{"id":263996,"date":"2026-01-29T17:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/263996\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:11:12","slug":"scott-morrison-in-israel-middle-east-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/263996\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Morrison in Israel \u2013 Middle East Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s former Prime Minister and faithful Pentecostal Scott Morrison never passes up the chance to express an opinion if it will net him a reward.\u00a0 As one of various politicians of the right (and far rightist) hue invited by Israel\u2019s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, he was in good company.\u00a0 The occasion: the second international conference on combating antisemitism held between 26 and 27th January at Jerusalem\u2019s International Convention Center, ambitiously titled Generation Truth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 14th December 2025 attack by two ISIS-inspired gunmen on those attending a Hanukkah event on Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach had supplied him with a hot script.\u00a0 Australia\u2019s Albanese government had been previously barked at by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for going wobbly on Israel and soft on Palestinians.\u00a0 Morrison was in hearty agreement, claiming<\/a> that the Labor government had \u201cwalked away from the Jewish state while antisemitism has taken root in Australia\u201d, feeding the hate through unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n

In keeping with various Christian groups of the right, Morrison is of the view that Israeli interests need to be protected, shielded and treasured against other, undesirable members of the Book.\u00a0 Christians and Jews can make a common alliance against their enemies, even if evangelical Christianity has a well-stocked reserve of antisemitic attitudes<\/a>.\u00a0 As Prime Minister, Morrison recognised<\/a> West Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, despite its contested status in international law, going so far as to open a Trade and Defence Office there in 2019.\u00a0 In 2021, his government officially adopted<\/a> the definition of antisemitism proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), one that fudges criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism.\u00a0 Since losing office he has been further courting Israel\u2019s favour by attacking<\/a> the United Nations for being a forum for antisemitism garbed in the argot of human rights.<\/p>\n

The 27th January address<\/a> recapitulated these points, and more.\u00a0 He pointed to a five-fold rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia following the October 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas.\u00a0 Context, such as Israel\u2019s historical suppression of Palestinian autonomy and its ruthless campaign of pulverisation in Gaza, was absent.\u00a0 Regular protests in Sydney and Melbourne, including a Sydney Harbour Bridge march numbering 100,000 people, were all cut from the same cloth of antisemitism.\u00a0 Again, Israel\u2019s conduct and policies deserved no mention, while slogans such as \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d and \u201cglobalising the intifada\u201d could only be seen as antisemitic declarations.<\/p>\n

With political illiteracy typical of the man, Morrison then linked the protests and a softer approach to Palestinian statehood directly to the Bondi attacks, his mind unblemished by any understanding about what ISIS is, and its hostility to Hamas.\u00a0 Shades, here, of the sham groupthink that marked Cold War analysis from Washington to Canberra on monolithic communism.\u00a0 Just as communism of the Chinese, Soviet and Vietnamese character was just communism, so can all forms of Islamism be considered identical.<\/p>\n

The usual cod analysis of the \u201cprogressive Left\u201d, with its \u201cneo-Marxist identity frameworks\u201d and the \u201cradical Right\u201d, with its \u201cconspiratorial and ethno-nationalist forms\u201d, are offered, both serving as the conduit for \u201cgrievance politics\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cWhen failure is moralised as systemic injustice, liberal norms collapse.\u201d\u00a0 This is the golden apologia for Israel writ large: do not blame institutions and injustice as having any consequences, the spawn of their practices.\u00a0 Abandon grievance; it has no role.<\/p>\n

This sets the scene for Morrison\u2019s real concern, and in this, he was keeping to the theme pushed by Chikli from the outset.\u00a0 Whatever the issues on the Left and Right of politics, Islam posed the greatest antisemitic threat, with its \u201cimported European conspiracy theories, recasting Jews as a hidden enemy responsible for global disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

His solution to such malignancy in a Western secular context?\u00a0 More religion, not less.\u00a0 Morrison quotes Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks quoting Jonathan Swift: \u201cwe have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.\u201d\u00a0 But the faith in question had to be of the \u201cgood\u201d sort, an inward individual consideration, rather than the \u201cbad\u201d variety that externalised the grievance and made people rush for placards, street rallies and arms.<\/p>\n

That bilious right-wing figures demanding the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza have more than enough religion to go around (Israel\u2019s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich come to mind) suggests this formula to be flawed.\u00a0 But Morrison singles out Islamic leaders and institutions within Australia as alone in lacking accountability.\u00a0 What was needed was \u201ca recognised accreditation framework for imams, a national register for public-facing roles, clear training and conduct requirements, and disciplinary authority for governing councils.\u201d\u00a0 Sermons should also be translated into English, and links to foreign Islamic groups policed and curbed.<\/p>\n

In Australia, Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg spoke approvingly of the former PM\u2019s tarnishing method, with Australian Muslims having to \u201ctake some responsibility\u201d for terrorist acts.\u00a0 \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he told<\/a> ABC radio on 28th January, \u201cthere has been a mutation of Islam in Australia and other Western countries where they have sought to kill citizens, not just Jewish people, but other citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) and the Islamic Council of Victoria were suitably unimpressed.\u00a0 Chief executive of the Islamic Council of Victoria, Zakaria Wahid, made the far from startling point<\/a> that the Australian government did \u201cnot hold entire communities accountable for acts of violence committed by individuals, and the same standard must apply to Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison has shown that he can be a good Pentecostal when required, demonstrating the sort of charity that never leaves his home or the halls of the Hill Song Church.\u00a0 As a cabinet minister and prime minister in various conservative governments, he showed a glacial contempt for women, welfare recipients, refugees, asylum seekers, those warning about climate change and open government.\u00a0 As prime minister, he gave Australia AUKUS, a criminally exorbitant, foolishly negotiated security pact between Canberra, London and Washington that has turned his country into an American satellite and forward base against China.\u00a0 But his less than secular admiration for Israel has won him friends, a point Chikli has unreservedly acknowledged<\/a>.\u00a0 No doubt some well remunerated consultancy work is in the bag.<\/p>\n

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s former Prime Minister and faithful Pentecostal Scott Morrison never passes up the chance to express an opinion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-263996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}