Welcome to Grappy's Soap Box - a platform for insightful commentary on politics, media, free speech, climate change, and more, focusing on Australia, the USA, and global perspectives.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has entered Australia’s increasingly urgent debate over immigration, multiculturalism and national identity.
His message is confronting but timely: Australia’s traditional immigration model succeeded because newcomers were expected to become part of the Australian community, accept its laws and values, learn English and develop a loyalty to their new country.
Abbott argues that this expectation has gradually been abandoned. In its place, governments have pursued mass migration while promoting cultural difference as an end in itself, often appearing reluctant to insist that Australian values must come first.
The consequences are now becoming difficult to ignore. The Bondi terrorist attack, which police allege was motivated by Islamic State ideology, and the dramatic rise in antisemitism are powerful signs that social cohesion cannot simply be taken for granted.
Abbott’s main arguments
Immigration once worked through integration. Migrants were welcomed, but they were also expected to join the Australian mainstream and accept the country’s laws, institutions and democratic values.
Mass migration has weakened that process. When very large numbers arrive over a short period, integration becomes harder and separate cultural communities can become more entrenched.
Diversity alone is not a national strength. Diversity contributes to Australia only when it exists within a shared culture, common language and commitment to the nation.
Australian values must be non-negotiable. Freedom of speech, equality before the law, religious tolerance and rejection of political or religious violence cannot be compromised in the name of multicultural sensitivity.
Social cohesion is already under strain. Terrorism, antisemitism and hostility towards Australia’s institutions are warnings that some newcomers—and some established communities—have not accepted the responsibilities that should accompany Australian citizenship.
Abbott is not arguing against immigration or against Australians retaining pride in their ancestry. He is arguing that a successful immigrant nation must remain confident enough to defend its own culture and require those who settle here to become Australians in more than name.
His critics will inevitably label these arguments divisive. But refusing to discuss the problem will not make it disappear. Australia cannot continue importing people at historically high rates while pretending that integration will happen automatically.
Abbott’s address deserves to be heard in full. Even those who disagree with him should listen before dismissing his warning, because the future of Australia’s social cohesion may depend upon our willingness to have this debate honestly.
If you were watching events unfold after Hamas' barbaric massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, you could be forgiven for believing that millions of ordinary citizens around the Western world simultaneously experienced a spontaneous moral awakening.
Within days, city streets from London to Sydney, New York to Paris were awash with Palestinian flags, professionally printed banners, coordinated chants and well-organised marches. Universities erected encampments. Activists seemed to appear everywhere at once. The media described these demonstrations as "grassroots" expressions of public outrage at Israel's military response in Gaza.
There was just one problem with that narrative.
Grassroots movements don't normally emerge simultaneously across dozens of countries, with sophisticated logistics, legal support, media operations, fundraising infrastructure and professional organisers already in place.
A recent 129-page report by NGO Monitor examining 40 major post-October 7 protest campaigns in the United Kingdom lifts the curtain on what was really happening. Far from being spontaneous public demonstrations, the report describes a highly coordinated network of NGOs, activist organisations, foreign funding channels and advocacy groups that have been working together to mobilise anti-Israel campaigns. It found that around 80% of the UK's major anti-Israel protest activity involved NGO infrastructure and professional organisers.
This should surprise nobody.
Mass protest movements don't organise themselves. Someone books the venues. Someone prints the placards. Someone obtains permits, coordinates speakers, arranges transport, runs social media campaigns and pays the bills.
The NGO Monitor report identifies an extensive ecosystem of organisations that were able to rapidly mobilise after October 7 because they already existed. The massacre itself was simply the catalyst that activated an established activist infrastructure that had been campaigning against Israel for years.
The timing is perhaps the most revealing aspect of all.
Many demonstrations took place almost immediately after October 7, before Israel had even begun its major military operations in Gaza. The protests were not, therefore, solely a reaction to civilian casualties resulting from the war. In many cases, they began while Israel was still counting its dead and identifying the victims of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
That should have prompted journalists to ask an obvious question: what exactly were these people protesting?
The answer increasingly appears to be that the protests were never primarily about humanitarian concerns. If they were, one might reasonably have expected equal outrage at Hamas' atrocities, condemnation of hostage-taking, or calls for Hamas' surrender. Instead, the overwhelming focus became the delegitimisation of Israel itself.
Criticism of Israeli government policy is perfectly legitimate. In a democracy, no government should be beyond criticism. Israel is no exception.
But when demonstrations routinely feature slogans calling for the elimination of the world's only Jewish state, when Jewish students are intimidated on university campuses, when synagogues require unprecedented security, and when protesters are unable or unwilling to condemn Hamas' barbarism, it becomes increasingly difficult to argue that this is merely a debate about foreign policy.
