From "deep" to "grave" on the Gaza Concern-o-meter

Yesterday Anthony Albanese released a joint statement with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and New Zealand PM Chris Luxon about Israel’s planned “military operation” in Rafah.

The statement’s highlight is that we’ve finally unlocked a new level on the Gaza Concern-o-meter. We’re no longer just “concerned” or even “deeply concerned” — we’re now officially “gravely concerned” and it only took 30,000 murdered Palestinians to get there. At this rate we’ll be at “unacceptable” by the time Israel is driving people into Sinai.

The joint statement is getting almost as much media coverage as Albo’s wedding proposal, most of it of roughly equal quality. 9 News called it a “stern warning” despite the fact it mentions nothing about consequences when it is inevitably ignored. Matthew Knott at the Herald called it “a significant strengthening of language from a December joint statement by the leaders”. I didn’t even know there was a December joint statement but presumably it was a roaring success.

Penny Wong has also upped her concern from “deep” to “grave,” telling a Senate committee yesterday that “large-scale military operations in densely populated areas risk extensive civilian casualties”. I’m glad someone finally pointed this out! Israel are going to be so embarrassed when they realise.