When I was a young lass of 17 or so, I worked in a swanky upmarket tourist hotel in New Zealand. I was a receptionist doing the meet and greet to all guests, and often met with well known so called celebrities. One afternoon, I met and greeted a particular " celebrity " whom I had admired and thought to be a very nice chap. How wrong I was. He turned out to be a sleasy grubby minded middle aged man with a penchant for young ladies. He was on my naughty list for the rest of his life and mine.
The reason I tell you this is because, in our lives, we often put people on pedestals and give them an almost hero-like status. Too often, we are let down when confronted with the reality of the man, not the myth.
When I moved to Australia, I met people who had an almost groupie like fixation with Gough Whitlam. I heard them talk about his service to Australia with stars in their eyes. How the evil Sir John Kerr and Malcolm Fraser had done an act of such wickedness that they may as well have been Judas and Pontius Pilate. They worshipped at the altar of Gough, and for them, he could do no wrong.
I could understand why they, on the surface, thought he was a good guy. After all, he introduced free university education to Australians. How could that not be wonderful?
As far as they were concerned, Gough Whitlam, the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, was almost a demi-God. Leading the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, was Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975.
Whitlam came to power during a period of global social and political upheaval. His government was focused on modernising Australia and addressing inequality. Whitlam abolished tuition fees for universities, opening higher education to working-class Australians. His government introduced universal health care, ensuring that all Australians had access to affordable medical treatment. The Whitlam government was the first to formally recognise Aboriginal land claims, notably symbolised by Whitlam’s gesture of pouring soil into the hands of Gurindji elder Vincent Lingiari. Whitlam enacted legislation to promote gender equality and multiculturalism, challenging so called entrenched conservative values.
These policies, though widely celebrated by the left, were viewed by conservative critics as radical, socialist-leaning, and disruptive to the status quo.
It certainly, in hindsight, has not helped our nation in my opinion.
For me, however, having been brought up in a family where hard work is rewarded and nothing of value is free, I found it ( and still do ) a puzzling thing that his socialist agenda was seized upon as his "great contribution " to Australia.
And, of course, to me, old mate Gough was a bit like my celebrity back in my teenage - the publicity shots and front cover of the magazine did not match the contents of the article within. To me, as a relative newcomer to Australia, Gough Whitlam was a bit of a bastard.
I had gone to school with Jewish kids and their parents had fled Europe in the 30's to find a new home in New Zealand. My teacher of French and German was a Jewish refugee. I had friends whose relatives and parents had fled after the Hungarian Revolution in 1958 and had familial stories of the horror that communism had imposed on their lives prior to finding sanctuary in the Antipodes.
One of my classmates was a young lad from Lebanon; another somewhere ( I cannot remember where ) in the Middle East who had told me his name was changed to " fit in " with his new life down under. If only that still happened.
The one thing that I found hard to comprehend about this love affair of the left with their hero Gough was that he hated Jews. He was a nasty slimey bastard when it came to sucking up to Arab dictators and was a far-left luvvie who appointed a Marxist as Australian Treasurer, Jim Cairns, and went grovelling on his metaphorical knees to Maoist China in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. ( Sound familiar? )
The anti-Israel stuff was sadly pretty common back then. The Soviets initially supported the creation of Israel, but quickly turned against it as part of their power games in the Middle East. Their Arab proxies tried to destroy the Jewish state, but Israel not only survived, it turned to the US for help. That flipped the Soviets and their communist allies, including Whitlam, into hardcore Israel-haters.
As soon as Whitlam got into power in 1972, he junked Australia's long bipartisan support for Israel. He cozied up to the Soviets, promising to do their bidding - including bringing in more Arabs to counter "Jewish pressures", which he dismissed as "crude blackmail." Definitely not the actions of the noble, principled crusader so many had grown up idolising.
When the Yom Kippur War kicked off in 1973, he refused to call out the Arab aggressors. Instead, he suggested that Israel had it coming with their "arrogance and intransigence." He even slammed the US for helping Israel defend itself, while staying quiet on the Soviets arming the Arab states.
Australia was on the UN Security Council at the time. Whitlam used that platform to repeatedly attack Israel and give the Arab atrocities a free pass. When Israel hit back against PLO terror bases in Lebanon, Whitlam made sure Australia voted to condemn them. And when a Jewish Labor MP tried to raise Syrian war crimes, Whitlam wouldn't let Australia's UN seat be used to call them out.