The line between anti-Israel activism and antisemitism has become disturbingly blurred.
What the NGO Monitor report demonstrates is that much of the post-October 7 protest movement was neither organic nor spontaneous. It was organised, funded and coordinated through networks that have spent years building the infrastructure necessary to shape public opinion and political discourse. This does not mean that every protester was aware of that infrastructure or shared its more extreme objectives. Many undoubtedly joined because they were genuinely concerned about civilian suffering in Gaza.
But they became, knowingly or otherwise, participants in a much larger political campaign.
The Western media bears responsibility here. By presenting these demonstrations as spontaneous expressions of public sentiment, it created the impression that public opinion had overwhelmingly turned against Israel virtually overnight. That perception itself became a powerful political weapon, influencing governments, institutions and corporations.
Public opinion matters in democracies. Manufactured public opinion matters even more.
The lesson is simple. Whenever we are told that thousands of people have suddenly and spontaneously appeared in our streets demanding political change, we should ask a few simple questions.
Who organised it?
Who funded it?
Who benefits from it?
The answers are often considerably more interesting than the slogans being shouted through the megaphones.
Over the past fifty years we have witnessed the steady rise of transnational organisations. Many were established with worthy and limited purposes—to encourage cooperation between nations, promote human rights, coordinate responses to disease outbreaks or prosecute the most heinous international crimes.
Few people objected.
After all, who could oppose human rights, international cooperation or justice for genocide and war crimes?
Yet somewhere along the way these organisations began to evolve. They are no longer merely forums where sovereign nations cooperate. Increasingly, they behave as if they are supranational governments—unelected bodies that believe they possess the moral and legal authority to sit in judgement of sovereign states.
The United Nations and its ever-expanding alphabet soup of agencies have become notorious for this. The Human Rights Council regularly condemns democratic nations while often giving authoritarian regimes a free pass. The World Health Organisation, originally created to coordinate international health efforts, sought unprecedented powers during the COVID era that would have significantly expanded its influence over domestic health policy.
But perhaps the most troubling example is the International Criminal Court.
The ICC was established under the Rome Statute in 2002 to prosecute individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when national courts are unwilling or unable to do so. Its jurisdiction was intended to be limited and carefully defined.
Many democratic nations chose not to join. The United States, Israel, China, India and others decided that surrendering aspects of their judicial sovereignty to an international body was not in their national interests.
That should have been the end of the matter.
If a country chooses not to join an international organisation, surely that organisation has no authority over it. That is how treaties and sovereignty have traditionally worked.
Yet the ICC has increasingly behaved as though its jurisdiction extends wherever it believes moral authority exists. Its actions regarding Israel have become the most obvious example of this trend. Israel is not a member of the ICC and possesses an internationally respected and independent judicial system capable of investigating alleged misconduct by its own citizens and military personnel.
Supporters of the ICC argue that it may exercise jurisdiction where alleged crimes occur within territories that have accepted ICC jurisdiction. Critics argue that this interpretation effectively allows the Court to extend its reach to nationals of countries that never consented to its authority, thereby undermining the very principles upon which the Rome Statute was established.
Whichever side one takes on the legal arguments, the practical effect is unmistakable. Unelected international officials now claim the power to investigate, issue arrest warrants and make legal findings against leaders and citizens of sovereign nations that never agreed to be bound by them.
And it doesn't stop with member states.
Today, any nation can find itself condemned by international bureaucracies and so-called international legal mechanisms. These organisations issue reports, findings and recommendations which are then amplified by activist groups, sympathetic governments and much of the international media as though they are binding legal judgements.
The result is a gradual but profound shift in the balance of power.
Sovereign nations are increasingly expected to justify their domestic laws, military actions, health policies and social policies before international committees that are accountable to no electorate whatsoever.
Who elected the officials of the Human Rights Council?
Who elected the bureaucrats of the WHO?
Who elected the judges of the ICC?
The citizens of Australia certainly did not. Nor did the citizens of Israel, the United States or many other democratic nations whose governments now find themselves subject to international scrutiny and condemnation.
There is another problem that receives far too little attention. International organisations are almost impossible to remove once they acquire power. National governments can be voted out of office. Politicians can be dismissed by the electorate.
International bureaucracies enjoy no such democratic accountability.
They expand their mandates incrementally, redefine their missions and acquire ever greater influence without a single vote being cast by the people affected by their decisions.
This is why sovereignty matters.
Sovereignty is not some outdated nineteenth-century concept. It is the mechanism by which citizens govern themselves through democratic institutions. When power is transferred from elected governments to transnational organisations, democratic accountability is diminished.
