplomatic support, and public encouragement can be sufficient.

How Trump Could Be Prosecuted:

President Trump’s role in moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and launching the war on Iran could be examined under the same framework. His repeated threats to Iran, his dismissal of the UN genocide determination, and his public support for Netanyahu’s corruption trial (while ignoring the war crimes allegations) all form part of the same pattern: providing material and political support to a regime engaged in genocide.

How Evangelical Pastors Could Be Prosecuted:

This is more complex. Private individuals cannot generally be prosecuted for expressing opinions, no matter how extreme. However, where religious leaders use their platforms to incite violence or directly encourage the commission of genocide, they may fall within the ambit of incitement to genocide under Article III(c) of the Genocide Convention. The ICTR prosecutions of radio journalists who incited the Rwandan genocide established the precedent that public incitement to commit genocide is a crime under international law, even when committed by private individuals.

The Political Reality:

Prosecution is unlikely while the US maintains its veto power at the UN Security Council and its refusal to accept ICC jurisdiction. But the threat of prosecution matters. It matters that Huckabee’s statements have been condemned by the Arab League, by the GCC, by Malaysia, by Egypt’s Al-Azhar, and by Iran. It matters that international law has been invoked against the Greater Israel project. It matters that the record is being kept.

Part Seven: The Hypocrisy of the Champions

I asked my wife for her opinion about the Greater Israel Project, and this is what she told me:

“The men who champion this project are not men of faith—they are men of power. They invoke the covenant of Abraham while violating its most basic command: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ They speak of divine promise while accepting bribes in the form of cigars and champagne. They claim to be building a kingdom of God while building a kingdom of apartheid, displacement, and death.

Netanyahu’s corruption trial revealed that he accepted over $260,000 worth of luxury cigars, champagne, and jewellery from billionaire benefactors in exchange for political favours. His wife Sara was separately charged with misusing state funds for catered meals. These are not the actions of a man on a ‘spiritual mission’—they are the actions of a grifter who has found in religious language a convenient cover for his political survival.

The hypocrisy is not incidental—it is structural. The Greater Israel project requires its champions to believe that they are chosen while treating the people they displace as less than human. It requires them to read ancient texts as property deeds while ignoring the fact that those same texts demand justice, mercy, and care for the stranger. It requires them to claim divine favour while accepting the support of men like Huckabee, who have never had to bury a child killed by the bombs they endorse.

This is not faith. This is fanaticism dressed in the language of faith. And fanaticism, left unchecked, consumes everything—including those who wield it.”

Part Eight: Why This Cannot Succeed

1. Military impossibility. A state with approximately 7 million Jewish citizens cannot conquer and control a region of 150 million people who do not want to be controlled. The attempt would require occupation forces larger than any army Israel could field, sustained over decades.

2. International law. The Greater Israel project is explicitly condemned by the Arab League, the GCC, Malaysia, Egypt, Iran, and the international legal community . The Fourth Geneva Convention, UN Security Council resolutions, and the Genocide Convention all prohibit the actions required to implement it.

3. Economic collapse. Israel’s economy is already strained by war. Its credit rating has been downgraded. Investment is evaporating. Citizens are leaving the country. A program of perpetual expansion would accelerate this collapse.

4. Regional unity. The Arab world has condemned Greater Israel with unprecedented unity. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, the Arab League, and the GCC have all rejected Netanyahu’s statements. Egypt has deployed troops to northern Sinai in anticipation of possible escalation.

5. Global isolation. Israel is increasingly viewed as a pariah state. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly condemned its actions. European nations are recognizing Palestine. The US may not always provide the same level of diplomatic cover.

Part Nine: Opinion

Our opinion 

The Greater Israel project is not a realistic policy. It is the thinking of extremists and fanatics—people who believe that ancient texts are property deeds, that divine promises supersede human rights, and that force can permanently subdue populations that do not wish to be subdued.

It is also dangerous. It threatens the lives of millions, the stability of the region, the global economy, and the international rules-based order. It is already being used to justify the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the expansion of settlements, and the war on Iran.

