Flotilla victim blaming. Time to expel Israel’s ambassador

Even Penny Wong believes the victims of the Gaza flotilla and the AFP are investigating, but the Israeli ambassador and the Murdoch press call everyone liars. What gives? Andrew Brown he asks.

Israel’s ambassador to Australia looked at Australian citizens who said they were beaten, tortured and raped and called them fraudsters.

Sit with this. A foreign envoy on Australian soil says their rape and torture of Australian women is a show.

Ambassador Hillel Newman and his embassy say there is no credible evidence, brand the eleven Australians professional provocateurs and say the allegations have already been proven false. The embassy told the families of the survivors that its forces treated the detainees with great sensitivity.

On ABC radio, Newman said the AFP investigation was a mistake and warned he was unsure how Israel would react if it decided it was a witch hunt.

How dare he do this? How dare a foreign ambassador stand in this country and tell Australian women that what was done to them never happened? How dare he reduce Juliet Lamont to a propagandist without a single shred of evidence tested? A woman who said she was beaten, tied to wires and raped, with medical records showing a broken coccyx.

This is not diplomacy. like that

The demonization of rape victims by the representative of the state they blame.

Understand who else you’re calling a liar. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong met with these survivors and told the country she believed them, saying their treatment was appalling and unacceptable. Royal minister Anne Aly was also there. So did a senior DFAT official and the Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

According to Lamont, every woman in that room believed him, thanked him and told him he was brave.

Israeli soldiers raped her. Australian customs threatened him

When Newman says the survivors are lying,

He says the Australian Foreign Minister is lying.

He says the royal minister is a fool and the federal police are conducting a witch hunt against the truth. A foreign ambassador has described the Australian government’s top brass as fools who dare to disbelieve Australian women.

There is no disputing the facts

Newman did not dispute a single claim with a single fact. There is no ship record. There are no operational orders. There is no image. He has no medical record. He confirms no request for further footage has even been answered, and says Israel alone will decide whether the AFP is worthy of seeing it. While the defendant brands the victims as liars, he also wants to examine his own investigators.

This is not a government that has nothing to hide.

He decided that disrespect was cheaper than cooperation.

Now watch who runs to stand next to him. Australian Jewish Association, the word Australia is right there next to its name and never means less.

Confronted with Australians who say they were raped in Israeli custody, AJA did not call for an Israeli investigation, did not demand the handover of evidence, and did not stand behind a single Australian woman.

Instead, its chief executive, Robert Gregory, wrote to AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett, demanding an investigation of the flotilla participants, namely Australian citizens.

Read this twice because it’s so weird.

A team waving the Australian flag asked Australian police to catch Australian rape complainants on behalf of the foreign government accused of raping them, describing it as patriotic.

So drop the pretense and ask where his loyalties lie. Not with women. Not by law. Not with the country whose name he wears like a costume. It belongs to Israel and Israel alone. When given a clear choice between Australians being abused and the power that abused them, he chose power and reached out to the nearest Australian institution to use as a weapon against Australians.

Murdoch’s complicity

Then there’s Sky News. The Murdoch network, which reported a story about Australian women alleging rape and torture, did not interview survivors, did not put Penny Wong on air and did not call AFP. He handed the microphone to AJA and relayed the story of Gregory’s request to investigate the victims.

Faced with tortured Australians on one side and the lobby smearing them on the other, Sky knew exactly whose speech to broadcast. This is not journalism. This is propaganda from a foreign state, laundered through a network in Australia and sold to Australians as if the victims were the bad guys.

Three voices, one message. A foreign ambassador, a lobby posing as Australia and a channel that forgets which country it broadcasts in are all telling this country that its tortured citizens are liars and that the real people who need to be investigated are the Australians who come home with broken bones.

There is a saying that means siding with a foreign power against your own abused citizens. It is not patriotism. Quite the opposite. How Australian can you not be?

This is the same Israeli government whose Australian-approved minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, filmed detained Australians and captioned it: “Welcome to Israel.” France and Italy filed a war crimes case. Canada demanded an independent investigation. The survivors submitted affidavits to the International Criminal Court. Newman, AJA and Sky News have the same response.

Deny everything. Defamate the witnesses. Search for victims. Protect the state.

So deliver. Every report, every order, every communication, every witness, every second of footage. If Israel has nothing to hide, it has nothing to fear. His ambassador says the survivors are lying. Survivors and the Secretary of State who believes them say otherwise. The evidence will decide.

The world is watching. So are Australians. The era of denial is coming to an end. It’s time for proof.

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