A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel
· Michael West
The Australian Government has committed to an independent investigation into the assaults, sexual assaults and torture of the Gaza Flotilla humanitarians. Andrew Brown reports.
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This is the biggest story most Australians have not yet grasped.
Today, in Canberra, Australian survivors of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by Israeli authorities met with Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the Hon Dr Anne Aly MP, a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, and a senior DFAT official.
As a result, the Australian Government has committed to an independent investigation into the assaults, sexual assaults and torture of the Gaza Flotilla humanitarians.
Read that again. Not an internal Israeli review. Not a department preparing a briefing note. Not a politician expressing concern.
An independent Australian investigation,
with the AFP at the table, into the conduct of the military and prison personnel of one of this country’s closest allies.
That is not normal. There is no comparable moment in the modern history of the relationship. A Western democracy, a reliable friend of Israel, has committed to formally investigating the Israeli state over what it did to that democracy’s own citizens. That has not happened before. Anywhere.
Eleven Australians
The Australians were among humanitarian volunteers detained by Israel after attempting to deliver food, medicine and aid to starving civilians in Gaza. Eleven of them came home with allegations of physical abuse, assault and, in several cases, sexual assault.
And the investigation did not happen by accident. It happened because a handful of Australians refused to let it be buried.
Juliet Lamont and Neve O’Connor came home injured and traumatised, and instead of retreating into private recovery they kicked the door of the national conversation off its hinges. They put their names to sworn testimony. They sat through Senate estimates.They took their case to the International Criminal Court.
And when their own prime minister declined to meet them, Lamont’s response was devastating in its simplicity. If Australian survivors can be heard in The Hague but not in Canberra, something has gone badly wrong.
Today they were heard.
“We came here seeking justice for survivors of Israel’s abuse of Australian citizens,” Lamont said after the meeting. “Today we secured an Australian investigation. Believing survivors is the first step. Investigation is the second. Justice is the third. There must be consequences for Israel’s brutality.”
O’Connor put the stakes in their proper, global frame. “What happened to us is what Palestinians have been warning the world about for decades. The same methods. The same perpetrators. The same chain of command. This investigation matters not only because Australians were harmed. It matters because it exposes the nature of the state responsible.”
That is the heart of it. And it is why this is much bigger than eleven Australians and one flotilla.
Israeli soldiers raped her. Australian customs threatened her
Will Israel cooperate?
A credible investigation will need operational footage, body camera recordings, communications records, detention logs, medical records and witness statements. Material capable of establishing exactly what happened. And this is where Israel is trapped. There are only two paths, and both are damning.
It can cooperate. Hand over the footage, open the logs, produce the records, name the personnel. If its account is true, that material exonerates it completely. A government confident in its own conduct does not hide the evidence. It rushes to produce it.
Or it can refuse. And if it refuses, every Australian is entitled to ask one question. Why? Why would a state that insists it did nothing wrong withhold the one thing capable of proving it? There is only one honest answer, and Israel knows it. You do not bury evidence that vindicates you.
You bury evidence that convicts you.
This is established behaviour. When the United Nations investigated the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid, Israel refused to let its soldiers be interviewed and ran its own inquiry instead. The pattern is decades old. Deny everything, investigate nothing independently, wait for the world to lose interest.
Israel denies
Israel’s ambassador maintains that participants were treated appropriately. Its prison service has issued a flat denial. Yet national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted footage of detained activists handcuffed and forced to crouch as guards waved Israeli flags in their faces, and called himself proud of it. Let the evidence speak. A state with nothing to hide would already be couriering the files to Canberra.
What makes this explosive is who is asking the questions. Australia is not Iran, not South Africa, not one of Israel’s usual critics. It has spent decades as one of Israel’s most dependable friends. When a loyal friend opens a file on you, the findings carry a weight no critic’s ever could.
Remembering Zomi Frankcom
Australians remember Zomi Frankcom. When the aid worker was killed in Gaza, the government accepted an Israeli internal review where it should have demanded answers. That impression has not faded. This time the government has committed to something different,
and it will be held to it.
Penny Wong has told the Senate she believes the women, calling their treatment horrific and unacceptable. Today she went further and committed her government to act. The question is no longer whether the allegations are credible. It is what Australia does with what it finds.
Sanctions. Travel bans. And the bluntest instrument of all. Australia could expel Israel’s ambassador and declare implicated officials persona non grata, putting them on a plane. A few years ago the idea was fantasy. It is now a live question, and it sharpens with every day Israel stonewalls.
Australia breaks ranks
Understand what is truly at stake. For decades Israel has acted in the settled expectation that it answers to no one, underwritten by the certainty that its Western friends would always look away.
That assumption is what is now on trial in Canberra. The moment a trusted ally follows the evidence wherever it leads, the spell breaks, and other capitals discover they can ask the question too. This is why the world is watching a story that began with a few small boats.
The eleven Australians have names. Neve O’Connor, Juliet Lamont, Zack Schofield, Surya McEwen, Sam Woripa Watson, Anny Mokotow, Bianca Pullman Webb, Ethan Floyd, Violet Coco, Gemma O’Toole and Helen O’Sullivan. They are not going away.
The era of impunity rested on a single belief. That no friend would ever break ranks. A friend just did.
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