Will Australia Betray ANZAC For Israel?
For more than 100 years, ANZAC Day has been one of the most solemn and unifying occasions on Australia’s national calendar.
As a day, it transcends politics and generations. It’s a time when Australians pause to honour the courage, sacrifice, and mateship of the men and women who served and died in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations.
At its heart, the ANZAC spirit is not a celebration of war, but a remembrance of its cost — a tribute to resilience, humanity, and an unwavering belief in a fair go for all.
Yet over time, the ‘ANZAC Legend’ has been co-opted by political and cultural forces to glorify and justify war, rather than to oppose it. In many ways, the day has come to celebrate military involvement, rather than commemorate the fallen or show respect for those who endured the horrors of combat. This shift risks hollowing out ANZAC Day’s meaning, reducing a once-powerful symbol of anti-imperial sacrifice into a marketing tool for militarism.
And that spirit now stands at a crossroads. As tensions escalate in the Middle East — fuelled by US and Israeli policies toward Iran and the already devastated Gaza Strip — the Albanese government is being quietly pulled into a geopolitical quagmire. If Australia is drawn into a US-led war against Iran or continues to turn a blind eye to Israel’s military campaign that has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and Gaza in ruins, it would mark a catastrophic departure from the very values ANZAC Day is meant to protect.
The ANZAC legacy is rooted in the harrowing experience of war — not in its glorification. From the shores of Gallipoli in 1915 to the jungles of Vietnam and the deserts of Afghanistan, Australian soldiers have faced the brutality of war for US hegemony sold on the lie that others might live in peace and dignity.
Every grave, every memorial, and every minute of silence on April 25 is a warning against the US-generated narrative of reckless militarism.
Yet, the idea of joining another US-led conflict — particularly one without clear justification, legal backing, or public support — flies in the face of that history. Australia’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as reminders of the long-term cost of such entanglements: destabilisation, mass civilian casualties, regional chaos, and no clear path to peace.
To repeat those mistakes — this time in Iran or Gaza — would be to spit on the graves of those who fought believing they were defending justice and protecting the vulnerable. It would bastardise the very concept of “Lest We Forget” by suggesting we have, indeed, forgotten.
Since October 2023, Gaza has endured what the UN and human rights groups have described as an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. With over 250,000 Palestinians killed, including more than 25,000 children, and entire neighbourhoods turned to rubble, the ongoing siege isn’t a war in the conventional sense. It’s a campaign of decimation.
For Australia to offer tacit or active support to this would not only breach international law — it would place Australia on the wrong side of history. Public sentiment across Australia is already shifting, with protests, petitions, and calls for the government to hold Israel accountable for its actions under international humanitarian law. If ANZAC Day stands for anything, it must stand for the protection of civilians, the rejection of genocide, and the moral responsibility to speak out against atrocities.
And crucially, to help fight a war against Iran to suit Israel’s objectives — or to kill Palestinians for Israel’s immoral goals — isn’t in the ANZAC spirit. It’s not the fight our soldiers died for and not the stand Australians have historically taken. It’s a betrayal of Australia’s sovereign moral compass in favour of another nation’s agenda of occupation and aggression.
A military confrontation with Iran would be even more reckless. Iran isn’t a stateless actor or a non-aligned guerrilla force. It’s a sovereign nation of over 88 million people, with a powerful military and influence across the Middle East. Any conflict wouldn’t be short or clean — it’d be a prolonged, bloody regional war with global implications.
Australia’s participation in such a conflict wouldn’t only endanger its defence forces but risk dragging it into a clash of civilisations narrative it has no business supporting. It would sever Australia’s longstanding image as a diplomatic, peace-seeking middle power and reduce it to a foot soldier of American hegemony and Israeli expansionism.
Australians like to believe in a country that punches above its weight morally — one that supports the underdog, values peacekeeping, and speaks truth to power. These values have been on display in Australia’s response to natural disasters, in its approach to regional diplomacy, and in the multicultural fabric of its communities. They are also the values the ANZACs hoped to preserve.
Involving itself in a foreign war that carries neither moral clarity nor popular support would turn Australia into a proxy state, abandoning the sovereignty that ANZAC Day is meant to symbolise. Worse, it would risk normalising the idea that might makes right — that the wholesale killing of civilians can be justified if it serves Western strategic interests.
There’s a powerful and often overlooked parallel between the ANZAC story and the Palestinian struggle. At Gallipoli, young Australians faced a foreign empire on distant shores — confused, scared, but determined to claim a future that was free from domination. Palestinians, too, are fighting for a homeland, for dignity, and for a future free from occupation and erasure.
To turn Australia’s back on them, or worse, to participate in the machinery of their destruction, is not only a geopolitical error — it is a moral failure.
If ANZAC Day is to retain its power and relevance, it must be more than ceremony. It must be a commitment to peace, to dignity, and to never again allowing the machinery of empire to crush the lives of innocent people.