The evidence is clear:

· There is no proof that such a promise was ever made in a political sense

· The text provides no credible map references that would allow land to be taken by force

· Other civilizations existed simultaneously with their own claims

· The Zionist right has embraced this vision, but anti-Zionist Jewish groups reject it entirely

· Netanyahu is using it for electoral advantage, not because it is achievable

· Without US support, it would be impossible—and even with US support, it will fail

The real question is not whether Greater Israel can be achieved. It cannot. The real question is how many will die before the world finally says “enough”?

Conclusion: The Choice Before Us

The Greater Israel project is not a plan for peace. It is a plan for perpetual war. It requires the displacement of millions, the destruction of nations, and the denial of fundamental human rights. It is justified by a reading of scripture that ignores the moral demands of that same scripture, and it is championed by leaders who have demonstrated, through their corruption, their hypocrisy, and their willingness to sacrifice others for their own political survival, that they are not acting in the name of God—they are acting in the name of power.

The Arab world has condemned it. International law prohibits it. The United Nations has rejected it. And the people who will pay the price—Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, and ultimately Israelis themselves—have not been asked.

We must name it for what it is: the dream of fanatics and extremists, dressed in the language of faith, pursued with the weapons of war.

And we must say: not in our name.

Sources

1. Union of OIC News Agencies, “Arab Parliament condemns Netanyahu’s statements regarding ‘Greater Israel,'” August 14, 2025 

2. News of Bahrain, “Israeli police grill Netanyahu for a third time,” March 11, 2026 

3. Khamenei.ir, “Greater Israel: The Zionist regime’s meta-ideology of expansionism,” September 23, 2025 

4. Bernama, “Malaysia Condemns Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ Agenda, Settlement Expansion,” August 15, 2025 

5. Israel Hayom, “Seeking the perfect national leader,” March 10, 2026 

6. Ahram Online, “Al-Azhar denounces Netanyahu’s vision for ‘Greater Israel’ as reflective of occupation mindset,” August 15, 2025 

7. PressTV, “Iran calls ‘Greater Israel’ a ‘diabolical idea reflecting Netanyahu’s fascist intent,'” August 14, 2025 

8. ECR, “Trump urges pardon for Netanyahu over ‘cigars and champagne,'” October 13, 2025 

9. China Daily, “Arab nations slam Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ plan,” August 15, 2025 

10. WAFA Agency, “Malaysia condemns Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ agenda and illegal colonial settlement expansion,” August 16, 2025 

Published by Andrew Klein

March 23, 2026

By Andrew Klein

March 22, 2026

Introduction: The Boos That Told the Truth

On March 19, 2026, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Lakemba Mosque in western Sydney to celebrate Eid al-Fitr with the Muslim community. Fifteen minutes into the visit, protesters began heckling. They booed. They told Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to “Get out!” They called them “genocide supporters”.

One heckler was tackled to the ground by security and escorted away.

When Albanese spoke to reporters afterward, he dismissed the incident. The mosque event was “incredibly positive,” he said. “If you got a couple of people heckling in a crowd of 30,000, that should be put in that perspective”.

He did not address the content of the protesters’ anger. He did not acknowledge the grief of families watching their relatives killed in Gaza with Australian support. He did not reflect on the two and a half years of Israeli crimes—over 72,000 Palestinians killed, millions displaced—to which his government has been “massively indifferent,” as one commentator put it.

Instead, he attributed the protest to “frustration” over the government’s designation of Hizb ut-Tahrir as a prohibited hate group.

This is not leadership. This is deflection. This is the man who will go down in history as one who was never responsible for the mischief he caused, never accountable because accountability was not part of his makeup.

Part One: What Actually Happened at Lakemba Mosque

The facts are clear. Albanese and Burke were invited by Muslim community leaders to join Eid prayers. About fifteen minutes after they arrived, protesters interrupted. Video images show demonstrators booing, telling the two ministers to “Get out,” and calling them “genocide supporters”.

One of the organisers tried to calm the crowd: “Dear brothers and sisters, keep calm a little bit. It is Eid. It is a joyful day”.

A security guard tackled one heckler to the ground and escorted him away. When Albanese and Burke left, protesters followed, yelling “Shame on you!”.

