Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Middle East.

In August alone, 185 people in Gaza starved to death. Trucks piled high with food and life-saving aid are parked mere kilometres away. Babies are withering away from Israel's man-made starvation. This is cruelty in its extreme form. It is Israel's deliberate and calculated plan to destroy Gaza and kill Palestinians.

Earlier this week, the International Association of Genocide Scholars confirmed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The head of the IAGS said:

This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide. ...

There is no justification for the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, not even self defence.

Countless human rights organisations have declared that Israel is committing genocide, yet neither the Prime Minister nor any of his ministers can even bring themselves to utter the G-word. Just say it—it's genocide. There! It's that easy.

Former human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti said yesterday:

What is the alternative to a functioning international legal system? The only alternative is that might is right. The law of the jungle.

The Genocide Convention requires signatories to take action when genocide is occurring and to prevent genocide from occurring, but, when I asked Minister Wong about actions the Labor government has taken to stop Israel's genocide, all I got was indignation and obfuscation. Labor is not upholding international law. You are letting tyranny prevail.

Israel has made their plan to take over the West Bank clear for all to see. They have not shied away from their plan to, in the words of Israel's own deputy speaker, 'wipe Gaza off the map of the earth'. This is genocide. This is ethnic cleansing. Yet it's still all words and useless speeches from the Labor government. There have been no sanctions, there is no arms embargo, and they keep attacking those who expose their inaction and hold them to account. Let me be very, very clear: no matter how much those in here attack me with their blatant and vitriolic lies, you are not going to stop me. Your smears will never, never stop me from showing up and speaking out for justice for Palestine, and they will not stop the hundreds of thousands of people who march every week on the streets of this country demanding action and demanding justice. You will not stop us.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of Senator Wong's response to Senator Faruqi's question today. We know there is a genocide underway in Gaza. The International Association of Genocide Scholars—more than 300 of the top experts in this field—have now made that judgement. The International Court of Justice has found that what Israel is doing in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.

It is time for both major parties in this place to stop running cover for what Israel is doing, to cease their complicity in what Israel is doing. Call it out for what it is: it's a genocide and it is an ethnic cleansing. The euphemisms are despicable—conflict, hostilities, tragedies. Call it for what it is. People are being slaughtered in their droves. Starvation is being used as a weapon of war. War crimes are being committed on a daily basis. This is a genocide. This is an ethnic cleansing. It is time that everyone in this place called it for what it is, and it is beyond time for the Labor government to do the right thing.

Call it a genocide. End the two-way arms trade with Israel. Stop supplying weapons to Israel that are being used in the genocide. Stop supplying cover for the deliberate starvation and the slaughter of countless Palestinian people. Sanction Netanyahu and his war cabinet of war criminals. The hand-wringing is not enough. The platitudes are not enough. It is time for action, and it is time for what is happening in Gaza to be called what it is by the Australian government, and that is a genocide.

Question agreed to.