Sharri Markson: Albanese Government's decision to sanction Israeli ministers is juvenile and has serious implications

Sky News AU

a day ago

Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese are as dangerous to Australia's social fabric as the very Israeli ministers they hypocritically sanctioned.
Their move to issue sanctions against two highly-controversial Israeli politicians, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, is juvenile, student-union style political activism, not considered foreign policy. But it has serious implications.
Sharri Markson will tackle this issue on her show tonight. Watch live from 8pm on Sky News Australia.
After a concerted campaign against Israel since they came to office in 2022, the message from the Albanese Government is now clear - they do not view Israel as a close ally.
Governments do not issue sanctions against a friend, only against enemy dictatorships like Russia.
The Albanese Government is turning Israel into a pariah state, and thus Zionists into outcasts.
The vast majority of Jews are Zionists, so this is extremely dangerous for our social cohesion in Australia.
It will achieve nothing - except division and distrust.
Thankfully, there's still leadership and commonsense from the United States.
The extremely impressive US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was clear-headed and principled when he said that America urges the reversal of the sanctions and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel.
'These sanctions do not advance U.S.-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war," Senator Rubio said.
"We reject any notion of equivalence: Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed unspeakable atrocities, continues to hold innocent civilians hostage, and prevents the people of Gaza from living in peace. We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.'
I've been told - and I hope it's true - that President Trump plans to raise this issue with Anthony Albanese when he sees him at the G7 shortly.
This move by the Albanese Government is fundamentally flawed, for three key reasons: it's a gross double standard, it abuses the purpose of the sanction regime and it contributes to an inappropriate broader anti-Israel foreign policy position.
First to the gross double standard. There are no sanctions on Palestinian ministers, despite their repeated incitement and glorification of violence.
This includes the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas defending Hitler and claiming that the Nazi leader didn't kill Jews because of their religion but because of their social role in how they dealt with money.
The Palestinian President also said that he won't stop the payments to martyrs' families - that's the families of terrorists who kill Israelis.
Wouldn't Penny Wong think this was the greatest obstacle to peace - funding terrorism - that requires sanctions? Apparently not.
In fact, the Palestinian President reportedly even made a phone call congratulating a terrorist who murdered an Israeli baby.
That Israeli baby, Avia Malka, was killed at just nine months old.
In another example, a Palestinian advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic relations, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, said that Hamas' massacre of October 7 was legitimate resistance.
There are far too many examples to cite, yet Senator Wong and Mr Albanese have chosen to sanction two controversial Israeli ministers who have committed no crime and who are regularly criticised in Israel's free press.
They are criticised for comments calling on Israel to take back control of Gaza, demanding the Palestinians move out of Gaza and encouraging Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas.
They're not comments I agree with, but it's hardly comparable to literally paying for terrorism or congratulating the murderer of an innocent nine-month-old baby.
It's not comparable, either, with actual crimes committed by any number of politicians around the world.
Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich also face elections and judicial oversight. Israel's democracy is fierce and the law is upheld.
No such accountability exists in the Palestinian Authority which has not held elections in over a decade.
If this were about principles, not politics, where are the sanctions on Palestinian Authority ministers?
Where are the sanctions outside of the Middle East - on officials from Myanmar, China or Iran?
Or, for that matter, on politicians who have made highly controversial comments in America, Canada, France, Germany or any African country?
By this standard, Mr Albanese and Senator Wong would be issuing sanctions against the United States President, Donald Trump, for any number of controversial remarks he's made.
It's utterly absurd, which brings me to my next point: their move abuses the purpose of the sanctions regime.
The Magnitsky legislation - under which the sanctions are issued - was designed to target authoritarian regimes - places where there's no rule of law, justice system or even elections.
This sanction regime was the impetus of the late Senator Kimberley Kitching.
It was a mechanism to hold dictators and corrupt autocrats accountable.
As I first reported in March 2022, Senator Kitching fought for these laws despite opposition from Penny Wong, who refused to let her table a private members bill on it.
Kimberley's close friend, former Labor MP, Michael Danby told me that Senator Kitching would be turning in her grave right now to see these sanctions abused in this way.
'Kimberly envisaged this legislation being used against authoritarian states and she'd be upset that it was being misused against democratic states like Israel where the rule of law and elections deal with any possible violations by local politicians," he said.
'What's next, if we don't like the politicians in other democratic states like Canada, France, or the United States are we going to also put Magnitsky bans on them?'
Shadow Foreign Minister Michaelia Cash also said that this sanctions regime is meant to respond to human rights abuses and terrorist acts.
'The Government's explanatory materials make clear that Minister Wong exercised a discretionary power to impose the sanctions because of public comments made by the two Israeli ministers," she said.
"This appears to be a new development in our foreign policy."
Yes public comments - not crimes, not actions - but comments.
These are sanctions for speech. It's utterly bewildering.
This isn't about justice. It's political punishment against freely-elected ministers in a functioning democracy with an independent supreme court.
Lastly, as we all know, this isn't an isolated incident. This is part of an established pattern under the Albanese Government of adopting a hostile anti-Israel foreign policy platform.
Before Albanese, Israel was one of Australia's closest allies.
This government is treating the Jewish nation as a rogue enemy state.
AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein said it very well today in a statement.
'The Government appears to be acting at the behest of the obsessive anti-Israel activists who constantly scream for ever more punitive actions against Israel, and largely do not seek the two-state solution our government says it supports, but instead desire Israel's ultimate destruction," he said.
While she was explaining her position, Senator Wong claimed to separate her foreign policy position on Israel from Jewish Australians.
She said the two were unrelated. This is farcical, naive and simply wrong. It indicates that she knows nothing of the racism Jewish Australians are facing or the reasons behind it.
What Senator Wong surely must know is that the Jewish community around the world is intrinsically connected to the state of Israel.
Zionism and Judaism are intertwined.
Israel is the only Jewish state in the world, and it's the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, who have lived there for thousands of years - even before Islam began.
The Albanese Government's egregious and continued campaign against Israel is a betrayal of Jewish Australians.
It only encourages the campaign of hate towards Israel, towards Israelis, towards Zionists and, thus, towards Jews.
It sends a signal that in Albanese's Australia, vilifying Israel is not just tolerated—it's applauded.
But this will not go unanswered. The Jewish community—and many Australians—see exactly what this is: a political stunt wrapped in moral posturing, doing real damage to the social fabric of our country.