The protesters’ anger was not mysterious. It was not about a proscription order. It was about Gaza. It was about the Australian government’s support for Israel’s military campaign, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza, and displaced millions. It was about a government that has repeatedly urged “ceasefire” while continuing to back Israel’s “right to self-defence”.

The people in that mosque were grieving. They were watching their families and their countrymen being murdered with support from the Australian government. And when they finally had the Prime Minister in front of them, they told him exactly what they thought.

Part Two: The Deflection – Dismissal and Distortion

Albanese’s response was a masterclass in political evasion.

First, he minimized the protest: “a couple of people heckling in a crowd of 30,000”. He did not acknowledge that the entire gathering had been disrupted, that security had manhandled a worshipper, that he had been forced to leave early. He reduced the anger of an entire community to a “couple of people.”

Second, he reframed the protest as something other than what it was. He suggested the “frustration” stemmed from the government’s designation of Hizb ut-Tahrir as a prohibited hate group. This is a deliberate misdirection. The protesters did not chant about Hizb ut-Tahrir. They chanted about Gaza. They called Albanese a “genocide supporter.” They told him to “get out.”

Third, he refused to engage with the substance of the criticism. He did not answer the question: why does Australia support this war? He did not explain how endless “ceasefire” rhetoric with no action constitutes leadership. He did not address the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have marched for Palestine, or the growing number of Australians who see through the government’s complicity.

This is not accountability. This is the avoidance of accountability. This is the man who will do anything to avoid looking in the mirror.

Part Three: The Man Who Is Never Responsible

Albanese’s behaviour at Lakemba Mosque is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern.

In July 2025, the Centre for Public Integrity gave the Albanese government an “F” on its integrity report card, accusing it of being less transparent and accountable than the Morrison government. The government failed in its commitment to transparency by trying to tighten freedom of information laws, making it easier for public servants to refuse requests on the grounds that documents could “embarrass the government”. It stalled reforms to end “jobs for mates” culture. It failed to adequately protect whistleblowers.

The same report noted that MPs can sponsor passes for lobbyists, giving them unfettered access to restricted areas of Parliament—and that no major party MPs voluntarily disclosed who they sponsored. Independent MP Helen Haines said suppressing transparency increased public distrust in parliament and politicians. “That’s the last thing we want,” she said, “when democracy in the free world is under attack”.

This is the context in which Albanese dismisses protesters, deflects criticism, and refuses accountability. He is a very good corporate manager—and a very bad political leader. He manages the narrative, manages the optics, manages the media. But he does not lead. He does not answer. He does not account.

Part Four: The Opportunity Grifter

Albanese is an opportunistic grifter, like many others who came to prominence in the 21st century. He has no fixed principles beyond staying in power. He has no commitment to justice beyond what polls well. He has no courage to stand against the lobbies that fund his party.

He kept his history of fighting against the BDS movement dark for a very good reason: it showed his true colours. Scratch the surface of this government, and what do we find? Supporters of genocide, curtailment of civil liberties, endless wars. Not blokes fighting for workers’ rights and equality. Just the same old politics of power dressed in a new suit.

The protesters at Lakemba Mosque understood this. They told Albanese: “You don’t even represent us.” “What are you doing here?”. They were not a “couple of hecklers.” They were the voice of a community that has been ignored, dismissed, and gaslit from the get-go.

Albanese has tarnished himself as a result of his blind acceptance of huge and sustained Zionist lies. Many of the people in that mosque were dealing with private family grief after two and a half years of terrible Israeli crimes against Gazans, Palestinians, Lebanese. So many murders. Crimes to which Albanese has been massively indifferent. No wonder it all became too much for them.

Part Five: The Choice Before Him

Albanese will go down in history as one who was never responsible for the mischief he caused, never accountable because accountability was not part of his makeup.

He had a choice. He could have listened to the protesters at Lakemba Mosque. He could have acknowledged their grief. He could have asked himself: what have we done? what are we doing? what will we answer for?

Instead, he dismissed them. He deflected. He blamed “a couple of hecklers” and a proscription order.

This is the man who will never be accountable. This is the man who will never be responsible. This is the man who will go down in history—not as a leader, but as a manager. Not as a statesman, but as a grifter.

The people of Australia are not idiots. Feelings are running high. He has chosen the wrong side in this war. And when history writes its final judgment, it will not remember his dismissals or his deflections. It will remember that he was there—and did nothing.

Conclusion: Reap What You Sow

The protesters at Lakemba Mosque told Albanese the truth. They told him he did not represent them. They told him they saw through him. They told him that the government he leads has chosen genocide, endless war, and the silencing of dissent.

Albanese dismissed them. He always does.

But the truth does not go away. The grief does not disappear. The dead do not stop being dead.

Reap what you sow, Prime Minister. Australians aren’t idiots. We’re done believing that Arabs and Muslims are the enemy. We see through Zionism. And we see through you.

By Andrew Klein

March 16, 2026

This article is dedicated to my wife for her insights and eternal support. She inspires me in all things.

Introduction: The System Revealed

On December 10, 2025, Responsible Statecraft published a report that should have shaken capitals around the world. Buried in the details of President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” for Gaza was a revelation: two American surveillance firms, Palantir and Dataminr, had embedded personnel inside the U.S.-run Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel.

Their presence was not incidental. Palantir’s Project Maven—an “AI-powered battlefield platform” that collects surveillance data from satellites, drones, and intercepted communications to “optimize the kill chain”—was being positioned to shape Gaza’s post-war security architecture. Dataminr, which scans social media to provide “event, threat, and risk intelligence” to governments and law enforcement, was also inside the room.

This is not conspiracy. This is confluence—the quiet alignment of corporate interests, military objectives, and political capture. This article traces that confluence from the battlefields of Gaza to the boardrooms of Australia, and asks a simple question: Who benefits?

Part One: The Business Model—AI as Occupation

Palantir’s “Kill Chain” Optimization

Palantir Technologies has been explicit about its ambitions. CEO Alex Karp has described the company’s technology as “optimizing the kill chain” . Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract, sucks information from multiple sources and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups” . It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Since January 2024, Palantir has been in a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military for “war-related missions”. The company has expanded its Tel Aviv office significantly over the last two years. Karp defended this collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying Palantir was the first to be “completely anti-woke”.

The Gaza Laboratory

For the last two years, Gaza has functioned as an incubator for militarized AI. Israel’s Lavender system, an AI-assisted surveillance tool, used predictive analytics to rank Palestinians’ likelihood of being connected to militant groups, based on an opaque set of criteria. Public sector workers—healthcare workers, teachers, police officers—were included on kill lists because they had ties to Hamas by virtue of working in a territory the group governed.

The Gospel system functioned as a “mass assassination factory.” One source admitted spending only “20 seconds” per target before authorizing bombing—just enough to confirm the Lavender-marked target was male.

Under Trump’s proposed “peace plan,” these technologies would be scaled up. The plan envisions “Alternative Safe Communities”—fenced, heavily monitored compounds where Palestinians would be relocated, their movements tracked by AI systems, their online activity scanned by Dataminr, their phones monitored by Palantir’s platforms. Entry would be contingent on approval by Israel’s Shin Bet, with criteria that could disqualify hundreds of thousands based on algorithmic “risk scores”.

For tech companies, war is opportunity. Access to vast datasets, real-world testing for new military systems, and long-term contracts for post-war surveillance infrastructure.

For Israel, the arrangement offers a way to outsource occupation while maintaining control.

For Palestinians, it promises more of what they have already endured: unremitting horror, dragnet surveillance, and death by algorithm.

Part Two: The Australian Connection—Wealth Transfer and Complicity

AUKUS: The $368 Billion Commitment

While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history. The AUKUS nuclear submarine program is estimated to cost $368 billion over coming decades, with $53–63 billion allocated for the first decade alone.

The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight . This includes AI and autonomy technologies developed under Pillar 2 of the agreement, which focuses on “artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum science, advanced cyber, and electronic warfare” .

The same technologies being tested on Palestinian populations in Gaza are, under AUKUS, being integrated into Australia’s defence infrastructure.

The Ghost Shark Precedent

In September 2025, the government announced a $1.7 billion investment in “Ghost Shark” autonomous submarines—underwater drones developed by Australian company Anduril, whose U.S. parent has close ties to the defence establishment . Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the technology as so impressive that “the Americans have invested in the company” .