Probably not too surprising that Whitlam was taking the Arab side - he was desperate for their money to fund his massive government spending spree. In a really shady move, he tried to scam billions in Arab petrodollars through some dodgy Pakistani loan shark. Not only was it unconstitutional, but if he'd pulled it off, Aussie taxpayers would still be paying that debt today...........
Whitlam's handling of the Yom Kippur fallout was a real train wreck.
Siding with the Arabs trying to wipe out Israel, selling out Australia's principles at the UN - all for a quick cash grab.
The Khemlani scandal is pretty well-known, but there's an even more unpleasant episode that happened after Whitlam got the boot. While Whitlam's Labor supporters were out there raging and screaming, the Australian people quietly backed Kerr's decision to sack him and let the Fraser government take over as caretaker. And when Fraser called for new elections just weeks later, it was obvious the voters were going to overwhelmingly reject Whitlam and Labor.
With the election looming, Whitlam and his crew secretly met up with some representatives from an Arab socialist dictatorship, begging them for a million bucks to fight the "Jewish pressures" against their "democratic forces." In these super hush-hush talks, Whitlam apparently agreed to spy on Israel for the Iraqis, promising to pass along any "special information" about the Middle East that Australia got from the US.
The Iraqi regime had another bizarre demand - they wanted Whitlam to make sure Bob Hawke didn't become the new Labor leader. After all, why would a Middle Eastern dictatorship care so much about some Aussie union guy's political career? It turned out that Hawke was a big supporter of Israel and a huge admirer of Jewish people. He even told his mates he'd want to be born a Jew if he could live his life over again. And when talking about the Middle East, he'd straight-up say "I'm an Israeli!" - just like JFK.
So while the Khemlani affair is infamous, this whole sordid episode with Whitlam begging the Iraqis for cash is way more disgraceful....it really shows the night-and-day difference between Whitlam's shady dealings and Hawke's principled pro-Israel stance.
Thank goodness we had a great Governor general back then.
Hawke was smitten with Israel from his first visit in 1971. He felt the plucky little country echoed the best qualities of Australia -egalitarian irreverence he grew up with. Like the Australia he loved, Israel was relaxed and casual in peacetime, but always ready to leap into action with grim determination when war was forced upon it. In contrast to Whitlam's hostility, Hawke was one of the first senior foreign political figures to visit Israel after the Yom Kippur War.
Hawke really let the Albanese Labor Government have it with those scathing words. He pulled no punches in calling out Whitlam's waffling talk of "even-handedness" - that was some straight-up morally repugnant stuff.... the conflict was anything but balanced .... Israel just wanted to exist, while the Arabs openly aimed to destroy them and the Jews entirely. No middle ground there.
Not surprisingly, the average Aussie left went ballistic over Hawke's stance. He and his family even got death threats that had the cops involved. That "Friends of Palestine" group went as far as accusing him of being a fascist lapdog. When he spoke to a Jewish group on Australia Day 1974, they had to bring in heavy security.
Hawke really paid a personal price for his pro-Jewish views. In 1979, he fought hard to free Soviet "refuseniks" banned from leaving for Israel. For the rest of his life, he had to deal with relentless hostility to Israel from the Aussie left, even as PM. His own deputy, Keating, tried to get him to reverse course, citing Muslim voters. But Hawke wasn't having it - "That's the way it is," he said.
While I have never been a fan of Hawke, he really stood his ground despite all the backlash. Not many politicians these days would risk that kind of personal and professional fallout for their principles.
The current Foreign Minister Penny Wong gave the Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia. Wong, a vocal critic of Israel, used the platform to deliver a controversial speech that likely would have upset Hawke.
Repeating unsubstantiated accusations of 'war crimes', Wong demanded that Israel 'follow international law', and boasted that Australia backs the International Criminal Court's warrants for Israeli leaders - a move seen by many as anti-Semitic. Wong also drew comparisons between Israel, Russia and China, and echoed Hamas propaganda on 'civilian casualties'.
This starkly contrasted with Hawke's famous declaration that "If the bell tolls for Israel, it won't just toll for Israel: it will toll for all mankind." Wong's remarks highlighted the growing divide between the left's animosity towards Israel and Jews, and Hawke's more balanced perspective.
If you want to know why Australia is in such a mess, thank Gough and his acolytes worshipping at the altar of anti Australia.
Shaydee
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