Spain Exposes Australia’s Double Standard |
The silence is becoming impossible to ignore.
When Israel intercepted the Gaza flotilla, Penny Wong reacted almost immediately. Australia’s Foreign Minister publicly condemned the treatment of detainees, summoned Israel’s ambassador for a diplomatic reprimand and described footage of activists being mocked as “shocking and unacceptable.”
Yet when Spanish police allegedly beat and detained returning flotilla activists on European soil, Wong suddenly fell silent.
No urgent statements. No outraged press conferences. No ambassador hauled in for questioning. No public demands for accountability. Just silence.
That contrast matters because it reinforces a growing perception that Australia’s foreign policy is no longer anchored in consistent principles, but in selective political morality.
If the mistreatment of detainees is unacceptable when Israel is involved, then surely it is equally unacceptable when carried out by a European democracy like Spain. If humiliation and excessive force warrant diplomatic escalation in one case, why not in the other?
Either human rights standards are universal, or they are being selectively weaponised against governments deemed politically convenient to criticise.
And that is precisely the issue.
Wong, along with sections of the broader Western political class, increasingly appears to treat Israel as uniquely deserving of moral scrutiny while applying far softer standards elsewhere. The problem is not criticism of Israel itself. Democracies should absolutely be criticised when they fall short of their own values. After all, Netanyahu made that point when he criticised Ben-Gvir.
This is not about human rights. It is about the opportunity to bash Israel while allowing antisemitism against Jews here in Australia to fester unchecked. If it were otherwise, Penny Wong would not have........