In a feature article published in the Weekend Australian ahead of the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, senior partner Mark Leibler describes the multilayered anguish of the past two years.
“I never imagined the gut-wrenching trauma of that day on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists poured across Israel’s border, murdering, raping and abducting innocents in an orgy of brutality. Certainly, I would never have anticipated the almost immediate explosion of anti-Semitism in my beloved Australia,” he writes. “And while I have never taken for granted Australia’s longstanding bipartisan support for Israel, my sense was that the shared values and close, multilayered ties between our two countries would endure despite inevitable differences between leaders and the governments they led.”
Through his own personal story, Mark explains that the safety and opportunity Australia had offered his parents, who had escaped Nazi Europe, and the rebirth of the Jewish homeland were viewed as “intertwined miracles”.
“And it is with that perspective of memory and personal responsibility that I reflect on October 7 – a day that will forever remain seared in the Jewish psyche. How could I foresee the aftershocks here in Australia – on our streets, in our schools and universities, and even in the corridors of power where ‘balance’ appeased no one and opened a chasm that threatened social cohesion.”
Successive Australian governments have recognised Israel’s right to live in peace within secure borders. Irrespective of the government of the day, here or in Israel, that bipartisan consensus has been anchored in shared values and mutual interests between our two countries, from democracy and the rule of law to trade, education and security co-operation, which remains vitally important to Australia.
And while these values were manifest in the days after the Hamas onslaught, when Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton spearheaded a bipartisan motion condemning Hamas and supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, Mark laments that we also have seen too many instances where clarity has faltered, giving way to what must have felt like political pragmatism but which has fermented something much darker.
“The message I want, with all my heart, to convey on this second anniversary of an act of hatred that stirred a primal horror across the Jewish world is that the Australian government must honour the dead, abducted, injured and displaced by restoring our nation’s adherence to principle, by speaking clearly about terror and standing by a fellow democracy, even while disagreeing, however intensely, with some of its government’s policies.”
