David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Never again'. They are the words that have been said since the Holocaust in the Second World War. Let me see them again: never again! Yet last weekend we saw the same atrocities happen in Israel—against Israelis, against my Jewish family and friends. Let's make no mistake about it: Hamas is synonymous with evil, the same evil that we saw perpetuated by the Nazis in the Second World War. Therefore, in my mind, there can be no doubt that Hamas is synonymous with the Nazis.

This was proven at that horrible march in Sydney following the attacks, on an occasion which was meant to be remembering the lives lost in Israel, where there were people chanting, 'Gas the Jews.' My family are Jewish. Can you imagine the effect, 70-odd years since the Holocaust, of again hearing people saying, 'Gas the Jews'? We cannot stand for this. I am so heartbroken by the atrocities that we saw, and they felt so close to home for me, my family, my friends in Israel and the Jewish community—in Melbourne in particular but right across Victoria.

The stories of atrocities and killing from that raid into Israel by Hamas have to be condemned. It does not sit well with me when I hear about the teenagers who were murdered at the music festival and those who were paraded through the streets with bloodied crotches, seemingly after being raped. That does not sit well with me. It does not sit well with me that grandmothers were burned. It does not sit well with me that babies were killed in their cots. The number of hostages taken, the 1,300 people murdered—none of this sits well with me. That is why I stand with Israel and with the Jewish community in Australia. That is why I believe that the Israeli people have the right to defend themselves and that Hamas must be neutralised and can never again be allowed to rule over the people of Gaza and bring terror to their lives and to Israel.

We must do everything we can to save the lives of nonbelligerents, but let's face facts. Hamas did not give days of warning to the babies that were killed, the women that were raped, the grandmothers that were burned and the hostages taken—nothing like that. They did not play by the rules of war. At least we are seeing the IDF act with courage and within the rules of humanitarian law in giving people an opportunity to escape. Israel was not given this opportunity. This war will be prosecuted. It will be bloody. It will be against Hamas. It is not against the people of Islam. It's not against the Gazans. I stand also with the members of the Islamic community here in Australia, every bit as much as I do with the Jewish community in Australia. This is just a fight against evil, and I stand behind that fight. I stand behind Israel.