Wake up Labor, smell the threat

People march in Sydney in protest over Israeli attacks on Gaza. Picture: Toby Zerna

Here is what they shouted while waving black flags of jihad — and pray Labor finally listens:

Palestine is Muslim land

The solution is Jihad …

You can never stop Islam

From Australia to al Sham (Syria)

One umma (Muslim community) hand in hand

From Lakemba to Gaza

One call “khalifa” (Caliphate)

That chant is a wake-up for a political class now too cowed or craven to judge between the civilised and the primitive.

VIOLENCE AS HAMAS DENIES KIDNAP

Yes, we really do now have hundreds of people who feel free to demonstrate a common cause with terrorists waging the most hideous wars in Gaza, Syria and Iraq.

I can hear the usual “but but but” already, as in: but you’re ignoring that most Muslims are peace-loving, and saying such things risks alienating them or encouraging racists.

Third UN Shelter in Gaza Hit By Airstrike

And there’s truth to that, which is why we’ve left the problem to fester to the point where we’ve had scores of jihadists fight in Syria and Iraq, including two suicide bombers and two beheaders.

But we’ve done more than simply ignore something that threatens our physical safety.

Our cultural and political institutions have also surrendered our values, or made them seem no better than some we’ve imported so recklessly.

Just last week, the NSW Community Relations Commission chairman, Vic Alhadeff, a Jew, had to resign for simply noting Palestinian terrorists were firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and Israel would naturally “do whatever is needed to defend its citizens”.

Yes, supporting a Western democracy against an Islamist terrorist tyranny now makes you unfit to foster proper community relations.

Sick, but what undid Alhadeff were the greatest viruses weakening our defence of Western culture — demographics and the cheapest form of democracy.

Import people and you import a culture. You also import voters, and Muslims now outnumber Jews here by five to one.

And look where those voters are — in the lap of a Labor Party now so debased that it will sell out our civilisation for seats.

Labor frontbencher Tony Burke, for instance, represents the Sydney seat of Watson, which now has an astonishing 20 per cent of Muslim voters. In fact, of the 20 seats with the most Muslim voters, many in western Sydney, Labor holds all but one.

It shows. Two years ago, the Gillard government dropped support for Israel in the United Nations after foreign minister Bob Carr spent an hour with prime minister Julia Gillard, as The Australianreported, “explaining the electoral problems in Sydney”.

Added The Sydney Morning Herald: “Many MPs in western Sydney, who are already fearful of losing their seats, are coming under pressure from constituents with a Middle East background.”

Last September, the Mufti of Australia even wrote to Labor members warning that union boss Paul Howe had a “bias” towards Israel, and if he became a senator, Labor would lose the Muslim votes that helped “successfully retain the majority of ALP seats in Western Sydney”. Howes was stopped.

On the weekend came even more startling claims — that the Gillard government downplayed a report warning that homegrown jihadists returning from foreign fights could launch serious attacks in Australia.

Former judge Anthony Whealy QC chaired a 2013 counterterrorism review and said Labor sat on his report for two months before quietly tabling it on Budget night last year, when the media was too busy to notice.

Whealy’s report warned of exactly the threat the Abbott Government is now trying to counter, suggesting laws to force people returning from Syria and Iraq, for instance, to explain exactly what they’d been doing.

Whealy says “the response from the previous government you would have to say was slow”, but is Opposition Leader Bill Shorten embarrassed? Hell, no.

He’s still protecting Labor votes by talking out of both sides of his mouth, saying yes, something needs to be done about extremists, but no, the Government risks demonising innocent people.

Meanwhile, his party continues to appease what should be resisted.

The NSW Labor Conference a week ago overwhelmingly approved a motion criticising Israel more than Gaza over the current war.

It even warned Israel that if it “continues to build and expand settlements”, Labor would punish it by pushing for “recognition of the Palestinian state” — handing victory to the Hamas terrorists, from whom nothing of any consequence was demanded in exchange.

How Labor has sold its soul — and sold out our values and allies.

But Labor’s Muslim voters should be pleased. I can hear them in Lakemba — represented in Parliament by Tony Burke — already chanting:

From Lakemba to Gaza

One call “khalifa”.