Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

There seems to be something lacking in our education system. There seems to be an unawareness of antisemitism. Must we remind people in our universities that over six million Jewish people were murdered simply because of their spiritual faith? It was unprecedented in human history, and it came out of antisemitism. Whatever the reasons were—whether it was something about banking and the Rothschilds or whatever the reasons were—the fact of the matter is there was rampant antisemitism. Some very great people were against the persecution, including Pastor Niemoller, who preached continuously against it; the renowned and probably greatest economist in human history; and of course the German officer von Stauffenberg. If you read the history books, it just would have been so much better if they had been so much more aggressive so much sooner. Each of them sacrificed their lives, consciously, to try and stop the terrible things that were happening.

But, if you attack and you unleash the dogs of war, don't come complaining back to me when you get bitten. Who would condemn what the Russians did in Berlin after what they had suffered under the German invasion? You'd do it? Then what will follow will be payback time. You went in, in an invasion of another country, and murdered 1,200 people. On what pretext? Oh, that they won't recognise Gaza? Well, Gaza doesn't recognise Israel, so how's that for an inconsistency? Absolutely outrageous.

In any event, there is not a lot of precedent in human history for going into someone else's country and murdering over 3,000 people, as they did in the Twin Towers in the United States. There's not much precedent for going into a country and murdering 1,200 innocent civilians, and then putting it on television. I hate to say it, but some of their flags carry a sabre on them. And they say, 'We're just like you Christians.' No. Our flags carry a cross, a cross where someone was nailed and died for his faith, and what he said was: 'Love other people. Forgive your enemies.' And he was saying that while he was on the cross. Well, these people have on their flag a sabre.

Now, I don't condemn them for that, but I most certainly say: if you've read your history books, have the guts to stand up. If there is anything that distinguishes us Australians, it is our fight for the underdog and our sympathy with the underdog. Almost every single person that has ever come to this country came here because they were underdogs. Not surprisingly, our sympathy lies with that.

If the ALP thinks that, by playing footsies and having a foot on each side of the barbed wire fence, they're going to proceed to, let us say, have children—that's probably a crude expression; I'll withdraw it. If you think that you can sit idly by and watch rampant antisemitism—I don't watch television very often, but I watched on the television, as I think so many other Australians did, in horror as something like 70 or 80 people were in front of the Opera House, chanting, 'Gas the Jews.' It's a crime in this country to advocate murder. That is a crime. Did the police do anything about it? I tell you what: if I'd been there, I know what the police would have done. They'd have taken me and put me in the clink, not the people yelling out, 'Gas the Jews.' They were not touched, not criticised, not condemned. There was no criticism of the police—nothing. On these days, some of us are ashamed to be Australians, ashamed that we Australians have elected to parliament people who have no backbone, no courage, no conviction. And people like that pay a terrible price. Ask the people of Germany.

If you say that the Israelis should not be there, these Jewish people shouldn't be there, it's our country—hold on a minute. Where the hell do you think the Jewish faith came from? In 1365 Ibn Khaldun, the Arab historian, said he was very surprised that Jerusalem was predominantly Christian, as was the whole of Palestine. Well, where did all the Christians go? Where did all the Jewish people go? They were forced out or terrorised and murdered if they stayed in that country.

Why are the Jews there today? Oh, we all know why the Jews are there today. It is because, when they tried to get out of Europe, the ship of shame went all over the world, carrying 200 or 300 Jewish refugees. England would not take them, Brazil would not take them, the United States would not take them and, to our eternal shame, Australia would not take them. We couldn't even take 200 or 300 of them? Where were they to go? So they decided to go back to the historical homeland, and who could blame them? What else could they do? As I said, they say, 'You don't recognise Gaza,' but they don't recognise Israel, so that's pretty poor. The fact is that there are a whole lot of Gazans living in Israel. Are there any complaints, uprisings or anything from them? No.

Let me put this in perspective. There is no term that can describe the behaviour of the Greens in this place except 'rampant antisemitism', and it is a provocation of the ALP to try to win seats off the Labor Party on the basis of racial or religious persecution.

We don't have a lot of people of the Jewish faith in North Queensland, but those we do have are pretty outstanding. Cairns was a grubby, greasy little backwater that nobody would go to if you paid them—until four wonderful families came along. I won't go into the other three, but I will mention the Kamsler family, who built the first five-star hotel in Cairns. Their wonderful foresight enabled us to establish a world-class international tourist destination, which is now Cairns. One of the four families that created that wonderful occurrence was the Kamsler family, and I pay them very great tribute. The boys' parents were Holocaust survivors and, if there are nicer people on the planet than the Kamslers, I never met them.

They were the first hotel in Cairns to employ First Australians. Mickey Miller, the great blackfella leader I'm very proud to have looked up to all of my life asked me to stay there because it was the only hotel in Cairns that would employ First Australians.

We were just talking about lack of doctors. The first medical school built in Australia in 44 years was the result of Professor Ian Wronski, who is very proudly a person of the Jewish faith. (Time expired)

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