Pyne in Jerusalem
Australian Federal Minister for Education Christopher Pyne was the keynote speaker at the opening of the third Australia-Israel-UK leadership dialogue held in Jerusalem.
J-Wire publishes his address in full…
Christopher Pyne
Tonight I wanted to address why the Australians are here. There are two reasons why we are here and I will go through them momentarily. But firstly I should say good friends visits their friends in tough times. It is easy to visit your friends when things are going well. Fair-weather friends who come and go when things are on the up and up are easy to come by. Friends who come when times are tough – they are the real friends.
Gideon Saar
Ladies and gentlemen, I was approached by a young man at the reception here at the King David Hotel on Friday, his name was Aaron, and he asked me who I was and where I was from and I said I was from Australia and he said ‘why are you here?’. And I very simply said, because Australians love freedom. And he said very simply, that freedom isn’t free, right?. And I said exactly right. The reason why the Australians are here today, the first reason, is because Australians value freedom. And we have been fighting for freedom for 114 years and usually alongside our UK friends, whether it has been in the Battle of Beersheva here in Israel, in the Second World War, or the First World War, or more recently in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam and Korea, wars that are now well and truly in the past.
Whenever there has been a congregation of freedom loving nations versus non freedom loving nations, Australia has always been prepared to be in the fight and always on the right side. And that’s how we view the State of Israel that we are on the right side. It is a story about the King of Denmark during the Second World War when the Nazis changed their attitude toward the deportation of the Danish Jews. There weren’t many Danish Jews, about 8,000 or so but the King of Denmark when the Nazis changed their attitude and said that they would start to deport the Jews, said that the Jews are Danes and the Danes are Jews.
In other words, the concerns of Jewish Danes were the concerns of all Danes. In the same way I believe, and I think most Australians believe, that the destruction or defeat of Israel is a concern for all of us around the world. Because Israel is the beacon of freedom and liberty in the Middle East and Australia likes to believe that it is in the world. We are two sister nations believing in the same thing – freedom of the press, freedom of democracy, freedom of association. It shows that Israel has existential threats that requires them to take firm action to protect those freedoms, firmer actions than Australia has had to take to protect our own existence. So that is the first reason, ladies and gentlemen, why the Australians are here. Because we regard Israel and Australia as sister countries with the same value systems and we want to show our support for that system here in the Middle East.
The second reason is more personal, ladies and gentlemen, and it goes to the question of remembering some of the crimes of the past. The great crime of the past against the Jewish people was the Holocaust. And just coming to Israel as an Australian, and landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, even in the last few days travelling El Al, just by the act of coming here, we reaffirm that we will not forget the crime of the Holocaust against the Jewish people, and we stand with the Jewish people. Simply by the act of making sure this dialogue was not cancelled when some people said it should have been cancelled because it was dangerous, the Australians and British came here, simply by that act reaffirmed that we will not forget the Holocaust.
This is my sixth visit to Israel. And it is important that we come again and again to Israel.
To say it to those in the Islamic Jihad, the terrorists – Hamas or ISIS or whoever they are – that by their actions they won’t frighten Australians into coming to Israel and supporting Israel. That is by me and my colleagues, whether they are Labor or Liberal, are here supporting this Dialogue because it proves, ladies and gentleman, it proves that freedom is winning and tyranny is losing.
Israeli Minister of Interior Gideon Saar has also addressed the Australia Israel UK Leadership Forum.
Who funded Pyne’s trip? Did it come out of the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to the Liberal party before the last election from the pro-Israel lobby? Remember it was John Howard who agreed to the demand from Frank Lowe to make Australian contributions to the Israel Building Fund (read settlement expansion fund) 100% tax deductible. (Kevin Rudd accepted a cheque from the same source before he was elected for $485,500). So our elite effectively takes bribes on behalf of a foreign power. Why is this not treason? Or maybe it’s just the tried and true method of political control at work: bribe the elite and scare the peasants. And for what? So the major parties can gain power? So of course Australia will be subjected to retaliation. Why else would our polity support Israel if it puts us all at such risk? What do we gain?
This whiny sycophant does not speak for all Australians, and most definitely not for me.
