From the River to the Sea, the Labor Party Don’t Agree

Labor Senator for Western Australia Fatima Payman, who in 2022 was described by the ABC as: “the youngest member” and “the first Afghan-born hijab-wearing senator.” A couple of years later, she has proven to be a bit of a thorn in the side of the Australian Labor Party, and has recently been upsetting the apple cart, so to speak, over at Labor HQ.

Back in May, she was publicly accusing Israel of genocide, and using divisive slogans like “From the River to the Sea”, much to the dismay of Labor leader Anthony Albanese with him labelling her comments “inappropriate”. Her comments resulted in her resigning from her position on two parliamentary foreign affairs committees.

She has also been writing pieces over at the Qatari Government-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, which Israel have accused of being a mouthpiece for terrorist group Hamas.

Last week, the Australian Greens moved a motion calling for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine, with Senator Payman crossing the floor to vote against her own party, being the first to do so against Labor in office in 38 years. Apparently Aboriginal people and Palestinian people stand united against evil colonisers. Notice the lack of an Australian flag. The ABC reported, “Fatima Payman stared down the Labor machine and proved invincible in crossing the floor to recognise Palestine”. In a vain attempt to show that he’s still in control, Prime Minister Albanese suspended Ms Payman from a single caucus meeting. That’ll teach her!

Well, it didn’t work. In a recent interview on ABC’s Insiders, host David Speers asked, “Will you abide by the decisions of the caucus in the future?”. She replied, “If the same motion on recognising the state of Palestine was to be brought forward tomorrow, I would cross the floor.” David Speers then asked, “You aren’t obviously swayed by Penny Wong, Richard Marles, even the Prime Minister, that you should be following the caucus decision?” And Ms Payman replied, “I respect the Prime Minister”… BULLS**T! … “and my senior colleagues, and obviously the Prime Minister had a stern, but fair, conversation with me a few days ago…”

Clearly, Payman doesn’t care about the Labor party. They were the means to get her into a position of power, but now she’s doing whatever the hell she wants.

Anyway, the PM, already looking pretty weak, decided he had to do something about this and decided that the WA Senator should be indefinitely suspended from the party’s federal caucus. What does this mean? Well I think this means she’ll probably end up leaving Labor, and who will take her? The Australian Greens, of course! They see an opportunity here. They want her to become a political martyr. If the Labor party expel a Muslim woman for taking the side of Palestine, The Greens will welcome her with open arms (plus they’ll also welcome all the votes that come along with it).

It’s funny, Labor want to be “diverse”, but obviously with diversity comes very diverse views and opinions. Case in point, Senator Payman’s views on Palestine, but also (let’s not beat around the bush), homosexuality. Do you think Australian Muslim people are happy with Labor’s support of all these Pride celebrations? I know the answer, and I presume you do too. According to the Australian National Imams Council, “Islam’s Clear Position on Homosexuality”. They state, “Islam’s position on homosexuality has always been clear and perspicuous… From the Islamic standpoint, homosexuality is a forbidden action; a major sin and anyone who partakes in it is considered a disobedient servant to Allah that will acquire His displeasure and disapproval.” I’m not trying to be mean here. I’m not saying I agree, but I am trying to be factual. Almost 2 billion Muslims around the world adhere to this, almost a quarter of the world’s population. So if Labor want Muslim votes, well they’ll have to accept that most Muslims see Labor Senator Penny Wong as participating in a forbidden act and a major sin in Islam.

Obviously, if the Labor Party let Senator Payman get away with this, essentially because she’s a young Muslim woman in a hijab, then they’ve essentially emboldened other activists in the Labor party to do whatever the hell they want. And then there is no more Labor party. It’ll just be a group of activists in suits.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn