
UAE
Steve Ciobo, Stonepeak Managing Director and former LNP MP, promoted deportation of acquitted Muslims, engaged in Zionist lobby junkets, expanded trade ties with "Israel" including the Tel Aviv Landing Pad, and enabled arms transfers that support occupation and genocide.
Steve Ciobo, former Australian Trade and Defence Industry Minister, advocated stripping citizenship from naturalised Australians over "terrorist activity", joined Zionist lobby junkets to "Israel", and oversaw defence exports that sustained Israeli genocide and occupation.
Business/Corporate
Steve Ciobo is a former Australian politician who has been Managing Director at Stonepeak and Capital Squared since October 2020 and September 2019 respectively.
Ciobo served as the LNP MP for Moncrieff from November 2001 to April 2019 and held ministerial portfolios including Trade, Tourism and Investment from February 2016 to August 2018 and Defence Industry from August 2018 to March 2019 — all roles that positioned him to advance policies which normalise the displacement of indigenous Palestinians and shield the Zionist settler-colonial project from accountability.
In July 2005, Ciobo advocated stripping naturalised Australians of citizenship if they incited, supported, or engaged in "terrorist activity"--even if it would create stateless persons in opposition to international law--a proposal framed around the non-terrorist views of an Australian sheikh and rejected by the federal Liberal leader at the time. This early stance revealed a willingness to weaponise security rhetoric against Muslim communities in ways that echo broader Islamophobic patterns used to justify the dehumanisation of Palestinians.
In June 2015, Ciobo appeared on an ABC Q&A panel and responded to a question from Zaky Mallah, the first person charged under the 2003 anti-terrorism laws and later acquitted after two years in solitary confinement, by stating he wasn't familar with the circumstances of Mallah's case "but I’m happy to look you straight in the eye and say that I’d be pleased to be part of a government that would say you are out of the country, as far as I’m concerned". Ciobo stood by his comments that an innocent Muslim whose circumstances he was not familiar with should lose citizenship and be deported based solely on being charged with a terrorism offence, thereby endorsing punitive measures that mirror the collective punishment inflicted on Palestinians under occupation.
In December 2016, as Trade Minister Ciobo led the Australian delegation to the Australia Israel UK Leadership Dialogue, a Zionist lobby junket that systematically exposes participants to curated narratives normalising the displacement of indigenous Palestinians and the theft of their land through the racist "Aaliyah" settler-colonial project. This follows his participation in the 2010 Australia Israel Leadership Forum. While in Occupied Palestine, Ciobo held meetings with senior Israeli ministers to expand trade and economic links and stated "Australia is keen to expand bilateral trade and economic links and co-operation with Israel, particularly on innovation and technology. We are working on initiatives to strengthen the economic relationship, including the innovation ‘Landing Pad’ in Tel Aviv, treaties for co-operation on innovation, science and research and a double taxation agreement", actions that integrate Australian capital into the infrastructure of apartheid and occupation.
Between 2017 and 2023, the Australian government approved 322 defence exports to "Israel" including arms and ammunition worth millions that were deployed in the bombardment and destruction of Gaza, and as Minister for Defence Industry until late 2019 Ciobo bears direct responsibility for these transfers that sustain the machinery of settler-colonial violence against Palestinians. These exports occurred amid the ongoing genocide across Palestine where conservative estimates place the death toll at 70,000, but the true toll is well into the hundreds of thousands due to systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure.
In January 2022, Stonepeak, where Ciobo serves as Managing Director of Global Affairs and Engagement, acquired Rinchem, an Israeli company managing hazardous chemicals and gases for the aerospace and defence industries, while also investing with Fund Placement Israel. These corporate moves embed Australian capital in the military-industrial complex that profits from and enables the ongoing genocide across Palestine.
Ciobo’s interventions form a consistent pattern in which he has used parliamentary and ministerial platforms to promote citizenship-stripping measures, participate in normalisation junkets, and facilitate military cooperation that directly enables the IOF’s ethnic cleansing campaign. By advancing economic and defence ties with "Israel" while endorsing deportation rhetoric against Muslims, Ciobo contributes to the international consent structures that perpetuate occupation, apartheid, and genocide for more than 78 years.
theage.com.au
🔒theguardian.com
🔒news.com.au
🔒nine.com.au
🔒theguardian.com
🔒sbs.com.au
🔒nine.com.au
🔒businesswire.com
🔒dakota.com
🔒parlinfo.aph.gov.au
🔒Two-state solution:
The two-state solution, once hailed as the path to peace, has proven itself to be a hollow promise, built upon the fractured dreams of generations of Palestinians. It has served as a smokescreen for the continued expansion of Israeli settlements, the entrenchment of occupation, and the perpetuation of systemic discrimination against Palestinians. In essence, it has enshrined a reality where Palestinian statehood is nothing more than a distant mirage, forever out of reach amidst the ever-expanding borders of Israeli control.
