A senior Labor cabinet minister has been condemned for comments he made at the Woodford Folk Festival about the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas.
Video revealed by Sky News on Friday shows Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke making several misleading and inflammatory comments about Israel’s response to the October 7 terrorist attacks – which saw the brutal murder of 1,200 Israeli civilians – at the Woodford Folk Festival.
In a live interview with The Saturday Paper’s chief political correspondent, Mr Burke told a vocal crowd of pro-Palestinian supporters that it was worth remembering “the history of the region did not begin on the 7th of October”.
The western Sydney MP, who is also the Federal Arts Minister, was then asked whether he would use the word “genocide” to describe the conflict in Gaza. While not using the word himself, Mr Burke responded by making a series of misleading claims inviting people to draw that conclusion.
“The Israeli Defence Minister said there will be no food, no water, no fuel, this is a complete siege and then described the community in Gaza as human animals,” Mr Burke said.
“The only time that I have seen the acknowledgement of a mistake was when a sniper shot someone holding a white flag, something that has been meant to be protected under the rule of law.
“Now, in providing all of those examples, there will be words that are occurring to people in their minds.
“If I had used the word that’s being asked of me, people would have gone away thinking and comparing, ‘well is it identical to the Holocaust?’
“The discussion that I believe, that I believe, makes a difference, is in people hearing the facts of what is happening on the ground and they will very quickly choose words to describe it.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-Chief Executive Alex Ryvchin joined Sky News on Friday night to discuss the footage.
“I found the entire exchange between the minister and that crowd of radicals, of fanatics, absolutely extraordinary,” Mr Ryvchin told.
“Not only for the things the minister said and the winks and the nudges about things like genocide and references to apartheid … things that a minister, an educated person, should reject outright, and not indulge anyway whatsoever but also the lengths that he went to to placate those extremists with unfounded accusations against Israel”.
Mr Ryvchin said he was left confused by the minister’s speech, describing it as bizarre.
“It was a bizarre thing to say. I’m not sure what the minister’s intention was – whether he was saying that he doesn’t use the word genocide because people would draw a false comparison with the holocaust – or indeed he was suggesting there is a comparison to be made,” Mr Ryvchin said.
(SKY NEWS)
