Quaker Australia Peaceworker Jessica Morrison recently published an article in the Pearls and Irritations online journal on Australia’s part in the weapons supply chain that enables Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people . This includes 68 shipments of F-35 parts going from Australia to Israel on passenger aircraft.
A small portion of the article is below.
“The government’s ducking and weaving about military exports to Israel went up a whole new notch this month, arguing in _Senate estimates_ that just because something was shipped from Australia, doesn’t mean it was exported from Australia.
For more than two years, the Albanese Government has been desperate to distance Australian manufacturing from Israel’s relentless genocide in Gaza. And so they should. A YouGov poll released this month demonstrates that a sizeable majority of the public want Australia to stop arms trade with Israel. Many Australians have been absolutely sickened to watch the most gross human rights violations unfold in real time on our screens, and want to ensure there is nothing in our actions or omissions that are supporting these crimes.
Ministers have repeated ad nauseam the statement “Australia has not supplied weapons or ammunition to Israel since October 2023 and not for at least the last five years” and characterised as misinformation claims to the contrary. And given that the government has chosen this exact frame of words repeatedly, perhaps this statement is strictly true, if it was to be tested in a court of law.
But the statement obviously fails the pub test as scores of government and private company media releases celebrate military partnerships with Israel, Australia retains a trade and Defence office in Israeli Occupied Jerusalem and there is abundant information on the public record about Australian-made material in Israel…”