Peter Dutton has compared Hamas to the Nazis in an opinion piece that calls the registered terrorist organisation “evil’s darkest shade” and suggests it may be worse than the Nazis in at least one respect.
In the column for the News Corp tabloids on Sunday, Dutton said Hamas “felt no guilt” about the 7 October attacks whereas the Nazis “tried to conceal their crime of murdering six million Jews”.
The piece echoes comments by the former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2015 comparing Islamic State with the Nazis, including that the Nazis “had sufficient sense of shame to try to hide” their crimes.
Those comments were rejected as “injudicious and unfortunate” by the Executive Council of Australia Jewry at the time. The body again pushed back on Sunday, saying the Nazis’ attempt at concealing the Holocaust did not imply they felt guilt over it.
Dutton was doubling down on his claim that Australia should not accept any Palestinians fleeing the Gaza war zone, in order to prevent the possible entry of Hamas sympathisers.
That policy was called divisive and labelled “racist” by the independent MP Zali Steggall, a characterisation which Dutton rejects. On Sunday Sky News reported that Dutton was seeking legal advice about Steggall’s comments, made first in the parliament but then repeated in subsequent interviews on Sky and in Guardian Australia.
Dutton, who recently visited Israel, wrote that Hamas “invaded Israel with body cams and phones to film their butchery of 1,200 people – the greatest loss of Jewish life on a single day since the Holocaust”.
Recounting footage he had seen of the 7 October attacks, Dutton said that “Hamas slaughtered innocent adults and children, raped women, and mutilated their victims, the terrorists acted with glee”.
“They called family members to boast about their cruelty. If there are shades of evil, Hamas is evil’s darkest shade.
“Hamas’s intent has been clear from its charter dating back to 1988 – the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews.”
The Executive Council of Australia Jewry’s co-chief executive, Alex Ryvchin, said he agreed with Dutton’s “observations about the Nazi-like nature of the October 7 atrocities”, which he said displayed a “Nazi-like sadism”, comparable to killing squads in eastern Europe during the second world war.
But Ryvchin rejected any suggestion “the Nazis concealed their crimes because of guilt”.
“The Nazis were proud of their work but concealed it for various reasons, ranging from maintaining the deception that Jews arriving at death camps were being resettled rather than murdered to reduce chances of resistance, to preserving the support or at least apathy of local populations by not leaving evidence of mass murder in plain sight,” he told Guardian Australia.
Dutton has repeatedly attacked the government’s decision to give temporary visitor visas to about 1,300 people fleeing the Gaza war, despite the assessment by the Asio spy chief, Mike Burgess, that rhetorical support for Hamas should not be an automatic bar to coming to Australia.
On Sunday the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said he and Dutton both believed “99% of people who come into this country come with the right intent”.
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But Littleproud said it was important for security agencies to conduct “face-to-face interviews” to ensure that others do not “slip through the net”.
“We’re in no way saying in any way, shape, or form that we don’t still welcome those of the Islamic faith to this country,” he told the ABC’s Insiders.
Littleproud accused Labor, the Greens and independents, of a “desperate attempt” to politicise Dutton’s “simple suggestion” that arrivals from the Gaza war zone be paused.
“There may be a juncture in the future where we can open up our borders again to those wanting to flee Gaza,” he said, but only after better “policies and procedures” are put in place including interviews and biometric tests.
The Albanese government has repeatedly pointed out that security procedures have not changed since the Coalition was in office, when people in Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine came without face-to-face interviews across the board.
🚨I worked with the Coalition to assist refugees fleeing Afghanistan in 2021. It was chaotic, disorganised & often very fast & difficult but no one suggested that gave rise to a security risk as further checks occur here. Absolute prejudice to suggest it now. #insiders #auspol
— 🌏 Zali Steggall MP (@zalisteggall) August 17, 2024
Palestinians fleeing Gaza can only do so if allowed by Israel, which applies its own security vetting.
Also on Sunday the industry minister, Ed Husic, told Sky News Palestinian parents’ responsibility was to “try and protect” their children from widespread death and destruction in Gaza, and “would hope the rest of the world would have a view to try and help out”.
“And in this country, you’ve got a leader of a major political party that says shut the door on them.”
Husic said visitor visas were faster to process than refugee visas. “Given what’s happening right now and the dangers presented, the view was to get people out as quickly as you can.”