Senator Fatima Payman, a supporter of unconditional Palestinian statehood who returned on the weekend to a hero’s welcome from Middle Eastern central casting assembled at Perth airport, has jumped ship from Labor. A section of the Muslim community is running candidates at the next Federal election. The rot within the effete society that Labor and the Left represent runs very deep, more than the Prime Minister’s concern with a few seats in Western Sydney and Melbourne.

Payman started her first speech in the Senate in 2022 with the Islamic greeting of Assalaamu Alaykum, which translates to: may peace be upon you all. She spoke of her family’s flight from the Afghanistan Taliban. Her father fled to Australia by boat. Her mother joined later, starting a driving school that helped young women drive in Australia. Try doing that in most places in the Middle East. By the way, this is a good test of liberal Muslims.

So how does Fayman, an apparent Muslim moderate, excuse Palestinian terror? At her first speech in the Senate, Senator Payman spoke in Dari, retelling a poem, ‘If you have no sympathy for human pain. The name of human you cannot retain.’ What about the human pain inflicted by Hamas on 1200 or more Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023? Senator, where is your humanity?

Why was Fayman not supporting Muslim women in Palestine under Hamas rule and in Lebanon under Hezbollah, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Iran under the Ayatollah, in China under the communists, and in almost every other Muslim country? There is an Australian charity dedicated to saving girls from predominantly Muslim arranged marriages. Why is she not supporting Australian girls in danger of being spirited from Australia for arranged marriages? Why does she not realise that the best-treated Muslims in the Middle East live in Israel? They can marry whomever they like and drive a car.

Blindness to terror runs deep among feminists, especially the use of rape as a weapon in war. Following October 7, an Australian woman judge wrote to President of the International Association of Women Judges, to learn why the president had not spoken about the attack.

The Australian judge pleaded, ‘I urge the IAWJ to forcefully condemn by press release the sexual violence committed by Hamas against women and children and the use by Hamas of rape as a tactic of war.' She received no response.

On February 6, 2024, in a communique titled Sexual Violence in War, the IAWJ called ‘for all parties to all conflicts around the world to respect and comply with international humanitarian law and international law generally. In particular, we condemn all actions targeting women and children and, in particular, sexual violence.’

Justice Binta Nyako, on the 2024 International Day of Women Judges, March 10, 2024, wrote, ‘The rights of women, children and the aged should not be used as weapons of war. Rape and killing of children should not be allowed, and we condemn it in all respect.’

‘We call for all allegations of war crimes, including sexual violence, to be investigated as a matter of urgency. We also call for full access to humanitarian aid to those affected by conflict.’ By the time the press release was issued, the UN had confirmed that women had been raped during the Hamas invasion of Israel, and yet still the women judges prevaricated.

There are all sorts of faux feminists in the international arena, touting for terror. A further example is the UN badged Women & Gender Constituency and Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, who shouted, ‘We cannot ignore the ongoing genocides in Palestine, Sudan, the Republic of Congo and many other places financed by resources, particularly from global North countries, that should instead be devoted to climate action and not to extermination.’

Their particular beef, however, was a handful of women whose delegate badges were removed because they staged ‘a peaceful, non-violent demonstration in an attempt to bring attention to the genocide committed against the people of Palestine’ at the June 2024 Bonn Climate Conference in Germany.

The eco-feminists described the misplaced protest as ‘their meaningful articulation of the rage we all feel at the current circumstances.’ i.e. Israel was fighting Hamas in Rafah. Their killer line was, ‘There can be no climate justice without human rights!’ These dingbats defend Hamas’s slaughter of women and condemn polite attempts to keep their fellow travellers from a climate conference.

Gary Johns is chair of Close the Gap Research