Tony Burke suggests comparisons can be drawn between Israel’s war on Hamas and Holocaust

Sky News can reveal video has emerged of federal Labor Minister Tony Burke suggesting October 7 did not happen in a vacuum, and that comparisons could be drawn between Israel’s war on Hamas and the Holocaust. Last Thursday, Mr Burke was being interviewed by The Saturday Paper’s Chief Political Correspondent Karen Middleton at the Woodford Folk Festival in regional Queensland. He told a cheering audience the history of the Middle East “did not begin on the seventh of October” – the day of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. “Mr Burke then appears to suggest his audience could make comparisons between Israel's actions and that of the Holocaust, when drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis meets the very definition of antisemitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance,” Sky News Senior Reporter Caroline Marcus said. “Weaponising the trauma of the Holocaust against the very people who were killed in their millions by it is not only wrong and racist, it's sick. “Suggesting that, without outright condemning that type of comparison, is disturbing. “Mr Burke may be careful not to use the word "genocide" himself - but he certainly far from rejects it and he actively leads a receptive crowd to draw that conclusion - which, of course, they dutifully do. “Mr Burke is trying to walk both sides of the street - he can't condemn hate speech, while simultaneously encouraging radical protesters to draw the most hateful and unsubstantiated conclusions about the Jewish state.”