Dean should not be spreading genocide allegations against Israel

We come to expect some ill-informed opinions on the current Gaza tragedy from undergraduates in our university gender studies departments. But we do not expect it from senior and well-educated clerics.

Sadly, we have another Anglican clergyman spouting the sort of undergraduate anti-Israel bias that must surely shock many in his denomination's pews.

The Dean of Brisbane's Anglican Cathedral, Dr Peter Catt, seems to have drunk from the Hamas waterhole, based on the advertising for his latest podcast.

His pamphlet, to worshippers at last weekend's 2024 Southern Queensland Anglican Church conference, contains some gems of Hamas propaganda: claims, for example,ofgenocide and "violent colonisation" by "Zionist leaders whose actions indicate the desire for an ethnically cleansed state". Further, Dr Catt idolises the Palestinian Territories as "multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic" communities!

Such claims ignore reality.

For a start, Dr Catt forgets that the state of Israel remains the only free, multi-religious, functioning democracy in the whole Middle East. In fact, Arabs make up around 20% of the Israeli population. The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has several Arab members, and Arab citizens (mostly Muslims and Christians) have the same voting and other legal rights as Jewish citizens.

Israel also provides protection for many people who would be persecuted or killed in the Palestinian Territories. It seems deeply ironic that Dr Catt led an apology to gay, lesbian and transgender people at last weekend's Church conference. Perhaps his apology should have also covered his personal support for the Hamas regime, which is quite happy to slaughter their LGBTIQ+ community!

In short, Israel is not an ethnically cleansed state.

On the contrary, the true ethnic cleansers in that region are those parties calling for Palestine to exist "from the river to the sea". They are the ones wanting to rid the region of Jews and the state of Israel, and to create a purely Palestinian Islamic theocracy! The notion that Gaza is a multi-religious, multi-cultural community, as imagined by the Dean, is ludicrous.

Dr Catt also peddles the myth that there are 8 million Palestinian refugees, who have been displaced by "settler colonialism". The truth, as Henry Ergas outlined so clearly in The Australian, is that in 1948, some 700,000 displaced Arabs, along with a similar number of Jews expelled or escaping from Arab lands, were a drop in the ocean of 50 million post-war displaced persons, all of whom needed resettlement after World War Two tore up many of the world's borders. Most of those displaced Jews joined the newly created nation of Israel, building a thriving democracy and an economic powerhouse, surviving against the threat of annihilation by the surrounding Arab powers.

Sadly, the relocated Palestinians, cruelly rejected for resettlement by their Arab neighbours, were convinced to turn their temporary camps into permanent hotbeds of resentment. They fell for the lie that a swift destruction of Israel would allow their return were imminent.

Now, 75 years later, that myth is still being peddled to them and

also to gullible Western media, politicians and academics. Sadly, many well-meaning church leaders have also fallen for the myth.

Contrary to the media stereotype of aggressor Israel and innocent Gazarefugees, the reality is that a collection of Palestinian leaders refuse to negotiate a lasting and just peace, but constantly attack Israel with rockets funded by Iranian backers and misused funds from United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

As to Dr Catt's notion of Israeli genocide, it is clear to any war analyst that Israel has attempted, if not always succeeding, to minimise civilian casualties. On the other hand, Hamas has embedded its weapons, its leaders and its hostages within civilian areas, hiding behind hospitals, schools and housing. By putting innocent people in the path of conflict, Hamas hopes to win global support for its forlorn cause. Its failure to agree to the US-backed ceasefire is clear evidence of this murderous intent.

That a senior clergyman can believe such propaganda, and then peddle it on his podcasts without challenge, is a sad reflection on the leftward drift of our churches. As Jesus said to his followers, "the truth shall set you free". It's time Dr Catt learned some home truths.