Bringing the war home Gaza threatens to reshape an Australian election

SYDNEY – Sydney non-profit worker Az Fahmi was once a dedicated volunteer for Australia’s ruling Labor Party, handing out pamphlets to get her local representative, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, re-elected.

That all changed for the human rights activist following Israel’s retaliation for an attack by Hamas militants in 2023, which has left Gaza in rubble, displaced millions and killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials.

Ahead of a May 3 election, Ms Fahmi is now campaigning to oust Mr Burke over what she believes is his party’s “dismal” response to the Muslim community’s calls for the Australian government to support Palestinians in Gaza.

“The only time they will ever listen is during election time,” Ms Fahmi, who is Muslim and has Syrian-Iraqi ancestry, told Reuters.

In Brisbane, stay-at-home mother Hava Mendelle, who is Jewish, backed Labor for its climate policies last election but now leads a campaign with hundreds of volunteers to topple “a weak Labor government that hasn’t done enough” to stop a spate of anti-Semitic attacks.

The discontent of voters like Ms Fahmi and Ms Mendelle highlights how the war in Gaza has fractured support for Labor, a party seeking to fend off the conservative Liberal-National opposition and win a second term in power.

Since late 2023, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government has walked a fine line between expressing concern for Palestinians, repeatedly calling for a ceasefire, and supporting ally Israel’s right to self-defence.

The approach has angered pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel voters, leaving Labor vulnerable in at least nine of the Lower House seats it needs to hold on to its one-seat majority in the 150-seat Parliament, election experts say.

Ms Fahmi’s electorate is among three multicultural, working-class seats in western Sydney that have long been Labor strongholds, where up to one in three voters