I Agree, Pyne is a pig of a man who does not speak for Australia! Israel has a right to exist but it’s murderous campaign of slaughter and terror will not go unnoticed! The current government seeks to exact on the Palestinians, the very holocaust the Evil Nazis exacted on the Jewish people. Murdering young children in their beds from afar using US Made remote weaponry is neither honourable or just! The people of Israel it seems are too cowardly to stand up to the right wing fascism that the Likud party stands for! Shame on Israel. Shame on Hamas….you are just as bad!
Well said, Mr Pyne!
Thank you for making the trip to Israel – this shows more support than words could express!
You do speak for me & my household. We do support Israel and know they would love nothing more than to live in peace – if given a chance.
Hamas is full of hate & abominable terror –
I’m very proud to support the Abbott government at a time like this, when we’re not afraid to take stands and will not be intimidated by those that have opposite views.
You made us proud of Australia!! God bless!!
Well said Mr. Pyne. Sometimes a clear message needs to be sent. Locking up children in detention camps and denying them access to medicine when they need it sends a clear message to those who assist people smugglers and will ultimately deter them and prevent lots of refugees from drowning while trying to flee persecution to Australia. By the same token, Israel should kill as many Palestinian women and children to send a clear message to Hamas and this will ultimately save Israeli lives. The end always justifies the means when Freedom is at stake, and this something the current Israeli and Australian governments are brave enough to understand.
are you trying to justify the murder of innocent children?
John Smith, I hope you are sarcastic
if you’re not you are a truly warped individual who should seek serious help.
Mr Pyne does not speak for me.
For first time???? How about Howard and asylum seekers in Tampa Affair in 2001?
A nauseating and embarrassing speach. This clown dressed up as a career-politician does not represent most fair-minded Australians.
It’s great to see the majority against the words of Pyne. I was starting to get confused about the country I call home!! I am Australian and this uneducated hypocrite who has clearly been given the wrong position of Minister for Education definitely does not represent me! Maybe he should be given a tour of the current educational blown up systems that his great ‘sister’ Israel has left the Palestinian children with!!!
Yes Mr. Education Minister, this is the right time to go remembering some of the crimes of the past (The Holocaust), especially if you could join the ” hilltop war watchers” in the town of Sderot, you could see Gaza burning; a renewable Holocaust !!!!
Christopher Pine, you speak for me.
You are fair, pragmatic and balanced.
Your government has saved the lives of countless boat people who would have otherwise drowned. Your support for Israel agrees with me also. Commentators who attack Israel refuse to acknowledge it faces existential risk from a new world threat, Moslem extremism.
This is a minister of education supporting the bombing of schools
What a callous, heartless speech. Not a word or thought for the hundreds of innocent Palestinian men, women and children killed by Israel in the past days.
Spoken at the site of one of the earliest acts of zionist terrorism, which killed 91 people, yet not a hint or nod to these murdered either.
This speech encapsulates so well why the cause of Palestinians needs to be taken up by right minded Australians. Australia is made complicit in the human rights abuses suffered by Palestinians under settler-colonialist occupation- made complicit by this kind of one eyed support for the State of Israel. Australians cannot stand by and let their government support injustice like this, we must speak up and be heard.
Bravo Mr Pyne. You have moral courage to stand up for what is right.
More like moral ignorance!
Chris Pyne, your speech matches your actions in the detention centers. You support Israel in the killing of children and the mistreatment of children on Australian soil. You are a disgrace and never assume you speak for me. Get out of this gov, resign just walk away. You have gone way beyond the point of no return.
I am Australian and this man Pyne does not represent me. Or anybody the friends I know.
In fact ppl I know hate this guy with a passion. He was only elected by the propaganda canpingn run by the Murdoch press, who stand to gain from this government. He has made a fool of himself.
He had no right to declare my support for killing covilains. Women me childerne in their schools & hospital. Shame Christopher pyne and shame shame shame.
Unlike the bulk of Commentators herein, Chris Pyne DOES speak for me…and many hundreds of thousands of other Australians…the Silent Majority.
Those who do not speak for me are the seditious and treacherous Left of the Australian Labor Party, the Socialist Greens and the Socialist Alternatives, who are an ongoing threat to the freedoms of both Australia and Israel.
