Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am saddened by the terrible toll of civilian lives that have been claimed by fighting in the Middle East. Southern Lebanon and northern Israel are these days not only joined by a common border; they are united by the suffering of innocents who have needlessly been killed and maimed. But I move from sorrow to indignation when I think of how this conflict started and the nature of those who started it. I am angry at the act of unprovoked Hezbollah aggression that triggered this unnecessary bout of destruction. I am livid that this attack took place across a border that is clearly delineated and internationally recognised. I am disgusted that Hezbollah fired scores of rockets at Israeli civilian targets in the Galilee to cover the retreat of its raiding party back into Lebanon. Let me stress that these acts of jihadist violence all took place before a single Israeli shot was fired in response.

Since this conflict began, we have seen a parade of media pundits blather on about proportionality as a means of lambasting Israel. Too many of these commentators are equivocators who insist on seeing nuance where there is none to be had. They are moral relativists who swear that Western democracy and jihadist totalitarianism are equally worthy ideologies. They are muddle-headed peaceniks who contend that bin Laden and Nasrallah would like us if only we were a bit nicer to them.

But I have a newsflash for those who think that all the world’s problems can be solved through one big group hug. I have a bit of advice for the excusers and the abusers who are delusional enough to think that we should shake the bloody hand of jihadist Islam. Sigmund Freud once said that, in psychoanalysis, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I am here to tell the Senate that sometimes black is black and white is white. Sometimes it is a question of right or wrong and of good versus evil, and now is one of those times.

The stark reality of what is going on in Gaza and Lebanon is really quite elementary. Israel has twice been subjected to unprovoked attacks that have violated its national sovereignty. Israel has twice been the victim of armed cross-border aggression. Israel’s towns and cities have been pounded by thousands of enemy rockets. Over 100,000 Israeli civilians have been forced to flee their homes. The damage to Israel’s economy has been incalculable. Businesses have been closed, hotels are empty and lives have been ruined, and all because of the megalomaniacal and genocidal ambition of the Hezbollah jihadists and their masters in Tehran.

You see, on a legal and moral level this is not a question of nuance, this is not a question of shared blame, this is not a question of collective responsibility. Hezbollah started this war, and once the jihadists cried ‘havoc’, Israel was entirely justified in letting slip its own dogs of war in self-defence. But, in their haste to blame the victim, Israel’s critics have lost sight of an even larger picture: this is all part of a larger war. From New York City to Bali, the globe has become a battlefield in a violent jihadist campaign to impose its medieval values at the point of a gun. And the wave of Islamic radicalism that is sweeping through all six inhabited continents has placed Israel and Australia squarely in the middle of that fight.

The same Iranian government that has armed Lebanon’s Hezbollah to the teeth is supplying sophisticated shaped-charge explosives that can penetrate the armour of coalition vehicles in Iraq. In recent years, the Shiite Hezbollah has been providing weapons and training to Sunni Palestinian terrorists of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Hatred of Jews and Westerners is powerful enough to bridge even the deep and often violent religious divide that exists within Islam.

Australian diggers in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting against the same enemy that is still threatening Israel. While the guns fell silent at 3 pm today, the terrorist threat remains. Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah might be different divisions of the jihadist franchise, but these terrorist groups share the same goals and the same willingness to achieve them by shedding innocent blood. From blowing up beachside resorts to bombing commuter trains, the agents of jihad see the deliberate slaughter of innocents as a legitimate tactic of war. As we speak, we see Hezbollah deliberately putting the Lebanese population at risk in order to score cheap PR points. These jihadists are willing to sacrifice their friends, their families and their people for the sake of holy war against the West.

UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland was disgusted by Hezbollah’s human shield tactics, which he witnessed during a recent visit to Beirut. Egeland was so upset that this senior diplomat expressed himself in a most undiplomatic manner. Without mincing words he declared: ‘Hezbollah, stop this cowardly blending in among women and children!’ Egeland’s message is reinforced by a letter to the editor that appeared last week in a Berlin newspaper. Dr. Mounir Herzallah is a Shiite Muslim who currently lives in Germany. He wrote:

I lived until 2002 in a small southern village near Mardshajun that is inhabited by a majority of Shi’ites like me. After Israel left Lebanon, it did not take long for Hezbollah to have the say in our town and all other towns. Received as successful resistance fighters, they appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers! A local sheikh explained to me, laughing, that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population, they use them as shields, and, once dead, as propaganda.

The doctor finishes by saying:

As long as they continue existing there, there will be no tranquillity and peace.

As much as this is a clash between Islamic radicalism and the West, it is also a civil conflict within Islam. The vast majority of Muslims give short shrift to the doctrines of bin Laden and Nasrallah. Both within and without the Middle East, the vast majority of Muslims are normal people with normal ambitions. A Taliban-style sharia regime holds absolutely no attraction for them. We must do what we can to help the moderates win this intra-Islamic war of ideas against the jihadist radicals. That doctrinal battle must be fought by mainstream Muslims on behalf of mainstream Islam. And in this theological contest of concepts we non-Muslims can play, at best, only a supporting role. But while this clash of religious creeds rages within the Islamic world, the West must hold the line against the armed depredations of the jihadist fringe.

During the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin warned squabbling Yankee colonists: ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’ The democratic world must maintain solidarity in the face of this Islamic radical menace to its principles and way of life. While al-Qaeda et al. may not constitute an existential threat to the West as things stand now, it is not for want of effort on the part of the jihadists. The plot to blow up civilian airlines, uncovered last week in Britain, is just the most recent chapter in this ongoing war. There is ample evidence of the bin Ladenists’ desire to obtain chemical and biological weapons, and the primary sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism—Iran—is working overtime to develop a nuclear bomb. Thus Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan are all part of the same war.

As a fellow democracy, Israel has a legitimate claim on the sympathies and affections of free people everywhere, but, beyond any moral values and sentimental considerations, Australians should support Israel out of a sense of self-interested calculation as well. The Israelis have long been on the front line of the battle against jihadist Islam. The Jewish state should be seen as a valued ally in our fight to preserve liberty in the face of jihadist aggression.