{"id":239590,"date":"2023-10-27T00:15:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=239590"},"modified":"2023-10-27T00:15:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:15:28","slug":"tony-burke-supports-flying-palestinian-flag-cautions-against-competitive-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/lifestyle\/tony-burke-supports-flying-palestinian-flag-cautions-against-competitive-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Burke supports flying Palestinian flag, cautions against \u2018competitive grief\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Senior Labor Minister Tony Burke says he supports his local council\u2019s decision to fly the Palestinian flag \u2013 and expects it will happen more broadly \u2013 because Palestinian Australians whose family members are dying overseas have not had their grief acknowledged in equal ways as the country responded to the Israel-Hamas war.<\/p>\n

In emotive comments that cautioned Australia against engaging in \u201ccompetitive grief\u201d as horrific events unfolded in the Middle East, Burke said civilian families in Gaza would be the first to die as food, water and fuel ran out under an Israeli siege.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tony Burke is the third Albanese government minister to speak out publicly about the way Palestinian Australians have felt since the Israel-Hamas war broke out.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Alex Ellinghausen<\/cite><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be able to distinguish, in the debate in Australia, between Hamas and Palestinians. There have been too many occasions where the two have been conflated,\u201d he said on ABC\u2019s Radio National on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Burke is the third Albanese government minister to speak out publicly about the way Palestinian Australians had felt treated since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, following the militant group\u2019s deadly attack on southern border towns on October 7. Ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly, who are both Muslim, last week said they feared Palestinians were being collectively punished for Hamas\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n

Burke earlier this month came under pressure from former prime minister John Howard, as well as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which accused him of a \u201ccomplete lack of leadership\u201d in The Australian<\/em>, when he did not explicitly condemn a rally that broke out in his electorate following the Hamas attack. Some attendees had appeared to celebrate the assault.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Burke repeated his condemnation of Hamas. But he said Australia often fell into an immature debate where people were accused of making excuses for Hamas, if they acknowledged the history before this month\u2019s attack or spoke in favour of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not. It\u2019s simply the case that people have a right to be able to grieve when innocent life is lost,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the concept of competitive grief \u2026 which has driven some of the media, is something that I don\u2019t want to see in Australia. We do have the maturity, we need to have the maturity to respect for each other\u2019s grief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arts and employment minister, who has represented the western Sydney seat of Watson since 2004, said people in his electorate were receiving images of death and destruction from overseas family members over WhatsApp every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a professional woman say to me the other day, she has never seen so many images of dead babies in her life. Often the images they\u2019re seeing turn out to be of people they know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I go through the suburbs, across from Belmore, Lakemba, where I live in Punchbowl, through to Bankstown \u2014 pretty much everybody knows somebody who has lost someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t say we only grieve for certain people who are slaughtered. We can\u2019t have a situation, as a nation, where we only formally acknowledge particular deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said there was nowhere in Australia where the colours of Palestinians had been acknowledged as worthy of grief until Canterbury-Bankstown Council in his electorate chose to fly the Palestinian flag \u2013 a decision he said he completely supported and expected to be repeated more broadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were truly representing the grief that is in the community. And once again, it is not the Hamas flag that\u2019s flying. It\u2019s the Palestinian flag. It\u2019s a flag that gives people the chance to know that there is recognition and not selective grief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t say we only grieve for certain people who are slaughtered. We can\u2019t have a situation, as a nation, where we only formally acknowledge particular deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

As public debate and protests erupted over the lighting of monuments in Israeli colours, Burke said he \u201cabsolutely respected\u201d there being places where people could grieve with the Israeli flag and colours. But he said the Opera House in particular was an arts and cultural precinct, \u201cand it\u2019s sensible for us to start getting back to that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Burke said he did not want to get into a debate about labels used to describe the conflict \u2013 such as genocide or apartheid \u2013 but would focus on what was happening to individuals after Israel\u2019s defence minister declared a complete siege on Gaza and used the term \u201chuman animals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf neither fuel nor water is provided, then people say to me, who\u2019s going to run out of water first? The family that evacuated because their home was bombed, or the Hamas fighters?<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s going to be more affected by the impossibility of importing medicines, will it be the Hamas fighter, or will it be the people in a hospital? Who\u2019s going to have the back-up [power when fuel runs out]: the Hamas fighter, or the people on life support, or a baby in an incubator?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of that decision is ticking. It\u2019s being felt now … And while it hasn\u2019t had the same attention as the direct bombing, in terms of the humanitarian impact of that siege, we are moments away from horrific impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Foreign Minister Penny Wong\u2019s statement this week, in which she said the way Israel defends itself mattered, was highly significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Australian government acknowledges that any country in the world, after an attack like Hamas, will want to respond directly to Hamas,\u201d he said. But it wanted to protect every civilian life, including Palestinians, and ensure there was a humanitarian response.<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s calls for a humanitarian pause in fighting were forcefully rejected by Israeli MP Sharren Haskel, who spent eight years living in Australia. \u201cTry and imagine that after the 9\/11 attacks America was asked to supply fuel money, food and medication to al-Qaeda. Never,\u201d she told this masthead.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, has also disagreed with Wong\u2019s characterisation of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. \u201cAccording to my information, the humanitarian situation is fair,\u201d he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Maimon praised the Albanese government\u2019s solidarity with Israel while calling for the world to remember \u201cwe [Israelis] are the victims, not the aggressor\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus at the moment is on the other side. People are trying to suggest that [there is] some sort of moral equivalence. There is no moral equivalence,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were attacked. Our people were slaughtered. We did not ask for this war\u201d.<\/p>\n

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