Supporting genocide but in a girlboss way

Penny Wong was in Israel and the West Bank last week doing some diplomacy, which is where you repeat the phrase “Israel has the right to defend itself but the way it does so matters” until hopefully you wake up.

Wong’s public statements since the bombardment began are obviously the product of a decision inside Labor to “strike a balance” between saying as little as possible while keeping everyone who’s pissed off about this in the tent for another election cycle. Wong herself is a master at saying nothing while sounding smart — Aaron Patrick at the Fin Review called it “her exquisite ability to use the English language to avoid communication”.

Anyone who is not a Press Gallery journalist is thoroughly unimpressed by this shtick as the rolling car crash that is Wong’s social media presence will tell you. In her tweets about her Israel trip, Wong said that “Australia wants to see more urgent action to protect civilian lives … increased and unimpeded humanitarian access in Gaza” [and] “a just and enduring peace which meets Israel’s security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood.”

Anyway here’s Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday:

Wong is acting out a farce that the Western political and diplomatic corps has had down pat for a long time. The Israeli government understands that Western politicians will go through the motions of “raising concerns” about the war on Gaza, the aid embargo, the genocidal language, the illegal settlements and everything else, and that absolutely no consequences will follow when it ignores this concern-raising and keeps doing exactly what it’s always done. When Joe Biden says that a two-state solution is still possible Netanyahu now comes out ten minutes later and says “no it’s not” and the response from the sitting President of the United States is “okay here are some more bombs”.

Wong also announced a $21.5 million humanitarian package for Gaza that should do some good assuming Israel doesn’t do what it’s been systematically doing for three months and seize the aid on the grounds of KHHHAMAS.

Wong has been the target of people’s anger about Gaza more than anyone else because for a long time she was part of Labor’s imagined Holy Trinity for desperate progressives waiting for the Whitlam days to come again. The belief was that Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and Wong were biding their time until they could take over Labor and lead Australia into a new leftie golden age.

It was a myth they themselves cultivated to boost their careers without ever actually doing or saying anything to suggest it. Gaza’s blown the lid off the whole thing but the signs have been there for a while. Albanese was against refugee boat turnbacks until he wasn’t and dog-whistles against trans people in the Daily Telegraph whenever he feels the need to reconnect with Real Australians. Tanya Plibersek now approves coalmines.

Wong in particular has benefited from this. Her ethnicity and sexuality have long made her the object of fetishism among the kind of liberal white women who say “hot sauce in my bag” — back in 2007 there was a lot of frothing that we were sending a gay woman of Malaysian-Chinese background to the climate change talks in Bali. Honestly good on her for taking advantage of white guilt to get paid but her end of the bargain was letting people believe they weren’t stanning a stock Labor goon with a better-than-average wardrobe. Now that she’s outed herself as our own Hillary Clinton (perjorative) the girlies are coming to collect.

When Wong spent five years voting against giving herself and her partner the right to marry she gained a lot of sympathy because supposedly she was nobly suffering to change the party from the inside and we would see the “real Penny” when she was in a position of power. Being Foreign Minister’s almost as powerful as it gets and the results speak for themselves. From India to West Papua Penny Wong hasn’t met a fascist occupation she didn’t like.

Wong is obviously a very smart and capable person which makes the whole thing even worse. In terms of the policies she enacts and the effects those policies have on the lives of Palestinians and other oppressed people around the world Penny Wong is just Alexander Downer minus the fishnets.

The really sad thing is that this genuinely is the best Labor has to offer. No-one is sitting in the wings waiting to take the party in a better direction. Senior UK Labour politicians have resigned or been sacked for voting for a ceasefire. Staffers and government officials in Washington are planning a mass walkout. There is nothing close to this happening in Australian Labor nor will there be. If anyone tried the party would white-ant them until they had to quit. It happened to Lisa Singh and Melissa Parke and it’ll happen to anyone in Labor who says too loudly that Israel is committing genocide.

The silver lining is that younger voters who have no memory of a Labor government that remotely aligns with their politics aren’t forming parasocial relationships with former student politicians based on cringe girlboss vibes and nothing else. Go read the comments under any post on Penny Wong or Albanese’s Instagram pages and take heart from the fact that this play-acting finally has an expiration date.

What I’m Looking At

• Israeli HQ ordered troops to shoot Israeli captives on 7 October

• Scobie McKay Is Documenting The Absurdity & Tragedy of Australia’s Alt-Right Fringe

• This British warship slowly reversing into another British warship in what looks like a very calm port in Bahrain