Should Australia follow the US and Israel into a war against Iran or continue enabling the devastation in Gaza, Australia will not only betray the essence of the ANZAC legacy — it will destroy it. And in doing so, Australia will leave future generations of Australians with a day of remembrance hollowed out by hypocrisy.
“Lest We Forget” every year. Now is the time to prove Australia remembers
well said Baz.
To any new readers - please note that the following comment was made to an earlier version of George's excellent article and should not be taken as a critique of the current version. I leave it only because several readers found it of value and because it does add some detail to points that George now makes more succinctly and articulately than can I.
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George, unfortunately there are problems with what you've written here. Whilst much of it is true, it fails to recognise how the 'Anzac Legend' has been used to glorify and justify war rather than to oppose it, as well as to 'celebrate' rather than commemorate or show respect for those who have fought in it.
Indeed, there is no doubt whatsoever that many of those who turn out for Anzac Day services do so because of conditioning rather than any actual memory for those who fought or any real understanding of why they were fighting and whether or not it was actually in defence of sound values and morality, let alone of our nation.
Your piece also misses the reality of engagement in war or any armed conflict and the poor, sometimes even appalling treatment of service personnel who, as a result of what they saw, felt and experienced, returned from engagement as 'anti-war' or pacifists. For over a hundred years those who served and learned the futility and horror of war and as a consequence spoke out against it and against its glorification in ceremonies such as Anzac Day, have been ostracised, discredited, rejected by the very organisations supposedly established to ensure their welfare and by governments who put geo-political alliances and profit - (yes, the only people who benefit from war are those who provide its materiel and grow rich from it).
John Howard, one of the worst prime-ministers in Australia's short history, was instrumental in shoring up the conditioning of Australians, particularly its youth, to the right-wing, war-mongering worship through revival of the Anzac Day tradition and marches which were losing their attendance and attraction not only because of time and the death through age of those who had participated in WWI but because of a movement in society that was increasingly giving publicity to the true tragedy and tales of war and the manipulation by the powerful and our political leaders to use it perfidiously for various 'gains' when as a nation we were in no way in peril.
The Friday Essay in this weeks: "The Conversation" - https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-war-has-made-me-a-pacifist-why-are-we-so-reluctant-to-acknowledge-australias-anti-war-veterans-253530 - explains this issue far better than can I.
However the content of that article certainly resonates with me for I became a pacifist as a result of active service in the Middle East. Although certainly not with that indoctrinated "King and Country" patriotic machoism of the young men who volunteered for WWI, when first involved in the Middle East I, as were most if not all of my compatriots, was offended, even incensed by the fact that the Arabs were shooting at us. It took me some time to realise that we were the invaders in their land and had no right to be there, let alone to dictate and control society and lives. I can understand how such a distorted view was ubiquitous among us, for the reality is that not only are all sides in a conflict almost certainly indoctrinated, i.e. socialised in the 'norms' held and projected by their society but those who fight are inevitably mostly the young, immature and relatively unworldly who tend to be the most gullible and easily conditioned.
So, the experience resulted in my becoming a pacifist and taking a far more disciplined and careful view of our world, society, politics, class and how the mass are manipulated for the benefit of a few.
I also wrote about the problems I saw with the cultural implications and conditioning of Anzac Day and this was published in a regional newspaper. I probably don't need to say how scathing were the responses and how reviled I became because those reading what I wrote were unable to understand the analysis and the point I was making, instead taking the view that I was dishonouring those who had fought in our military. Sadly, that type of reaction continues today when someone speaks out against supposed commemorations which actually have turned into celebrations - in as much they have become events in which to be seen because they confer a 'sense of respectability and patriotism', just as being seen at church each Sunday used to do. I thus understand why so many other ex-service personnel who feel as I do choose to stay silent, just as I also understand only too well why the majority choose not to speak about what they have witnessed.
As you know, I think, I value what you write, George, and I consider that our general views of what constitute ethics and morality are probably quite similar, so I mean no disrespect by this long comment. I simply believe that it is long past time that the culture of this day is given the analysis and discussion it deserves. John Howard encourage children to march and even to wear the medals of their ancestors who fought - that is neither appropriate nor morally sound for it encourages and insidiously implants the view of conflict and war that contributes to the false notion that 'might is right' and the way to resolve difference is with injuring, killing and destruction, rather than humane consideration, discussion and compromise, even if possible, consensus.
Of course, I would almost certainly fight to protect others under attack but the majority of our nation's battles have not been about protecting Australia but rather about sycophantic support of either Britain or the United States. Indeed, the US government did not want us in Vietnam but our government pressured them to allow us to join that ill-fated, gratuitous and regrettable invasion.
We don't need a war memorial - we need a peace memorial. We don't need a glorification of suffering under the command of a foreign general for another nation's purposes, on one day each year - 2 minutes of silent contemplation that does commemorate and honour the sacrifice of those who fought, on the anniversary of the end of conflict would be much more appropriate and inclined to a society which chooses to honour life rather than death.