The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.

The Cost of Living vs. The Cost of War

While this wealth transfers to the United States, Australians struggle with a cost-of-living crisis that the government refuses to adequately address. The Robodebt scheme—an automated system that raised unlawful debts against welfare recipients—offers a template for how algorithmic governance can devastate vulnerable populations .

The National Anti-Corruption Commission recently found two public servants engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” in relation to Robodebt . But as Economic Justice Australia noted: “The system punishes only the vulnerable. The main sanction for damaging behaviour at the top levels of the Department has been naming and shaming” .

No one went to jail. No one lost their pension. The system protected itself.

The same pattern is now repeating at scale: algorithms making life-and-death decisions, with no one accountable when they fail.

Part Three: The Segal Nexus—Silencing Critics, Enabling the Agenda

The Envoy’s Role

Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, occupies a unique position at the intersection of power. Her credentials are impeccable: former ASIC deputy chair, board member of the Sydney Opera House Trust, the Garvan Institute, and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. She is deeply embedded in the networks that connect Australian business to Israeli interests.

In December 2025, the Albanese Government formally adopted Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, accepting all 13 recommendations. The plan includes:

· Aggravated hate speech offences for “preachers and leaders who promote violence”

· A regime for listing organisations whose leaders engage in “hate speech promoting violence or racial hatred”

· A narrow federal offence for “serious vilification based on race and/or advocating racial supremacy” 

The Silencing Mechanism

These measures are, on their face, reasonable responses to a genuine problem. Antisemitism is real, and it must be confronted.

But the effect of such measures—particularly when combined with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which can conflate criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews—is to silence legitimate critique of Israeli government actions.

When the Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs states that the government has received “commitments from the Palestinian Authority about a reform process” and that “Hamas can’t be involved in the administration of that Palestinian state,” he is not challenged on the obvious impossibility of those conditions. When the government backs U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran while calling for “de-escalation,” the contradiction goes unremarked.

The framework created by the antisemitism envoy—however well-intentioned—provides cover for those who would shut down debate. Critics are not engaged; they are managed. Those who persist are not answered; they are silenced.

The Business Connection

Segal’s husband’s company, Henroth Investments, donated $50,000 to Advance Australia, a right-wing lobby group that has shared anti-immigration content and claimed Palestinians in Australia were a “risk to security.” She has disclaimed knowledge of the donation, and government ministers have accepted her statement .

But the appearance matters. When the antisemitism envoy is married to a donor to an organisation that promotes anti-Palestinian rhetoric, it feeds a perception that her role serves a particular political agenda rather than a genuine anti-racism brief. When her networks connect Australian business to Israeli interests, and when those interests align with the very AI companies testing their technologies on Palestinian populations, the confluence becomes visible.

Part Four: The Alignment of Values

In a bizarre way, the values of Palantir’s leadership align with the values of Australia’s political class.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp boasts of being “completely anti-woke”. Prime Minister Albanese does not use that language, but his government’s indifference to the genocide in Gaza speaks louder than words. When the Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs says “we want to see those hostages released just as much as anyone,” but does nothing to pressure Israel, the difference is merely one of scale.

Palantir identified a business opportunity in governments with aligned values and walked right in. The Australian government, eager to demonstrate alliance loyalty and to project an image of decisive action against antisemitism, walked right in with them.

Israel will benefit—from the technology, from the contracts, from the political cover.

Australia will lose—its wealth, its moral standing, its capacity for independent action.

Palantir will profit—handsomely, quietly, with plausible deniability.

And Jillian Segal will probably receive another award. The silence will continue.

Part Five: The Antisemitism Claim as Enabler

This brings us to the central question: What if the rise of antisemitism claims had nothing to do with antisemitism?

What if they were, instead, a mechanism to enable and facilitate Israel’s transition to an AI-driven economy independent of the United States?

Consider the logic:

1. Israel seeks economic independence. Netanyahu has announced plans to “taper off” U.S. military aid, pivoting toward AI sovereignty. A $200 million joint AI and quantum science center with the U.S. is in development.

