Wills – Australia 2022

Knowing many Muslims, I can say almost a universally support Palestine however thereare mixed views with some preferring a pragmatic solution on allowing Israel to conditionally exist peacefully but some prefer Israel in ceasing to exist. There is a small minority who back Israel mainly the Iranians community probably due to negative views against the Islamic Republic of Iran

@Nimalan,

I too think it is unlikely. However, most people take little to no notice of politics, and tend to have a cartoonish view of the parties. But start getting bombarded by fliers about a policy you have little to no interest in, then getting Lib fliers targeting say cost of living issues, and suddenly people are seeing them as a viable vote.

Not saying it will happen, but would not want to get dragged into a Palestine only election by the Greens is all.

@ MLV
I think the Liberals will do the same thing in Higgins (against Labor), Bradfield, Wentworth, Goldstein (against Teals) to argue that Labor/Teals are not Pro-Israel enough. Much of their media base is very pro-Israel and it seems to be the only thing that unites the Liberal party. It will not really help Labor in any of those seats i dont see if Spender/Libs compete for whose most Pro-Israel it provides an opening for Labor.
Wills is interesting it combines working class suburbs with a lot of Muslims and inner city progressive territory. For this reason, it is unique in its ability to flip. In neighboring Calwell,where the Muslims vote is much higher it is unlikely that either Greens or Socialist will make the 2CP and win the seat so the Labor party does not really need to mention Palestine on Flyers they said to residents. They may narrowcast this on ethnic community media or through Mosques but will be careful not to broadcast as it would be weaponized by the Libs in a seat like Higgins. The only risk in seats such as Calwell, Blaxland, Chifley etc is if a Pro-Palestine Dai Le style independent emerges, however that would need Liberal preferences to take the seat of Labor.

The Greens have a long way to come to win this electorate plus a well established member who doesn’t appear to be unpopular or controversial. I suspect depending on the redistributions that this electorate will see a big swing to the Greens but stay with Labor at this stage.

@SpaceFish I agree with your prediction, but the demographics of Wills probably doesn’t help Labor in this case. South of Bell Street is Coburg, Brunswick etc which is rock-solid Green territory, which is usually balanced by the multicultural diaspora north of the boundary in Pascoe Vale, Glenroy and Fawkner in large droves. Having said that there is a large Middle Eastern contingent living up that part of the world who’d likely lean towards whichever side is anti-Israel/pro-Palestine, which at this point is Greens and if they follow through with that Greens could very well make the seat marginal at the very least, especially with Samantha Ratnam’s profile and the fact that Peter Khalil appears to be somewhat pro-Israel even though he’s of Arabic descent. The general trends with the inner-city electorates are that they’re becoming more left-leaning each year and unlike Ged Kearney in Cooper who’s of the left faction, Khalil is on the right which makes Labor the right-wing party who’s likely to bear the brunt of this impact.

However, for every vote Labor loses to the Greens on the issue of Palestine in Wills, they’re more likely to gain additional votes in Macnamara (also Green target) thanks to the large Jewish population in Caulfield, Elsternwick, Ripponlea etc who are pretty passionate about the Israeli side. Josh Burns is also Jewish and has been fairly uncontroversial throughout his stint either so in essence the effect could be that Wills becomes less safe but Macnamara becomes solid for Labor.

@ Tommo9/Spacefish
I would say Peter Khalil does fit demographically with the multicultural north of the sit. He is of migrant background and is Coptic Christian. The issue is that Peter Khalil is also more Pro-American/AUKUS etc which will also end up being up hated by many in the Muslim community as well due to US support for Israel. One point of clarification as discussed extensively in both the Higgins/Macanamara threads is that the Greens are unlikely to loose Pro-Israel voters as they never really had them in the first place. Michael Danby is well known even prior to October 7 to be very hostile to the Greens even more than Matt Canavan ever was. The way it could benefit Josh Burns if Liberal Jewish voters vote for him to stop the Greens winning Macnamara even if the Greens increase their vote elsewhere in the electorate,

@Tommo9 I agree with your first observations on Wills. However, i don’t think the Israel-Palestine debate will have any impact on the Greens vote in Macnamara – there are very few Jewish voters that haven’t already been swayed by the anti-Zionist Greens sentiment. They can’t lose votes they didn’t have.

A lot depends on the redistribution, Macnamara could well become notionally GRN. I see Richmond and Macnamara falling in 2025, with Higgins and Wills a solid chance.

@Nimalan good points re Wills. I would like to think that the issue of Palestine alone won’t determine the outcome in Wills even if the Greens seem to think it’s their winning ticket. Things like cost-of-living, housing, Climate action especially are usually on voters’ minds first and foremost but given that Wills is inner-city I’d like to think that neither of those issues would be a huge sore point given that most of the population are fairly affluent and pro-climate action already when they voted for Labor, and it’s not as if Labor isn’t acting on any of these things (maybe apart from housing). In places like Brunswick and Coburg it might be a different issue given there’s a lot of students and renters there but then those people would usually vote Greens in their droves anyway.

I just can’t see the point of different for the Greens to be able to take the win apart from Palestine and possible Ratnam.

Mark Dreyfus is Jewish and there is a small part of his seat that is a Muslim Majority area (Dandenong – South SA2) and, might affect some of his first party preference votes however the Majority of the Muslims there are not Middle Eastern but rather Albanians (more secular and westernised) and Afghans (fleeing the Taliban) so I wonder the affect would not be as large as the northern suburbs?

@Tommo
i agree with you it seems only Palestine/AUKUS maybe going for the Greens. I agree it will not boost the Green vote in places like Brunswick who will vote Green anyway so it really is only the Muslim vote which makes up 10% of the electorate which i feel may swing. I feel the Labor primary among Muslims is already suppressed as in suburbs like Fawkner/Hadfield as they may have lost some votes last time due to the lockdown. These areas are more like Calwell than Brunswick. I think Peter Khalil will be looking at winning votes maybe from Liberals in suburbs such as Pascoe Vale/Oak Park which have a white collar middle class population (a lot of nuclear families), more Italians and less Muslims by focusing on things such as expanding paid parental leave, cheaper childcare to offset any loss in primaries from muslims. There is also a growing Nepalese community, which is incidentally the fastest growing ethnic group in Australia and who are not impacted either way by Palestine conflict so he may focus on building ties to this community.

@ Marh
I dont think it will have a impact among the Albanian community as you said they are largely secular and westernised. Albanians often just pass as Europeans so they experience less racism. Albanian nationalism is secular, Mother Theresa is seen as a national icon. I think it may have an impact in the Afghan community while they fled the Taliban they retain the Islamic faith and identity. This is different to the Iranian community, where a very high % identify with no religion in the census and who are not interested in Palestine. The difference is the Iranian community is affluent and resides in Liberal voting areas such as Manningham, Hills District and Centenary suburbs (QLD). The other community is South Asian Muslims such as Pakistanis who are rapidly growing and generally reside in growth areas such as Casey LGA and the northern fringe of Calwell.

Nimalan, I guess the Iranian migrants who settle in Australia are like the Cuban migrants who settle in the US in that they are not really interested in supporting their ‘home’ regime and in fact may be hostile towards their activities especially the Iranian antagonism towards Israel.

@Yoh An, there is a phenomenon where if there are many persecuted refugees moving to a particular place, the adopted society will hold different views from their place of origin. I think the best example is Hong Kong as the reason why the majority residents are hostile towards the Beijing Central Government is due to many Hongkongers were descendants of persecuted farmers/landowners from Southern China during the Mao Zedong era.

@ Yoh An
Good examples of Cuban Americans. This is different to communities such as Indians/Pakistanis who are international students/skilled migrants so may support their home country. Sometimes this may change over time. Vietnamese Australians would have historically been hostile to the regime, however with more recent Vietnamese migrants they are largely international students/skilled migrants who would have come to education/economic opportunities and have no memory of the Vietnam war and the fall of Saigon.

@Marh another good example would be Chinese Australians, who have historically voted strongly for the Liberal Party despite the Labor Party being much more similar to the Communist Party (though still not very similar at all).

I would also agree that Iranians (and I’ll also add Lebanese Catholics) are not as pro-Palestinians as many other groups.

Interestingly although Iran is an authoritarian dictatorship with an Islamic theocratic government and major suppression of other religions and of non-religious people, despite the government claiming that 97% of Iran is Muslim, Western studies have found that almost 40% of Iranians in Iran are not religious. Iran is actually less Muslim than Turkey and Azerbaijan which are secular states (though both are still authoritarian and their governments are increasingly promoting Islam, antisemitism and anti-Westernism; take Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comments on the Christchurch attacks for example where he accused Australians of being antisemitic and stated at a political rally that Australians with Islamophobic views would be “sent home like their grandfathers” in reference to the Battle of Gallipoli).

If Iran was a democracy it would not have an antisemitic, pro-terrorist, pro-Chinese and pro-Russian Supreme Leader as its leader, it would have an elected leader who would likely be pro-Western. Iran and Israel were once allies, and Iran was once a Western ally, but Islamists took over and now look at it. It also probably wouldn’t have a state religion.

