David Van (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday we commemorated the anniversary of one of the most tragic days in world history—when a sovereign nation's security and its people was violated by an armed terrorist militia. My heartfelt sympathies go out to the country of Israel, its people and the Australian Jewish community, including my family and friends. The pain and suffering they have experienced and continue to experience has been inflamed beyond the devastating violence in the region, including by the relentless hate spreading on our streets and on social media.

Every week we witness protests that fuel division, and I'm horrified and sickened to see graffiti such as 'kill a Jew' scrawled on our walls in our cities. I was absolutely disgusted over the weekend to see the feigned outrage over the death of Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah. I could not believe that people were treating him like a slain martyr, like a saint, instead of the tyrant, the terrorist, the murderer and the corrupter of the good state of Lebanon that he was. Celebrating a man such as he is the modern day equivalent of glorifying monsters like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and Idi Amin. Iran wouldn't have sent 180 missiles into Israel if the leader of Hezbollah wasn't one of their own people.