I owe my life to those who ended genocide against Jews

Sheikh, former executive director of GetUp, did something astonishingly unfeeling in 2023 and it looks even worse today. But in a past life, back in 2023, it would probably have seemed like good risk management. Support Gaza and your donors would run the other way.

According to new independent publisher Deepcut News's Alex McKinnon, Sheikh emailed GetUp!'s then-CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts and GetUp! chair Glen Berman. He warned that making public commentary on Gaza "is likely to be quite tokenistic" and that "it feels like it's for others to intervene". Plus! Taking a public stance on Gaza risked "alienating" donors with Israeli or Jewish family heritage.

You don't have to look too far to know that when it comes to public support of Palestinians, the shit will hit the fan.

It will happen with a thousand phone calls to your employer. Take the people who mounted a campaign against former ABC Sydney broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf.

(Mind you, look how it turned out for them.)

The campaigners against Lattouf got what they wanted in the short term. In the long term, they damaged other Jews along the way. I'd argue they even damaged support for Israel.

For those campaigners, the public evisceration in the aftermath of the Lattouf scandal would have been embarrassing and humiliating. And then, to add insult to humiliation, courts found the ABC's moral collapse and subsequent sacking Lattouf was in breach of the Fair Work Act.

Sheikh goes on: "Obviously as I'm sure you both know, there is a large group of GetUp! donors who have family in Israel and/or a Jewish family heritage. I find these groups of donors fall into two categories - one who are emotionally affected by this moment but still stand behind a two-state solution and another group who are progressive on all issues other than this one and take their lead from Zionist leaders."

But in the words of the greatest song writer of all time (yes, yes, Boomer musical values here), the times they are a-changing. There is now a third group: Jews who cannot abide - or stand - by the ongoing war on Gaza.

This week, two leading Israeli human rights organisations made serious allegations against Israeli authorities. B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) labelled Israel's actions in Gaza genocide. They demanded members of the international community put pressure on the Netanyahu government to stop. Stop the bombing. Stop the starvation (Remember the starvation? The one Lattouf was not permitted to tweet about?).

And then just this week, in actual Australia, the Zionist Federation of Australia said Israel has a moral obligation to ensure the flow of sufficient aid into Gaza. I can't find anything where the ZFA also asks Israel to stop bombing Gaza but I'm sure it's coming. I hope it's coming.

These public comments are reassuring. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is horrified by the pictures and stories coming out of Gaza. Lucky for the urgent global interest, we can see some of these images and words. Israel is renowned for manipulating access, trying to control the narrative.

As nearly every single news outlet has reported, Israel has stopped international reporters from entering Gaza. Last week, members of the International News Safety Institute issued a statement calling on Israel to allow journalists in Gaza who are facing starvation to leave the enclave, and for international reporters to be allowed entry.

The day before, AFP, Associated Press, BBC and Reuters pretty much did the same: "We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there."

Where does that leave us? Are the times changing, the tide turning? I'm still baffled by comments by Israel's deputy chief of mission in its Canberra embassy Amir Meron earlier this week.

"We don't recognise any famine or any starvation in the Gaza Strip ... Israel has never acted in a policy of starvation. There is no such policy. There is no starvation in the Gaza Strip and there is no willingness of Israel that such a thing will happen in the Gaza Strip."

Then, mindblowingly, he said that reports of the deaths of malnourished children are a "false campaign" from Hamas. Does he think we don't see the reports on the news?

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Oh wait, Sussan Ley also couldn't make up her mind. Once, she was a parliamentary friend of Palestine. Now, ah, um, it's a "complex situation". Albanese says the situation is reprehensible but let's be clear, taking independent senator David Pocock's position would be better:

"The time for just words is over. We've even got President Trump now saying that clearly, starvation is happening. It's time to start with more targeted sanctions, starting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, ratcheting them up."

It's a humanitarian catastrophe. And Jews around the world must call on Netanyahu to stop this behaviour. There is so much pain associated with the attacks on Israel on October 7 and the murders of innocent people. There are still hostages, both alive and dead, who must be returned to their families. But I don't think an eye for an eye ever works but maybe Netanyahu thinks genocide will work.

We must be on the side of life. I owe my life to those who sought to end the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. They succeeded and I'm very lucky.