I don’t always agree with Chris Pyne, though would would accept his company and friendship a thousand times over, to one Leftard Laborite, avowed Socialist, or ‘Commie’ Green. He is representative of civilised humankind, and not the savages who wish, and work continually to bring Australia and Israel down.
My very wishes to Israel…..standing admirably among the few civilised countries remaining on the Planet.
My dear Graham, your often quoted silent majority would not be bothered to cast a vote if it was not compulsory in Australia. Example – in the last EU parliamentary election 70% plus in the countries where voting was not compulsory did not vote. You ‘Liberals’ would love that, no?
Kind regards from a seditious and treacherous Leftie. Should it occur that Mr Pyne enters the same room I happen to be in I would leave instantly so as not have to breathe the same air.
I am a staunch capitalist with a history of voting liberal all my life. Indeed I live in a very liberal part of Sydney. You seem very shallow in your analysis and assumptions that you have to be “green” “commie” or non Australian to support the Palestinians. You couldn’t be more wrong. Most intelligent people I talked to in the last months including jewish professional all agree that security and freedom has nothing to do massacring women and children or keeping an entire nation living under siege. The real Australian spirit is to stand for the weak and underdog not for the killing of women and children labor or liberal. You definition of civility (a country that can destroy as much of civilisaton as possible) contradicts the global definition except that of “George Bush’s”, (a war based on lies which surprise surprise is illegal and immoral according to all laws). So go back to your shallow limited sound bits view of life and give Mr. pain a big applaud and make sure you go fight the next war in person, I’m sure Israel need mercenaries.
What a monstrous child this Pyne is.
How else could you describe someone who divides the world into freedom-loving nations and non-freedom loving nations? Such a simplistic and hideously racist characterisation of humanity.
And he dares to invoke the Holocaust? Apart from the woeful attempt to compare the Israeli state with the Jews of Denmark and the butchering of Gaza with the heroic acts of Danish solidarity, is he such a fool as to think his transparently cynical playing of the audience is not noticed?
It is not surprising that his own party thinks little of him, and his own electorate has turned their back on him. Maybe this is why he has fled to Jerusalem, he wants to be an MK!
Does anyone a bucket handy?
This pusillanimous little ponce does not speak for me.
I would defend to the death Israel’s right to exist, but not on the backs of slaughtered Palestinian children.
Enough already!
I am Australian. But Christopher Pyne does not speak for me. Christopher Pyne is right only inasmuch as being Australian means loving freedom. I would like to see freedom for the dozens of asylum seekers, many of them children, who are imprisoned indefinitely by the Australian government. This measures Pyne as not only a liar but a hypocrite and a charlatan. His hollow words shame me.
Hammas please stop firing and storing misils near my sons achool
UN inspects their schools regularly if they are unused. The rockets (20 of them) were found in an abandoned by israeli orders school and promptly given to bomb disposal unit not associated with hamas.
Israel bombs schools that are fully used as refugee centers inside a closed refugee camp that is being bombed. 3000 pupil in a school for a couple of hundred. There is no chance to hide any bombs there, still Israel bombs several of these schools.
If you want to ask anyone of anything, it’s Israel to stop bombing civilians and UN refugee centers, even if you think there is one or two suspects there.
It can’t be worth to kill 20+ ppl just to take out extra judicially one suspect. If anything, the civilians should be then considered hostages and proper protocol followed.
Achmed ? Really?
The spelling you use proves you are not middle Eastern and just trying to hoodwink people.
Pyne is merely pandering to the powerful zionist lobbies and their heavily backed media. .. Nothing. .. Nothing justifies the flattening of large swathes of this refugee camp called Gaza. .. The most densely populated area on earth. .. and the total disregard for humans in it. … Pyne and your colleagues. .. You near the moral responsibility to speak for justice here … pslestinians or any other humans want only fairness and justice, pounding civilians with the mauve firepower on show is not going to make them forget stay they’ve lost. .
Dear Moderator, I am entitled for freedom of speech and you should publish my opinion.
Christopher Pyne,
Surely you do NOT represent All Australians and not even a small fraction. You are pathetic and a sick person who represents only himself and the Government of aggression and oppression in Australia. We did not vote for you to visit the terrorist state (Israel) 6 times/ year. This is our money and we do not want our money to be used to support terrorism and injustice. Shame on you as the minister of education to be uneducated about the Palestinian right of existence! You are a bad example for our future kids. You are either brain washed or a Zionist otherwise if not the first or the second then congratulations you may qualify to low level intelligence. Shame, Shame Shame on you and your friends!
