Nation’s foreign policy is being driven by minority influence
In a new and disturbing first, immigrant communities are now driving Australia’s foreign policy in ways that are at odds with the national interest.
The Albanese government’s changing policy towards the Middle East is the result of pressure from Muslim activists. There are now three websites, which this paper reports are “circulating among political and community circles”, seeking to mobilise the country’s almost one million Muslims to use their local voting power to force the government to change Australia’s long-held and previously bipartisan support for Israel as the only liberal, pluralist democracy in the Middle East.
This was most memorably expressed in Bob Hawke’s immortal statement that if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.
Labor frontbenchers, such as Tony Burke and Jason Clare (whose electorates are more than 30 per cent Muslim), failed to condemn unequivocally the October 7 atrocities, have supported local councils flying the Palestinian flag and have told local Muslims that they’re advocating for them in cabinet. The Albanese government only briefly suspended aid to the UN agency active in Gaza, despite clear evidence that much of it has been channelled to Hamas and that staff were involved in the October 7 killings.
Anthony Albanese was very slow to make a solidarity call to his Israeli counterpart after October 7, despite the terrorist murder of an elderly Australian, but was almost immediately in critical contact when an Israeli drone strike mistakenly killed an Australian aid worker.
Worst of all, our Foreign Minister has called for the recognition of Palestine even though this would reward the apocalyptic death cult that has been running Gaza.
Exhibit one is the Muslim Votes Matter website: “The Muslim community,” it declares, “is the largest and among the fastest growing minority groups in Australia. Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet under-utilised asset we have.” Muslim Votes Matter aims to unlock “this highly influential tool”, as the website call it, in the “over 20 (federal parliamentary) seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote”.
Harnessing religious solidarity with Marxist militant minority tactics, and cleverly pitched to culturally adrift adolescents and young adults, the aim is to have the 4 per cent of voters who are Muslim change the national position, not just on Palestine but “on a broad range of issues … which resonate most with the Australian Muslim community”.
https://www.muslimvotesmatter.com.au/Then there’s My Vote Matters, a website run by the Islamic Council of Victoria that says it has “run four successful campaigns”. It says 70 per cent of Muslims are “extremely” or “very concerned” about right-wing extremism and 82 per cent of Muslims think their political representatives “don’t care” about Islamophobia.
https://myvotematters.com.au/What’s striking, though, in this push by Muslim leaders to change Australia’s policy on the Middle East is that there’s no attempt to appeal to Australia’s long-term national interest. It’s taken for granted that what matters most is local Muslims’ solidarity with their fellow Muslims abroad.
Australia’s Muslim leaders (and also much of their communities), it seems, aren’t thinking as Australians who happen to be Muslims but as Muslims who happen to reside in Australia.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/nations-foreign-policy-is-being-driv...