Bondi shooting: Greens Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi uses condolence motion to accuse Israel of genocide

The Greens accused the major parties of politicising the Bondi massacre — only to use their condolence speeches on Australia’s worst-ever terrorist attack to criticise Israel.

With Parliament recalled on Monday, during the usual summer break, Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi accused the Federal Government of wanting to silence critics of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, using the word “genocide”.

“Even in moments of deep grief, there are voices that seek to divide us, to politicise loss, to police grief and to sow further hatred,” the Muslim lawmaker told the Senate.

“We must refuse to allow tragedy to be weaponised and turned against one another.

“The legacy of this appalling violence at Bondi cannot be the undermining of basic civil and political rights or laws that can be used to weaponise racism and hate against everyday Australians who follow their conscience and speak out against injustice and genocide.”

Senator Faruqi didn’t mention Israel on Monday but on November 27, just a fortnight before the Bondi atrocity, she accused Israel of genocide in a parliamentary motion which neither Labor nor the Coalition supported.

“After Israel has murdered thousands and thousands of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza, starved children, blocked aid, expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank, Labor still refuses to recognise Israel’s genocide,” she said on Instagram less than two months ago.

Greens Leader Larissa Waters used her Monday condolence speech on Australia’s worst-ever terrorist attack to criticise Israel and warn of hatred against Muslims and not just Jews, after accused Islamist gunman Naveed Akram, 24, allegedly opened fire on Jews celebrating Hanukkah on December 14.

“We cannot claim to be safe, free or equal unless we address anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and discrimination in all its forms,” she said.

“Criticism of Israel’s actions, just like those of Russia, China or Australia should not be criminalised because political expression and peaceful protest are things to be proud of.”

Former NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said the speeches were inappropriate and highlighted how the party had a problem with anti-Semitism, describing the use of the term “genocide” as “overreach” in the context of a war Israel didn’t start.

“It’s deeply insensitive at a time when we should just be coming out to focus on one thing which is the worst terror attack in Australian history, the most egregious anti-Semitic violence,” he told The Nightly.

“It’s not a time to be putting in a condolence motion a grab bag of complaints and caveats.”

As a Greens member from 2003 to 2018, Mr Buckingham, now a State upper house MP with Legalise Cannabis, had campaigned against the party’s support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against businesses that supplied goods to Israel.

The Greens often associated Jews with capitalism, he added, leading to plummeting poll numbers with the “Stalinist party”.

“It’s very, very alarming. That’s why there’s been an exodus of moderates, of Jewish people away from the Greens,” Mr Buckingham said.

“The whole time in the Greens, I was ringing alarm bells that they were being anti-Semitic in the rhetoric that they were adopting.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is splitting an omnibus bill that would have encompassed a gun buyback and hate speech laws, after the Greens on Saturday indicated they were opposed to hate speech provisions and a proposal to give Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke the power to cancel or reject the visas of hate preachers.

Opposition frontbencher Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, noted that anti-Semitism was rife on the left of politics, especially in the arts.

“The third group is when anti-Semitism is rife as the cultural left, the writers’ festivals and the people who say their mission is to make Jewish people feel unsafe,” he told the House of Representatives on Monday.

“It is in the universities where Jewish students are harassed.

“It is in the conferences where Jewish people are silenced, shut down, humiliated, called might and where the term Zionist is used as an insult. We have seen hatred framed as artistic expression.”

Macquarie University sociologist Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was this month disinvited from the Adelaide Writers’ Festival before being issued with an apology, in October 2023 mocked the idea of lighting up the Sydney Opera House as a tribute to the 1200 Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists.

“They can light up their colonial buildings. But we know that popular global support is with Palestine and that the genocidal state of Israel has only the ruling elites by its side,” Ms Abdel-Fattah sneered on X.

Dr Abdel-Fattah had also previously suggested those who supported Israel had no right to feel safe.

“If you are a Zionist you have no claim or right to cultural safety,” she said.

Senator Faruqi also opposed lighting up Parliament House in Canberra in the colours of the Israeli flag in October 2023.

“One colonial government supporting another. What a disgrace,” she tweeted.

Senator Faruqi took part in a pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August alongside several NSW Labor MPs known for expressing anti-Israel sentiments.