I am deeply ashamed that Christopher Pyne seeks to represent Australians when he says we are friends of country that continues to target UN school and kill hundreds of children. Israel’s heartless and morally contemptible attacks only succeed in sowing more hate. Shame on you Mr Pyne. Shame on you Israel.
thank you – i am completely disgusted that he presumes to speak on behalf of all Australians, it makes me sick
I am an Australian, and I support Christopher Pyne’s message. Are you aware that UN schools are where Hamas hides their rockets? UN schools are just one example of the many various places that they do this. I support Israel’s ground assault in Gaza, and furthermore I think Israel should take total control over Gaza. There is no Palestinian land. The only solution is one where Hamas is annihilated and Palestinians are absorbed into the life of Israel. There is no need for a two state solution. If Palestinians want peace they should stop assisting Hamas (human shields, financial support, food/water provision, etc.) and cry out to Israel for Israeli citizenship or permanent residency (otherwise they should leave for Egypt, Lebanon, and other countries in the region).
Its ironic that he is giving his speech from the very hotel that in 1946 Menachin Begin blew up as an Israeli terrorist killing many British people. The hotel at the time was the central offices for the British mandatory authorities of Palestine.
Truly ironic. Where middle eastern terrorism started – with the Zionists – stern gang etc. Thanks for the reminder. Wish I thought of that!
I am Australian and Chris Pyne does not speak for me !! I just do not understand how Israel can continue to bomb innocent children. I urge all Israelis to view the hundreds of pictures on the internet of babies that they have murdered. How are these INNOCENT children to blame for the war your politicians have enabled ?? They have nothing to do with it and you should immediately push for a CEASE FIRE ! How can any Israeli mother look at another mother lose her child and not condemn it ! we need to stand together and stop this slaughter.
The bitter irony for those who seek peace and justice that Christopher Pyne, representative of the Australian Government, but certainly not all its people, would make this fawning speech at this time at the King David Hotel, reminding us of the origins of Zionist terrorism. O Israel, we will never forget Gaza 2014.
Dear Israel – the internet age does have some implications and you are probably not going to succeed if you continue with this heavy handedness. The Pyne speech symbolises the kind of blinkered reality required to keep you in a good light – People realise that Pyne has reasons why he is doing this not just his personal views – the broader global public don’t have those reasons. The US is keeping you connected to the world but what happens if the world starts driving electric cars – all your eggs are in the one basket – you are not giving the US the kind of room it needs to maintain the illusion – raw power can only achieve so much – look at Iraq now look at Gaza – does it end with dominion – no but with faustian pacts that can easily spiral out of control – you are really shooting your long term Zionist project in the foot – its pretty simple Hamas launches rockets – the iron dome takes care of most of it and you respond as the enlightened benevolent ones who spell it all out and leverage it in global PR and continue with settlements – what you are doing now is lunacy. You can contact me at my email and my fees are very reasonable.
Regards Evan
A truly deranged speech by the most unpopular man in the most unpopular government in Australia’s recent history representing a party that was a paragon of anti-semitism in Australia for so many years. But given that it was to an audience in a country that is fast becoming one of the most unpopular in the world because of its horrible atrocities in Gaza, it was only fitting, I suppose. Birds of a feather, and all that.
Chris pyne is a pathetic excuse for an Australian and does not speak for Australians. His despicable speech shames this country while the Israeli regime slaughter children across the border. Anyone with a conscience cannot condone the targeted killing of children by the IDF
Well said!!
Thank you Chris. You always support Israel in good times and in bad times. God bless you
Christopher Pyne,
You are a light unto nations.
Not sure that everyone would like it in the world of today, but I and many others would vote to make you an Honorary Jew.
Israel can have him! Please Please take him!!!
Well…. Maybe Israel isn’t the best destination to wish this man. … Israel needs fair minded people, they have more than their fair share of hard liners fueling the violence and injustice. … How about the southern Indian Ocean?
Chris Pyne needs to be complimented on his speech , not only for support of Israel, but more importantly for the spirit in which it was expressed.
No no no no no…