September 26, 2005
Kim Beazley, the leader of the Australian Labor Party, is coming under increased pressure to publicly repudiate Labor politicians who compared Israel's policies with those of the Nazis. The demand follows yet another outburst by a Labor backbencher in the federal parliament two weeks ago. Following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the member of parliament Julia Irwin said: "Gaza is now a Palestinian ghetto; a prison for its one million people. All flows of people and goods must pass through Israeli border controls, which has resulted in the World Bank's reporting that unemployment and poverty will rise in Gaza. Now Israel will rule Gaza like a walled ghetto, a giant penal colony, a concentration camp. We are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, the heart and soul of the Palestinian nation. The world must not allow this to happen."
The anger in the Jewish community prompted a letter to Beazley from Martin Guenzl, a member of the Australian-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. "I wanted to register my shock and disgust at the comments made by the Ms. Irwin in Parliament last week, and seek from you a public condemnation. Nazification of Israel (...) crosses a red line from legitimate criticism to deliberate demonization." Although Irwin has now withdrawn some of the words she used, the debate is ongoing whether Beazley should and could have acted more decisively.