International cooperation is both desirable and necessary. Nations should cooperate on trade, disease control, environmental issues and criminal justice. But cooperation is not the same thing as subordination.
International organisations should serve sovereign nations—not govern them.
Perhaps no recent statement captures the growing concern better than that of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently condemned the ICC and pledged that the United States would use every available means to oppose what he described as the Court's encroachment on national sovereignty. Rubio argued that no unelected international tribunal should possess the authority to prosecute citizens of countries that have never consented to its jurisdiction and vowed to work towards disabling the Court's ability to operate in its current form. Recent reports indicate that the Trump administration has begun a concerted diplomatic campaign against the ICC and has imposed sanctions on ICC officials involved in investigations targeting the United States and its allies. (Reuters)
Whether one agrees with Rubio or not, he has raised an important question that every democracy should be asking:
Who governs the governors?
If the answer is "no one", then we should all be concerned.
Only weeks ago, the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran was hailed by some as the first step towards de-escalation. Others, including this blog, warned that it rested on wishful thinking rather than any genuine change in the Iranian regime's behaviour.
Sadly, events have proved those concerns well founded.
Rather than embracing peace, Iran has continued to challenge international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, renewed attacks against its neighbours through its proxies, issued fresh threats against both President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanded reparations from the United States, and even asserted that it should control the Strait of Hormuz and charge transit fees for vessels passing through one of the world's most important waterways.
This is not the conduct of a government seeking reconciliation.
It is the conduct of a regime that believes it can act with increasing boldness without paying a meaningful price.
Empty Threats Encourage Aggression
President Trump has repeatedly warned Iran that further aggression would bring severe consequences.
Yet those consequences have largely failed to materialise.
Instead, the American response has become increasingly piecemeal—limited retaliatory strikes here, stern warnings there, followed by another Iranian provocation.
This pattern is dangerous.
History demonstrates that authoritarian regimes often interpret restraint not as goodwill, but as weakness. Every threat that is not followed by decisive action risks reducing the credibility of the next one.
Whether fairly or unfairly, Tehran now appears to believe that domestic political pressures will prevent the United States from taking the stronger measures it once threatened.
If that is indeed Iran's calculation, recent events suggest it has become increasingly confident.
Before the MOU, the Strategy Was Working
Ironically, the strategy that appeared to have the greatest effect on Iran was the one employed before negotiations resumed.
Maximum economic pressure dramatically reduced Iran's oil exports, constrained its finances, and limited its ability to fund regional proxies and military adventures.
The subsequent shift towards negotiation has not produced moderation. Instead, Iran has continued to test the limits of Western resolve while seeking concessions at every opportunity.
Negotiations only succeed when both sides believe the alternative is worse.
At present, there is little evidence that Tehran fears the alternative.
A Different Strategy
If the objective is lasting stability rather than temporary headlines, the United States should return to a policy of sustained pressure.
That could include:
Reimposing the full sanctions regime.
Re-establishing the strongest possible restrictions on Iranian oil exports.
Suspending negotiations until Iran demonstrates genuine compliance rather than making further demands.
Continuing to destroy military assets that attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Using frozen Iranian assets, where legally authorised, to compensate regional states that have suffered losses from Iranian-sponsored attacks.
If maintaining a comprehensive maritime blockade proves difficult, another option would be to substantially degrade Iran's principal oil export infrastructure, particularly facilities on Kharg Island. Temporarily removing Iran's ability to export oil would dramatically reduce the regime's revenue and its capacity to finance military operations.
Such actions would undoubtedly carry economic and political costs. Energy markets would react, and there would be domestic political consequences in the United States.
However, maintaining the present approach also carries costs.
An ineffective deterrent invites further escalation.
Credibility Matters
International diplomacy depends on credibility.
Threats only deter if they are believed.
Repeated warnings followed by limited responses risk creating the opposite effect—they encourage adversaries to continue probing for weakness.
If President Trump believes stronger action is justified, he should take it.
If he does not, then the repeated public threats should stop.
The current approach risks achieving the worst of both worlds: escalating Iranian aggression while steadily eroding American credibility.
Time Is Running Short
The administration still has an opportunity to reverse course.
Applying sustained economic and military pressure consistently—not intermittently—would force Tehran to confront the reality that continued confrontation carries unbearable costs. Economic pressure has influenced Iranian decision-making before, and it may do so again.
Whether such a strategy would succeed cannot be known with certainty. But what seems increasingly clear is that the current strategy is failing.
There comes a point when every negotiation must be judged not by the promises made when it was signed, but by the behaviour that follows.
By that measure, the so-called peace deal has failed.
It is time to stop managing the crisis and start resolving it.
