Even Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong believes the Gaza flotilla victims and the AFP (Australian Federal Police) is investigating, yet Israel’s ambassador and the Murdoch press call everyone liars. What gives? Michael West Media reports.
COMMENTARY: By Andrew Brown
Israel’s ambassador to Australia has looked at Australian citizens who say they were beaten, tortured and raped, and called them frauds.
Sit with that. A foreign envoy, on Australian soil, telling Australian women that their rape and torture is a performance.
Ambassador Hillel Newman and his embassy say there is no credible evidence, brand the 11 Australians professional provocateurs, and say the allegations are already proven false. To the survivors’ families, the embassy said its forces treated detainees with great sensitivity.
- READ MORE: A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
- ‘You’re a liar! You’re a liar!’ NZ foreign minister Peters insults Gaza flotilla torture survivor in Parliament
- ‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters
- Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
On ABC radio, Newman called the AFP investigation a mistake and warned that if he decided it was a witch hunt, he was not sure how Israel would respond.
How dare he? How dare a foreign ambassador stand in this country and tell Australian women that what was done to them never happened? How dare he reduce Juliet Lamont to a propagandist before one piece of evidence has been tested? A woman who says she was beaten, cable-tied and raped, who has the medical record of a fractured coccyx.
That is not diplomacy. It is
the demonisation of rape victims by the representative of the state they are accusing.
Understand who else he is calling a liar. Penny Wong, the Foreign Minister of Australia, sat with these survivors and told the country she believes them, calling their treatment horrific and unacceptable.
Anne Aly, a minister of the Crown, was also there. So was a senior DFAT official, and a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.
By Lamont’s account, every woman in that room believed her, thanked her, and told her she was brave.
So when Newman says the survivors are lying,
he is saying the Foreign Minister of Australia is lying.
He is saying a minister of the Crown is a fool and the federal police are running a witch hunt against the truth. A foreign ambassador has called the senior leadership of the Australian government dupes for daring to believe Australian women.
No contest of the facts
Newman has not contested one allegation with one fact. No ship log. No operational order. No footage. No medical record.
He confirms no request for further footage has even been answered, and says Israel alone will decide whether the AFP is worthy of seeing it. The accused wants to vet his own investigators while branding the victims liars.
That is not a government with nothing to hide.
It is one that has decided contempt is cheaper than cooperation.
Now watch who sprinted to stand beside him. The Australian Jewish Association, the word “Australian” sitting right there in its name and never meaning less.
Confronted with Australians who say they were raped in Israeli custody, the AJA did not call for Israel to be investigated, did not demand it hand over the evidence, and did not stand behind a single Australian woman.
Instead, its chief executive, Robert Gregory, wrote to the AFP Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, demanding the flotilla participants, the Australian citizens, be investigated.
Read that twice, because it is grotesque.
An outfit waving the Australian flag asked Australian police to hunt Australian rape complainants on behalf of the foreign government accused of raping them, and called it “patriotism”.
So drop the pretence and ask where its loyalty lies. Not with the women. Not with the law. Not with the country whose name it wears like a costume. It lies with Israel, and only Israel.
Given a clean choice between abused Australians and the power that abused them, it chose the power and reached for the nearest Australian institution to use as a weapon against Australians.
Juliet Lamont was raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers. this is her story, told by Andrew Brown. #gaza #flotilla #auspol #IDFhttps://t.co/cDagAsu0gK
—
Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) June 11, 2026
Murdoch’s complicity
Then there is Sky News. Handed a story about Australian women alleging rape and torture, the Murdoch network did not interview the survivors, did not put Penny Wong on air, and did not call the AFP.
It handed the microphone to the AJA and let Gregory’s demand to investigate the victims run as the story.
Faced with tortured Australians on one side and the lobby smearing them on the other, Sky knew exactly whose talking points to broadcast. That is not journalism. It is a foreign state’s propaganda, laundered through an Australian network and sold to Australians as though the victims were the villains.
Three voices, one message. A foreign ambassador, a lobby cosplaying as Australian, and a network that has forgotten which country it broadcasts in, all telling this nation that its tortured citizens are liars and that the people who really need investigating are the Australians who came home with broken bones.
There is a word for siding with a foreign power against your own abused citizens. It is not patriotism. It is the opposite. How un-Australian can you be?
This is the same Israeli government whose minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sanctioned by Australia, filmed the detained Australians and captioned it “welcome to Israel”.
France and Italy have opened war crimes proceedings. Canada has demanded an independent investigation. The survivors have lodged sworn affidavits with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The answers from Newman, the AJA, and Sky News are identical.
Deny everything. Smear the witnesses. Investigate the victims. Protect the state.
So hand it over. Every report, every order, every communication, every witness, every second of footage. If Israel has nothing to hide, it has nothing to fear.
Its ambassador says the survivors are lying. The survivors, and the Foreign Minister who believes them, say otherwise. The evidence will decide.
The world is watching. So are Australians. The time for denials is ending. The time for evidence has arrived.
Andrew Brown is a Sydney businessman in the health products sector, former Deputy Mayor of Mosman and Palestine peace activist. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
APR editor | Radio Free (2026-06-19T10:51:29+00:00) Gaza flotilla victim blaming – time to expel Israel’s ambassador. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/06/19/gaza-flotilla-victim-blaming-time-to-expel-israels-ambassador/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.