Western Leaders Kneel, Albanese Holds Ground

Politically, Anthony Albanese is imperfect - flaws inherent in the genetic make-up of the political class. No matter what you think of the Australian Prime Minister, he has shown resounding defiance where nearly every other world leader has shown obsequious compliance.

In a political world dominated by cowardice, where leaders trip over themselves to pledge loyalty to a state built on ethnic cleansing and maintained through apartheid, Albanese’s quiet refusal to ever wear a yarmulke is a rare act of resistance. It might seem like a small thing. It's not. In politics, especially when it comes to Israel, nothing is accidental.

The PM knows exactly what a yarmulke signifies when worn by a non-Jewish leader at a public event. It's no longer just a mark of respect toward Jewish Australians; it has been twisted into a political theatre of submission — a show of fealty to a country that demands not just diplomatic recognition, but total ideological loyalty, even as it flattens hospitals, starves civilians, and annihilates a people.

Albanese is a politician — a seasoned one — and understands the weight of symbolism better than most. He's mastered the art of appearing statesmanlike when necessary. But in never donning the yarmulke, even as he walks through synagogues or attends Jewish community events, he makes a deliberate and courageous choice: he refuses to be a pawn in the global campaign to whitewash Zionist crimes.

Because to wear the yarmulke in today’s political climate is to silently endorse a genocidal regime. It's to accept Israel’s founding myth — the lie that it was a “land without a people for a people without a land.” It's to pretend the Gaza Strip isn’t a vast open-air prison, that Israeli snipers don’t target journalists or apartheid walls don’t slice through Palestinian villages. It's to close one’s eyes to the blood staining the ground from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Albanese wasn't born into the polished, corporate Labor machine we see today. He came up through the scrappy streets of the Australian Left — shaped by unions, anti-war movements, and international solidarity campaigns. His political instincts forged in the old fires of justice, not in the sterile boardrooms of lobbyists. Those instincts have been dulled, perhaps, by the compromises of office. And they haven't been extinguished.

Albo knows Israel isn't the liberal democracy its apologists scream about. He knows it's a settler-colonial state birthed through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians — the Nakba — and is sustained through ever more brutal rounds of dispossession and violence. He knows the two-state solution is dead, and those who still preach it do so to buy time for further Israeli expansion.

And he knows that publicly wearing a yarmulke today, in 2025, as bombs rain down on Gaza and a starvation siege unfolds live on television, would be an unforgivable betrayal of everything he once claimed to believe.

No one should underestimate the pressure Albanese is under. The pro-Israel lobby in Australia is ferocious, deeply embedded in both major parties, and backed by powerful media allies. Criticising Israel in Australian politics is still treated as radioactive. Albanese’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, has been relentlessly attacked simply for not parroting Israeli talking points loudly enough. Albanese himself has been painted by right-wing pundits as indifferent or even hostile to Jewish concerns — a ludicrous accusation, but one designed to force him into submission.

Through it all, Albanese has maintained this small but telling rebellion: he won't wear their symbol, or give them the photo op they crave. He simply won't kneel.

Of course, he still couches his positions carefully, and stops short of calling Gaza’s slaughter what it truly is: genocide. He still speaks the tired language of “both sides” and “restraint” when Israel massacres civilians with impunity. He is, after all, the Prime Minister of a Western country chained to American hegemony. But beneath the layers of political necessity, a sliver of the old Albo survives — the one who knew that standing with the oppressed iisn't optional, and that neutrality in the face of colonialism is itself a crime.

In a political landscape littered with cowards and opportunists, Albanese’s silent act of refusal matters. He reminds us that even in a system built on lies, gestures can carry truth. Even when drowned out by propaganda, a simple “no” can still echo.

History won't be kind to those who bent the knee to Israel’s brutality. And it won't forgive those who wore its symbols as Gaza burned. Albo may not yet have the courage to stand at a microphone and call out Zionism’s crimes with the fury they deserve. Yet, he's found another way to say what matters.

Sometimes, in a world ruled by violence and deceit, defiance is as simple — and as powerful — as keeping your head uncovered.

Peter Dutton is prepared to bend the knee and wear a yamulke. That should tell Australians the type of person who wants to lead the country.