I’m European-Lebanese mixed in my heritage (going a fair while back though) and I grew up in a rural town. I have olive skin so I was tanner than the rest of my students. People would only call me black as an insult. Otherwise I wasn’t seen as different in the sense of background (though I was in many other non-ethnic ways, for several reasons).

@ Nether Portal
I am not sure if that is the case. I think stronger support historically among Chinese Australians in most cases been explained by being a wealthier community or small business residing in more affluent areas. Most Chinese Australians are not refugees to Australia unlike Vietnamese Australians.

I’m quite interested to know how different demographics view the issue of Palestine and how high it ranks when voting. Taking their countries of origin’s position and recognition (or lack thereof) of Israel and extrapolating may not be accurate.

I’m guessing immigrants from the Levantine (Lebanon, Syria) and their children are most pro-Palestine. As mentioned before, they’re most likely to know someone affected by the war and they may have a Palestinian connection. Muslim immigrants from Pakistan or India are perhaps more apathetic and less likely to be swayed by the Palestinian issue as they don’t feel strong historic and cultural ties with the Arab world, and their homelands are further away.

I think a lot of people vote Greens not because of their stance of the Palestine issue specifically, but because they are protest voting and they want to swing away from Labor or Liberal. This means that parties like the socialist one and even Family First or One Nation, parties with no or ambiguous stances or are tight lipped on Israel, can pick up votes.

The Greens do seem to focus on movement building issues like refugees and reconciliation more off years, building a volunteer and donor base and holding space. Then closer to elections they pivot to material issues. The policies don’t change but the focus does. This also explains why they’re so ill prepared for byelections. The only exception was Dunstan which has a much stronger post-material demographic.

I think Palestine is an example of off year campaigning and the Greens are aware the support may be fickle vote parking so will seek other outcomes. But only time will tell.

Votante, while the ethnicity argument for Muslims differing in their pro-Palestine sentiment sounds logical, I’m not sure if that’s actually reflected in reality. Indonesia is one of the most fervently pro-Palestinian societies in the world despite being a very long way from the area and not populated by Arabs. I don’t know how well that’s reflected in the Indonesian diaspora in Australia, but I would imagine they’d have a similar sentiment.

@Votante I think with Lebanese people (again, I’m part Lebanese) it matters on their religion. Lebanese Catholics (known in Lebanon as Maronite Catholics or simply Maronites) tend to be pro-Israel regardless of their political affiliation while Lebanese Muslims tend to be pro-Palestine. Even in Lebanon itself there’s a divide over certain things between Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims (e.g Shia Muslims support closer relations with Iran, Sunni Muslims support closer relations with Turkey and Saudi Arabia as they are majority-Sunni Muslim countries and Catholics tend to support closer relations with France as Lebanon was a former French colony and it is a Catholic country). Lebanon is about 50% Muslim and almost 40% Christian and despite its government not having any formal relations with Israel (Hezbollah even holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament), it’s one of the more Western countries in the Middle East (homosexuality is legal, the nation is officially secular and sectarian, it is considered a democracy at least in some form, etc) which is why the West wants Israel and Lebanon to normalise relations with each other.

Lebanese Catholics tend to have lived in Australia for a while (like how Italians and Greeks have, for example), while Lebanese Muslims are newer arrivals who may be first or second generation. Lebanese Australians mostly live in Western Sydney, with a particular concentration of Lebanese Muslims in certain suburbs.

That’s my analysis. As for Syrians, I’m not sure but I’d say it’s similar: Christians are more supportive of Israel and Muslims are more supportive of Palestine. This is because, of course, Christians and Jews believe Israel is the Holy Land of the Jewish people and most events in the Bible and the Torah (including the birth and death of Jesus Christ) occurred in Israel, with the rest occurring in other nearby countries (the Catholic Bible is longer than the Protestant Bible, and more countries are mentioned in the Catholic Bible as it includes more books). I’m non-religious myself but my family members who are part Lebanese are mostly Catholics.

@ Votante
Further to Wilson’s point about non Arab Muslims, i would point out to the example of Malaysia which is a democracy with a similar political system in many ways to Australia. Anwar Ibrahim has been very vocal on Palestine. He is also much more friendly to China including comments he made on a recent visit to Melbourne. Recent survey found in the Muslim majority ASEAN countries that there is much more pro-China sentiment link below. Regarding South Asians, as a South Asian myself , Religion is the primary identity of South Asians following by ethnic/linguistic identity this is often stronger than national identity in South Asian countries where religions/ethnicity often cross national boundaries.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Majority-of-ASEAN-people-favor-China-over-U.S.-survey-finds

I heard Turkey is also pro-palestine even amongst the most secular Muslims probably due to historical reasons. I also wonder what is Muslims in Israel stance about the issue?