Groomed, captured, deployed. How the Israel lobby runs Chris Minns

Police brutality, intimidation, harassment, attack on freedom of expression. Bred for Israel, writes NSW Premier Chris Minns Andrew Brown.

Chris Minns didn’t get to this point by accident. This is what he was created for.

In 2003, before taking on important office, Minns was selected for the AIJAC Rambam Israel Fellowship, an all-expenses-paid program with one goal: to take promising Australian political figures to Israel, immerse them and hook them up.

Don’t bribe them. Connect them.

Build the kind of loyalty that doesn’t need instructions because it’s already instinct.

It worked.

When Minns reached the prime minister’s office, leading pro-Israel organizations were openly hailing him as a “strong friend.” Not sympathetic. This is not helpful communication. A reliable presence; a politician whose instincts they had watched develop over twenty years and learned to trust completely.

A great investment

Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised him by name for his leadership and support; A foreign head of state publicly thanked an Australian Prime Minister for his services. Millions of dollars of public money has flowed into the Sydney Jewish Museum. Participants in Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations.

The relationship was not hidden. It was celebrated. Because when the investment fully matures this, there is nothing left to hide.

When October 7 came, the lobby no longer needed to call him. He already knew what to do.

The Israeli flag flew at the Opera House.

The Prime Minister told protesters who objected that they would not be allowed to “seize the streets of Sydney”, which is seizure language applied to citizens walking in public to express their political views.

Within days, NSW Police launched Operation Shelter, a community safety operation that was almost exclusively deployed against Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.

Riot police teams broke up the protests at City Hall. Harbor Bridge march killed by legal challenge.

When Israeli President Herzog visited in early 2026, the government announced a major event to expand police powers, and officers planned in advance to disperse crowds if numbers grew too large.

Not if violence breaks out. If enough people come.

Existence itself had become a threat.

check the words

Minns also backed moves to criminalize expressions such as “globalising the intifada”, despite overwhelming legal opposition and a parliamentary inquiry dominated by objections. The purpose of the investigation was not to inform policy. It was to provide procedural protection for a decision that had already been made.

Check the words. Check the area. Check out the protest.

He then built the machine that would make this permanent.

In February 2026, Operation Shelter was transformed into a fixture of the New South Wales policing force. Armed Response Command (250 officers, long-armed rifles, modified rapid response vehicles, a 24/7 intelligence-driven operations center) was created as a standing capability.

Minister Yasmin Catley said the vehicle would roam the suburbs day and night, targeting protests and large gatherings. To devise this, Minns sent a NSW Police mission to the UK to examine what his government called “best practice in anti-hate policing”.

The UK model he chose to import: around 30 arrests every day for online comments. Sixty thousand hours of home visits are made annually due to “non-criminal hate incidents”; This is behavior that is not illegal but that the police have decided needs to be monitored.

Intimidation tactics

Less than 10 percent of hate-related arrests result in convictions. It’s a system set up not to prosecute crime, but to make dissidents feel dangerous enough for people to stop.

Libertarian MP John Ruddick in Parliament warned that the new unit would soon be knocking on citizens’ doors over social media posts. He advised New South Wales residents to be polite but exercise their right to remain silent. The government told him he was agitated.

This was weeks ago.

Harassment on behalf of a foreign power

This week, eight masked police officers in full tactical gear arrived at a young woman’s home at 5 a.m. He participated in Palestinian solidarity protests.

He allegedly threw a water bottle at a police officer during the demonstration. He allegedly told a police officer that if he hit him, he would hit him too.

They did not knock on the door. They entered by kicking the door.

He was taken out half-naked. He was taken to the police station. He was arrested.

Although he flatly refused, his phone was seized and searched. Lawyer Nick Hanna, who counseled him while he was in custody and documented the aftermath with a video, shared the collapsed door frame (split wood, the violence of the entrance written into the architecture of his house) with a single title:

“This is Australia in 2026.”

caught

This is what a captured politician looks like when he reaches full maturity. He’s not a man who takes instructions. Its maintenance is so complete, its harmony so perfect, that the state apparatus now acts with instinct; This instinct has been shaped by the lobby that has defined him for twenty years, nurtured him, and placed him exactly where he will be most useful.

There is no 250-person task force on domestic violence.

This kills two Australian women every week. There is no intelligence-focused rapid response unit against organized crime in Western Sydney. There’s one for that.

John Ruddick told parliament they would come knocking. The government called him an alarmist.

A young woman’s shattered door frame shows who was right.

Stormtroopers by Chris Minns. Guns for graffiti, silence for the dead