Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has been among the most vocal international critics of Israel’s military actions in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel. Again and again she has called for restraint, de-escalation, and respect for international law. Specifically, Wong has called on Israel to observe a negotiated ceasefire in the Middle East. Criticism of any nation’s conduct in war is legitimate. Democracies should welcome scrutiny.

But criticism loses credibility when it becomes selective.

The timing of Wong’s interventions has raised uncomfortable questions. She has repeatedly spoken out to condemn Israel and to call for Israeli restraint. Yet when violence has struck closer to home, including the Bondi Beach terrorist attack in December that shocked Australians and highlighted the global reach of extremism, her voice on the broader ideological drivers of such violence seemed far harder to find.

Now she has re-emerged to again criticise Israel, urging de-escalation while the situation on Israel’s northern border continues to deteriorate. Missiles from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon continue to be fired toward Israeli territory. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border have been displaced as communities empty out under the constant threat of escalation.

Calling for “de-escalation” sounds measured and diplomatic. But the call rings hollow when it appears directed primarily at one side.

Israel’s northern crisis did not emerge in a vacuum. Nearly two decades ago, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 established a clear expectation: southern Lebanon was to be demilitarised south of the Litani River, creating a buffer zone between Hezbollah forces and Israel’s border. That responsibility was meant to fall to the Lebanese state and the international peacekeeping presence.

Yet today Hezbollah is entrenched in precisely the territory that was meant to be free of its forces.

Where is the accountability for that failure? Where are the questions directed toward the international system, specifically the United Nations that was supposed to prevent this escalation in the first place?

Selective outrage also becomes glaring when we look beyond Israel and Lebanon. In Iran, the regime continues to suppress dissent with extraordinary brutality. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has overseen mass arrests, property confiscations, executions, and violent crackdowns on citizens demanding basic freedoms.

Tens of thousands of Iranians have been killed in January during waves of protests swept the country. Public hangings continue. Families search for missing relatives. Young people who simply called for liberty remain imprisoned or worse.

Yet these realities rarely attract the same sustained attention from Western political figures who are quick to condemn Israel.

The pattern has been visible before. During the Gaza war, Wong appeared willing to take the word of Hamas over that of Israel. Who can forget the incident when a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad landed in the car park of the Al-Shifa Hospital. Initial reports claimed Israel had struck the hospital itself, killing hundreds. Before the facts had been verified, Wong was quick to condemn Israel.

But as further evidence emerged, including independent analysis of radar, video footage and intelligence assessments, it became increasingly clear that the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket launched from within Gaza by militants, not an Israeli strike.

Yet when the facts changed, Wong’s position did not. There was no public correction, no apology, and no acknowledgement that the initial condemnation had been premature. In diplomacy, words matter. When accusations are made before evidence is established, particularly against a democratic ally, credibility is inevitably weakened.

Which raises a broader question: where are the days when Australia instinctively stood beside its democratic allies, nations that share our commitment to freedom, pluralism and the rule of law?

That tradition appears to be fading.

Under the government of Anthony Albanese, Australia’s moral clarity on the world stage often appears blurred. Increasingly, the rhetoric directed toward democratic allies is sharper than that aimed at authoritarian regimes or terrorist proxies.

At times it leaves observers asking an uncomfortable question: whose side is Australia’s foreign minister actually on?

From the tone of recent interventions, one could be forgiven for concluding that Wong would prefer to see Israel and perhaps even the United States lose this struggle. Meanwhile, the regime in Iran and its network of regional proxies appear to face far less sustained public criticism from Canberra, despite their central role in fuelling conflict across the Middle East.

That perception may not be Wong’s intention, but perception matters in international diplomacy.

After all, when the Bondi massacre occurred, Penny Wong seemed to vanish from the debate entirely as though retreating to a Western Sydney bunker for months. Yet when Israel acts to defend itself from Hezbollah’s missiles, her voice returns swiftly to demand restraint.

It leaves many Australians wondering whether moral clarity in foreign policy has been replaced by domestic political calculation.

Western Sydney matters politically. Its votes matter. But foreign policy guided by electoral arithmetic rather than principle risks eroding Australia’s credibility abroad.

At its core, the first responsibility of any government is the safety and security of its own citizens. Protecting its people from violence, from extremism, and from those who threaten democratic societies is not simply one priority among many; it is the foundation of legitimate government.

That same principle applies to democratic nations facing sustained attacks. No government can ignore missiles falling on its towns or militants embedded across its borders.

It is a point once made powerfully by former prime minister Bob Hawke, who warned decades ago: “If the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind.”

Hawke’s argument was simple but profound. The survival of Israel, he believed, mattered far beyond the fate of a single country. If a democratic state like Israel were ever destroyed by those who reject democratic values altogether, it would signal something far larger: that free societies everywhere were vulnerable.

Australia once understood that instinctively. Today, however, critics increasingly argue that the government of Anthony Albanese appears less anchored in that democratic tradition, and more comfortable with the ideological language of the radical left, a worldview that often frames Western democracies as the primary villains while excusing or downplaying the actions of authoritarian regimes and their proxies.

If Penny Wong wants her calls for restraint to carry weight internationally, they must be accompanied by equal moral clarity everywhere else.

Otherwise, her voice sounds less like principled diplomacy and more like selective outrage.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)