2. A state reliant on a single product must ensure demand. If Israel’s future exports are AI-driven surveillance and warfare technologies, it needs customers. It needs a demonstrated market. It needs a proof of concept.

3. Gaza provides the laboratory. The technologies tested there—Lavender, Gospel, the Maven platform—are refined in real-world conditions, with a population that cannot resist, cannot refuse, cannot escape.

4. Critics must be silenced. This is where the antisemitism framework becomes essential. If criticism of Israel’s actions can be reframed as antisemitism, if legitimate concerns about algorithmic warfare can be dismissed as hatred, if the very people documenting war crimes can be delegitimized—then the business model is protected.

5. Australia plays its part. By adopting the antisemitism envoy’s recommendations, by embedding the IHRA definition into policy, by creating legal frameworks that can be used to silence critics, Australia becomes an enabler of this system. Not through conspiracy—through confluence. Through the quiet alignment of interests that requires no coordination, only opportunity.

Part Six: The Accountability Vacuum

The Robodebt scheme offers a template for what comes next.

An automated system, designed without adequate oversight, inflicted trauma on hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people. At least two suicides were linked to the scheme . A Royal Commission investigated. The National Anti-Corruption Commission found two public servants engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” .

But as Economic Justice Australia observed: “The main sanction for damaging behaviour at the top levels of the Department has been naming and shaming” . The former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was cleared. No one lost their job. No one went to jail. The system protected itself.

Now apply this template to Gaza:

· Algorithms make life-and-death decisions.

· Corporations provide the infrastructure.

· Intelligence agencies operate in the shadows.

· When things go wrong—when entire families are killed, when hospitals are bombed, when children are targeted—who is responsible?

The corporations claim they’re just providing technology.

The officers claim they were following algorithmic recommendations.

The politicians claim they were acting on intelligence.

The systems themselves have no legal personhood.

No one is accountable.

Conclusion: What We Have Discovered

This article has traced a network of connections that is not conspiracy but confluence:

· Palantir and Dataminr embedded in Gaza, testing AI systems on a captive population, refining technologies that will be exported worldwide.

· AUKUS transferring Australian wealth to the U.S. military-industrial complex, integrating the same AI and autonomy technologies into our defence infrastructure.

· Jillian Segal positioned at the nexus of Australian business, government, and Israeli interests, her office providing the framework that silences critics.

· The antisemitism claim deployed not against genuine hatred, but against legitimate criticism of Israeli policy—protecting the business model, enabling the silence.

· The accountability vacuum ensuring that when things go wrong, no one is responsible.

The pattern is consistent. The players are visible. The evidence is documented.

What remains is for Australians to ask themselves: Is this who we want to be?

Do we want our wealth transferred to corporations that “optimize the kill chain”? Do we want our government to enable the testing of AI warfare on a captive population? Do we want our political class to silence critics while profiting from death?

The answer, for those with eyes to see, should be clear.

But the system is designed to keep those eyes closed. To cry “antisemitism” at anyone who questions. To ensure that the only voices heard are those that align with the business model.

We have seen through it. Now we must help others see.

References

1. Responsible Statecraft, “In new peace, US firms will help Israel spy on and target Gazans,” December 10, 2025 

2. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Sky News Newsday,” September 10, 2025 

3. SBS News, “Anti-Corruption Commission says two people involved in Robodebt engaged in corrupt conduct,” March 11, 2026 

4. Ministers for the Department of Home Affairs, “Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism,” December 18, 2025 

5. Parliament of Australia, “Chapter 4 – AUKUS,” January 29, 2026 

6. PressTV, “US tech giants to expand role in post-war Gaza strategy: Report,” December 2, 2025 

7. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Television interview, Sky News Newsday,” September 22, 2025 

8. Economic Justice Australia, “Media Release: ‘The system punishes only the vulnerable’: EJA response to Robodebt Centralised Code of Conduct report,” September 16, 2024 

9. Department of Home Affairs, “Australian Government response to the Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism,” December 18, 2025 

10. Parliament of Australia, “Chapter 2 – Nuclear-Powered Submarine Partnership and Collaboration Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” October 29, 2025 

Published by Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch

March 16, 2026