Australians ‘increasingly uncomfortable’ with Israel’s war as death toll mounts

Welcome back to the program. Joining me is our regular Friday panel, Parnell Palm McGuinness and Ben Oquist. Great to see you both, Ben. What have you made of the local reaction to that tragedy in Gaza, seven aid workers killed? It's really dominated discussion this week in Australia, but far wider than that as well. I really think it has been, it's one of the defining moments in this war, in particular in how it's perceived around the Western world, including Australia. And Israel has really lost a lot of sympathy, a lot of public support, a lot of diplomatic support, which was rightly there after those horrific October 7 Hamas attacks. But over time, that has waned because it doesn't excuse the loss of thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinian lives that have been killed or murdered in some people's minds. And now, as public attention has started to wane in Australia, just because the length of the war had gone on, has really refocused. And the Prime Minister and the Government, who had tried to, in a sense, not take sides in this war, have really been forced to by public reaction and the horror of an Australian aid worker being killed. And you've seen my stronger statements by the Prime Minister, criticism of the Israeli Prime Minister, and saying really it's not good enough, those kind of fog of war excuses that are offered up by the Israel Government. And I think we've seen a real change. And I think it's going to bring into wider relief calls for investigations and independent investigations, not just into this tragedy and the killing of the Australian aid worker, but the crimes essentially being committed by the killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians' lives. So we're going to have a wider discussion about independent investigation in there. And as you know, the family has called for a war crimes investigation. Parnell, what's been your take on the local reaction? I think Ben's right to say the Government and the Prime Minister has toughened his language. It's much stronger in the wake of this tragic incident in Gaza with the Australian 44-year-old from Melbourne, Zomi Franken, being killed. The language and the message is much firmer. Yeah, this has been a real sort of bringing everything to a point. I think people in Australia have been becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the war as around the world, as the death toll mounts. And this has put a very local face on it, because this is obviously somebody who was over there from Australia trying to do good. And that can really bring home the futility and horror of war to people in a particular country. So I think this is a focused sentiment. I mean, you will note that the Jewish community has also come out and said that this needs to be accounted for, because the other thing that's happening at this time is the Jewish community is looking at what's happening in Gaza and starting to wonder about what can bring this war to an end with Netanyahu in charge. So there is an increased focus on what the government in Israel is doing, and a much less forgiving stance on it, because Netanyahu has not articulated what the end game is, other than getting rid of Hamas entirely. And as we know, the more action is taken to get rid of Hamas, the more Hamas sympathisers seem to be created in Gaza and sadly around the world. Yeah, the Israelis I've spoken to recently, since October 7, basically, have said, as soon as the war is done, Netanyahu is gone, because Israelis blame him for the failure in the first place. So there's not a lot of love for him right now, I think, among many Israelis. And you see the protests saying he needs to do more to get hostages home. The other thing is, Parnell, to pick up if we, I don't want to diminish the tragedy of what we saw, because obviously, it is a terrible human tragedy. But there's a lot of politics at play here as well. You look in the United States, a big, big chunk of the Democratic Party think Biden needs to go harder, or Great Britain, where there's an election looming. It's a big population there, pro-Palestinian. And then I'm hearing as well in Western Sydney, quite a fundraising effort for potentially pro-Palestinian candidates to run, almost like a teal threat, but from the pro-Palestinian cause in some Labor seats in Western Sydney. And apparently, they're generating a lot of money. Yeah, and of course, something like this, once again, focuses the mind. This is the kind of cause that does get picked up by the Greens, who tend to be the sort of educated, uninformed in debates like this. You know, they're highly educated, very sympathetic to current causes, but not very informed about various drivers that go behind them. So it makes it an easy sort of fill up in an election year. The Muslim communities or Palestinian communities in Australia, a very small Muslim, the percentage of Muslims in Australia is also not very large, compared with countries like the US and certainly the UK, where this is becoming much more of an issue. But of course, you can use it in particular states where there are concentrations, and where sympathy exists among those educated people who don't really know a great deal about Gaza or Hamas, or what it would look like if you had a government of that sort in power in Australia. So there's the logical consequences of taking that route will play out if they win any seats. You know, what does that mean for the Green stances on gay marriage, for instance, on transgender recognition, all of these things will come into question if they start to become affiliated or start to rely on the votes of these communities. But, you know, we will, of course, they're going to try and lead up to an election to find any particular, you know, any way that they can get across the line.