The hypocrisy of double standards

We all need to be judged by the same set of scales, and held to the same standards.

My beautiful country of Australia has a dark and violent history. The arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1788 marked the beginning of ‘white settlement’ in Australia, that was, up until that point, inhabited by the indigenous Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal Australians are descendants of the first people to leave Africa up to 75,000 years ago. A genetic study¹ has confirmed they may have the oldest continuous culture on the planet.

Destination NSW: Males from the Barkindji nation dancing besides the Darling River, Wilcannia.

Prior to the arrival of Cook, the indigenous people of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands survived as hunters and gatherers. Evidence suggests that these communities managed their environment carefully to ensure a steady supply of food. They did not farm the land or domesticate animals. Rather they lived with the land, not on the land. They were experts at seeking out water, even in the hot arid inland areas of Central Australia

As they didn’t form cities, their culture is not described as “civilised”, yet it contained all the elements of a civilised world, rich with the arts, great paintings, songs, dances, and stories of the Dreamtime². Law and order was strict and upheld within their communities, elders were respected and spirituality was of great importance.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were subjected to horrific injustices, including mass killings, large scale displacement from their traditional lands and often relocation to missions and reserves in the name of protection.

In Australia, between 1910 and the 1970s, governments, churches and welfare bodies forcibly removed many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. These children became known as the Stolen Generations³, which have left a legacy of trauma and loss that continues to affect First Nations communities, families and individuals today.

Almost every single country in the world today has at some point been fought over, colonised, pillaged, settled and re-settled — it is the history of our human evolution — whether we like it or not. As we have become (arguably) more civilised, our histories however seem unconscionable.

In Australia, we have for many years worked towards reconciliation with our First Nations people. Since the commencement of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, a total of 4,530 land claims have been granted or part granted by Crown Lands, and 173,594 hectares of land has been returned to Aboriginal land councils.

Significant sacred landmarks such as Uluru (Ayers Rock) have been renamed to pay tribute to the original land owners. The change was put in place to show respect for the Anangu⁴ people and, specifically, to acknowledge their ownership of the land. And from the 26 October 2019, Uluru was permanently closed to visitors for climbing.

Image by Walkerssk from Pixabay

However the fact is, we can’t turn back time. The horrors that were perpetrated against the Aboriginal people of Australia can never be undone. And try as we might, with ‘Welcome to Country’ speeches, and token gestures, we can never right the wrongs of the past.

The truth is, although I am truly empathetic to their history, I am not responsible for what the British colonialists did to the indigenous people of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. And as horrific as their history is, I have no plans to go back to Ireland, where my great, great, great grandfather came from, close to one hundred years ago. I’ve never even been to Ireland — I claim no right of return to a land that I know nothing of.

Unlike my tenuous ties to Australia, the Jewish people have unbroken ties to their ancestral land. The truth is that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel and first achieved self-determination there 3,000 years ago.

Israel and its capital Jerusalem were founded by King David, a Jewish king, 3,000 years ago. Over those 3,000 years, Jerusalem and its Jews were conquered or colonised by, among others, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mongols, Mamluks, Turks and the British. These invaders eventually left — the indigenous Jews remained.

So why the double standard against Israel? Why are they told to go back where they came from, but I am not? Why aren’t there protests against Americans, colonising Native American Indian lands? Why are the Jews singled out?

Why do Arabs get to claim a right of return to a land that they themselves have never seen. Yet Jews are denied the same right of return as the Arabs, and labelled as colonisers?

The histories of countries are complex, and rarely fair or just. But if we are to continue to evolve as a civilised society, we must extend the same standards to all. The principles of equality and equal rights have to be applied universally to all, to men, to women, to people that are white, black, brown, rainbow, and yes, Jews.

Until the Arabs let go of their violent, corrupt and religious ideology, it is crazy to think that the Israelis and the Arabs can live together in peace. And lets be clear — Israelis have always been open to living in peace amongst the Arabs. The Arabs in return have wanted to expel the Israelis from the land.

Regardless of what we may think of the decision, one was made. By resolution 181 (II), the Assembly of the United Nations made the decision to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem placed under a special international regime. And by 22 September 2005 — in the hope of peace — Israel withdrew from the entire Gaza strip.

The issue is not about land, or the right of return. The issue is the inability of the Arabs to accept what is. Their inability to accept the fact that the conditions of their lives are largely of their own making. Back in 1948, both Arabs and Jews had the same opportunity to make of their partitions into a place worth living. Only the Jews made something of their land.

This is what the Israelis didn’t do after being kicked out of Gaza. They didn’t claim refugee status and leech off the international community. After 2005, they didn’t mobilise militant gangs of Israelis to blow up buses or cafes in the Gaza Strip as retribution for being kicked out of their homes. After partition, they didn’t send thousands of men into Gaza to systematically rape and mutilate Arab women. And they didn’t democratically vote in a self-serving, murderous and brutal terrorist organisation into governmental power.

And this is what the rest of the world are not doing. They are not protesting any given weekend, screaming that Australians or Americans are genocidal Nazis. Attacking us in the streets, spray painting swastikas on our fences, telling us to go back to where we came from. And our Indigenous Australians are not digging terror tunnels, ripping up water pipes designed to supply fresh water to their people and making bombs out of them. They are not raping white women in hoards and live streaming it.

Do you know what our indigenous people are doing? They organise within the laws of our land to work towards the best policies for self-determination for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Yet the world holds the Arabs and Jews to a different standard than the rest of the world. The Arabs are never held to account for a single thing that they do — not the failed non-state of Gaza, not October 7, not the abysmal treatment of women, not the embezzlement of billions of international money — nothing. Over 300,000 civilians have died under the Assad regime in Syria⁵, and over fourteen million displaced. The christian population of Syria has been decimated⁶. A genocide or ethnic cleansing you might say. But the world stays silent. Why?

Syrias civil war. Photographer: Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images

I have been taught to put principles before personalities. Expectations of humanity, equality, justice and injustice needs to be applied to all. Rape is not resistance, just because the rapist is ‘brown’ from Gaza. Resistance by any means necessary is unacceptable. We all need to be judged by the same set of scales, and held to the same standards.

It is the only way forward.

1. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of-earths-oldest/

2. https://www.aboriginalcontemporary.com.au/pages/what-is-the-dreamtime-and-dreaming

3. https://australianstogether.org.au/discover-and-learn/our-history/stolen-generations

4. https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/our-story/anangu-culture

5. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/14/more-than-300000-syrian-civilians-died-any-attempt-to-rehabilitate-assad-is-utterly-shameful

6. https://euaa.europa.eu/country-guidance-syria-2023/4105-christians