ISIS vs IDF. Selective justice and the fall of Australian law

Australians who went to fight for ISIS have been prosecuted and their families slandered, while former IDF soldiers who fought for Israel walk freely among us. Andrew Brown Report on double standards.

Australians like to believe that our justice system is governed by principles and that crimes are judged by what was done, not by who did it. We love a comforting story about ourselves. Justice has been served and accountability is painful but impartial. We say it often. We believe when it suits us.

This story collapses as soon as it is tested.

Later Brereton ReportAustralia has shown what accountability looks like when it chooses to take the law seriously. Entire Australian Defense Force detachments were investigated. Entire units were placed under suspicion. The soldiers were interrogated many times. Careers froze. Medals were questioned. Command structures were dismantled. Hundreds of millions of public dollars were spent. A soldier attacked. Many people were suspended indefinitely, their lives stalled in legal limbo.

This pursuit of responsibility was not timid or symbolic. He did not shy away from rank, fame or heroism. Australia has fielded returning heroes, including Victoria Cross recipients, and some of the most decorated units in its military history. He did this publicly and without fear or favor.

No medals or mythologies excluded anyone from scrutiny.

Australia wanted the world to see that it would investigate its forces, which included not just individuals but units and chains of command, even if it was humiliating and politically costly.

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Soldiers are going abroad

When Australians set out to join ISIS, the response was quicker and harsher. Passports were cancelled. Houses were raided. Supervision was expanded and denaturalization powers came into effect. Spouses are treated as accomplices. Children are framed as future threats. Suspicion alone was often enough to trigger punishment. Litigation has become optional.

If Australians had fought on behalf of Russia against Ukraine, arrests would have followed. Prosecutions under foreign intervention and war crimes laws. Media outrage before the baggage carousel stops spinning. The word traitor would appear immediately.

This is the standard that Australia claims to support.

Gaza

Now consider Gaza. What is happening is not a chaotic war. This is a civil disaster of a measurable nature. Reliable casualty analyzes based on hospital records, death certificates, and independent verification indicate that approximately 84% of those killed were civilians and approximately 33% were children. It’s not the warriors who are counted as wrong. It’s not the young people who are caught in the crossfire. Children.

By comparison, children account for about 0.3% of deaths in Ukraine. This is a difference of more than a hundredfold. This is not an accidental harm. This is demographic concentration.

Destruction follows the same logic. Entire residential areas were razed to the ground. Houses, schools, universities, bakeries, water infrastructure and sewage systems were systematically destroyed. This is not damage from conflict around civilians.

It is the elimination of the conditions necessary for the continuation of civilian life.

Hospitals have been the central target. Gaza’s major medical complexes have been surrounded, raided and rendered unusable. The electricity went out. Fuel rejected Oxygen supplies depleted. Patients died on the ground before they could be treated. Premature babies were left in incubators without electricity. Medical staff were detained directly from wards and operating rooms, taken away without charge, and many remained in custody for months later.

This is not collateral damage. This is a real-time dismantling of a healthcare system.

human rights atrocities

Mass detentions accompanied physical destruction. Thousands of Palestinians were taken without charge or access to legal advice. Human rights organizations have documented cases of beatings, starvation, stress positions, and sexual abuse in detention. Medical professionals and journalists were not spared either. They were targeted.

Journalists were killed at a rate unmatched in any modern conflict. Aid workers were killed despite working in clearly marked vehicles and facilities. Among them was Australian humanitarian worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed during a coordinated attack on an aid convoy.

And then there is Hind Rajab.

A six-year-old girl was trapped in a car after her family was shot dead. He called emergency services. His voice was recorded. An ambulance was dispatched to rescue him. The ambulance was destroyed. Hind was later found dead next to paramedics sent to save her.

There was no conflict. No temperature change. There is no uncertainty.

Australian, US and Canadian doctors working in Gaza later publicly stated that several children were being treated for gunshot wounds consistent with sniper fire. Same entry wounds on heads and chests. These were not anecdotes.

These were clinical observations recorded by trained professionals.

crime scene

For this reason, the language of genocide is no longer rhetoric. This is legal. The International Court of Justice found a reasonable risk of genocide and ordered interim measures. The International Criminal Court investigates responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity resulting from Israel’s actions.

What is happening in Gaza is not a tragedy without an author.

This is a crime scene.

Australia chose silence.

This silence is no longer ignorance. Speaking at the National Press Club, senior human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti warned that Australians serving in Gaza could face criminal liability if genocide or war crimes are detected. He spoke clearly. Genocide does not require pulling the trigger. Help, facilitation or intentional contribution may be sufficient.

The government did not object to the law. He did nothing.

There is no Australian Federal Police task force. There is no review of units or chains of command. There is no transparency. There is no framework under Australian law to investigate potential complicity in genocide or war crimes.

Tolerance instead.

An estimated 1,000 former or current Israel Defense Forces soldiers currently live freely in Australia. They tour Caulfield, Bondi, Dover Heights and Double Bay. They drink lattes in Sydney cafes. They enjoy suburban normalcy without scrutiny, while Gaza remains a notebook full of rubble, amputations, mass graves and dead children. And tolerance does not end with inaction. Now it’s getting closer to getting stronger.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has publicly announced the expansion of armed community protection roles, including the involvement of current or former Israeli soldiers in the protection of Jewish institutions in Australia. The stated purpose is to protect against antisemitism. This purpose is legitimate. The consequences are not like that.

I mourn Bondi’s passing. Australia’s grief hierarchy

Policing and the authorized use of force are public duties. Weapons in civilian life exist because they require training, oversight, accountability and law. The problem becomes urgent and local when governments consider arming people who have recently served in a foreign military currently under investigation for genocide.

Take the test honestly.

ISIS vs IDF

If ISIS returnees attempted to carry weapons in public under the guise of social protection, the state would respond with handcuffs and imprisonment rather than consent. The request itself will be considered evidence of danger.

The fact that this proposal is acceptable for one category of foreign fighters but unthinkable for another reveals the fiction at the heart of Australia’s claim to equal justice. The law has not changed. There is only the person he is prepared to protect.

This is not impartiality. This is politics.

Australia has ruined the careers of researching its own soldiers. He went after his most decorated units without fear or favor. He acted brutally against ISIS militants. If Australians fight for Russia, it will take immediate action.

While Australians fight under the Israeli flag in Gaza, the state turns a blind eye to credible allegations of genocide before international courts.

This is not restriction, this is complicity.

History will remember this as the moment when Australia blinded its own law, allowed returning IDF soldiers to pass without question, and justice was exposed before the law as a deliberate lie.

Lone Soldiers. New Australian IDF soldiers will arrive in Israel in January