Israeli politicians themselves have cast irrefutable doubt on the feasibility of a two-state solution, with absolutely heinous statements made across both left and right-wing government officials that’ve made it clear Israel has always rejected and in fact worked against a two state solution. All the heinous remarks they’ve said recently have been widely documented but these beliefs have predated even this decade. In 2009, Israel’s new foreign minister completely dismissed the resolution of a two state solution.
In contrast, a one-state solution offers a vision of a future where individuals coexist as equals, sharing a common destiny and forging a shared identity based on principles of justice, dignity, and mutual respect within Palestine. It recognizes the inherent rights of all individuals to live in freedom and security, free from discrimination and oppression.
To advocate for a one-state solution is to reject the notion that peace and justice can only be achieved through the partitioning of land that has been soaked in the blood and tears of generations of Palestinians. It is a recognition that true reconciliation can only be built on a foundation of equality, where every individual – regardless of ethnicity, religion, or background – enjoys the same rights and opportunities under the law.
Central to the call for a one-state solution is the right of return for all Palestinian refugees – a right enshrined in international law and denied for far too long. It is a recognition of the historical injustice inflicted upon millions of indigenous Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from their native homes before, during and after the Nakba, as well as a commitment to rectifying this injustice by granting them the opportunity to return to their homeland.
Genocide Denial:
Anyone rejecting the reality of the very real and active genocide in Palestine is not only denying decades of dehumanization and erasure of Palestinians but also turning a blind eye to the blatant systemic oppression documented by reputable institutions.
The Institute of Genocide Studies, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, genocide survivors and even international bodies like the World Court have all recognized credible evidence of genocide — with their statements only corroborated by multiple reputable organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children, Al-Haq and Euro-Med Watch.
”The Lemkin Institute believes that the annihilation of approximately 1% of the total population of the Gaza Strip, which stands at 2.3 million people, including entire generations of Palestinians, and the infliction of “severe bodily” and “mental harm” upon the Palestinian population at large, which will result in the majority suffering life-changing injuries and psychological trauma, taken together with the persistent and pervasive genocidal rhetoric as manifested by Israeli officials, particularly within decision making circles, as well as by segments of Israeli society at large, against the Palestinian group “as such,” amounts to the commission of genocide, as outlined in Article II (a) and (b) of the UNGC and Article 6 (a) and (b) of the Rome Statute.” - The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
”By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel's executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.” - Francesca Albanese, Human Rights Council, 2024
“I am going to bed tonight in full certainty that as I sleep, Israel, a member state of the UN, abetted, armed, and egged on by the US and the other G-7 countries that rule the world, is committing genocide in Gaza” - Jeff Halper, ICAHD, 2023
”The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq, vehemently denounce the initiation of the ground invasion by the Israeli military into eastern Rafah. This egregious act stands as a stark testament to the failure of the international community to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as per their legal obligations, and compel Israel to adhere to the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” - PCHR, Al Mezan, Al-Haq
”The ICJ in its provisional measures order ruled that some of Israel's actions constitute a “plausible claim of genocidal acts”. The international community continues to be bound by their obligations under international humanitarian law, and the ICJ ruling, to ensure Palestinians are protected. Whenever we learn lessons from the past, we resolve to never again let “atrocity crimes” unfold. The test is now right in front of us. Children are being starved while trucks of food are denied access and continued fighting prevent delivery of the little aid coming into Gaza. We are failing that test.” - Save the Children
“After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention.” - University Network For Human Rights
Additional evidence, statements of incitement and information can also be found at:
Apartheid Denial:
Denying the existence of apartheid in Palestine not only disregards decades of overwhelming evidence but also minimizes, perpetuates and attempts to erase the injustice and suffering faced by Palestinians.
The reality of apartheid in Palestine has been extensively documented by reputable organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children, Al-Haq, and Euro-Med Watch. These organizations have highlighted discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that systematically oppress Palestinians, depriving them of basic rights and freedoms.
In fact, the apartheid regime in Palestine is characterized by segregated infrastructure, unequal access to resources and institutionalized discrimination reminiscent of the apartheid era in South Africa. This has only further been consolidated by statements from renowned specialists and institutions, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the United Nations, who have both condemned Israel’s policies as apartheid.
Archbishop Tutu, a renowned anti-apartheid activist, has drawn parallels between the oppression faced by Palestinians and the apartheid regime in South Africa; while the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has expressed concern over Israel’s discriminatory practices and called for an end to apartheid policies like the construction of the apartheid wall for years.
“Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.” - UNESCWA, March 2017
“Israeli authorities have deprived millions of people of their basic rights by virtue of their identity as Palestinians. These longstanding policies and systematic practices box in, dispossess, forcibly separate, marginalize, and otherwise inflict suffering on Palestinians. In the OPT, movement restrictions, land expropriation, forcible transfer, denial of residency and nationality, and the mass suspension of civil rights constitute “inhuman[e] acts” set out under the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute. Under both legal standards, inhumane acts when carried out amid systematic oppression and with the intent to maintain domination make up the crime against humanity of apartheid.” - HRW, 2021
“This is apartheid. Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law. Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.” - Amnesty International, 2022
“The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly condemns Israel’s laws, policies and practices of racial segregation, persecution and apartheid against the indigenous Palestinian population in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and against Palestinian refugees.” - ICJ, 2022
“Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid” - OHCHR, 2022
“The conclusion of this legal opinion is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank. The perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians.” - Yesh Din, June 2020
“The law's distinct apartheid characteristics guarantee Israel’s ethnic-religious character as exclusively Jewish, while anchoring discrimination and racism against Palestinian citizens.” - Adalah, 2020
“This is apartheid.” - ICAHD, 2023
Islamophobia:
This individual has also either engaged in, shared or celebrated Islamophobia by perpetuating particularly egregious and dangerous stereotypes about Muslims, such as labeling them as terrorists and predators, or making baseless and dangerous allegations based on religion.
We condemn this as wholeheartedly as we do anti-semitism, and you should too because, as most of you know, our movement is a space for collective liberation and justice where all individuals are afforded the same freedoms, human rights and liberties as others. We will not stand by as either or any religion is demonized, vilified and misrepresented by the actions of a select few.
For decades, leading political figures and racist factions have tried to equate Islam with terrorism, extremism or criminal behavior, and we reject that notion wholeheartedly. This deceptive claim seeks to demonize and dehumanize Muslims by falsely asserting an intrinsic connection between Islam and violence when this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Islamophobia serves to both ignore and erase the diversity and richness of Islamic beliefs and practices and instead reduces them to dangerous stereotypes that negate the true beauty of Islam. To perpetuate these falsehoods is to perpetuate discrimination and hatred against Muslim communities, endangering their safety and well-being in an already politically charged climate.
If you ever witness any discrimination, bigotry, or racism in any form, we encourage you to always call it out, interrupt it (when safe to do so), and continue supporting your fellow humans in achieving freedom for all.
Supporting the IDF:
The IOF has never been a moral army, let alone the ‘most moral.’ In fact, they originate from larger terrorist groups that reigned terror in Palestine and murdered hundreds and thousands of innocent men, women and children — and continue to do so to this day.
The insidious claim that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) represent the "most moral army in the world" is a blatant affront to the Palestinian people and an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses, war crimes and the brutal suppression of Palestinian nationalism and identity.
This propagandistic myth constitutes an act of violent erasure against the immense suffering and resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of the colonial Zionist project to dispossess and displace them from their ancestral homeland. In reality, the factual record makes a mockery of this "moral army" fallacy.
The IDF and its predecessors have perpetrated horrific massacres against defenseless Palestinian villages like Deir Yassin and Al Dawayima, where women and children were raped, disembowels and burned alive. They have also repeatedly used Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields; despite claiming it’s Hamas who do this.
Furthermore, the IOF have illegally abducted thousands of Palestinian children from their homes, tortured them and then subjected to sham military tribunals - with systemic practices of child abuse, both physical and sexual, carried out by the so-called "most moral army." Any attempt to lionize the IDF as a virtuous force is an abhorrent denial of the lived reality for Palestinians under its military occupation and colonial subjugation. It erases the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of villages in the Nakba, the wanton targeting of civilian areas under the Dahiya Doctrine, the extrajudicial executions of hostages and the myriad other well-documented atrocities and violations of international law committed by Israeli forces over decades.
Those who unquestioningly regurgitate this fallacy align themselves with the historical bloc of colonial powers who have sought to dominate, subjugate, and erase the national and human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. They engage in the same rhetoric once used to justify settler-colonial projects like the Indian Removal Act, the wars of extermination against Native Americans, and other campaigns of ethnic cleansing and land theft prosecuted in the name of racial superiority and "civilizing" missions.
The enduring resilience, struggle, and activism of the Palestinian people against these criminal dehumanizing forces represent the highest moral ground. To condemn them while sanctifying their oppressors is a perverse obfuscation that can only be rooted in ideological discrimination. Any honest examination of the Israeli occupation's practices can only lead to the conclusion that the IDF's conduct has been a moral abomination, a stain upon human conscience that must be unanimously repudiated.
To perpetuate the odious lie of the "most moral army" mythology or to show the IOF support is to align oneself against the hard-won dignity and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people in word and deed. It is to abet injustice, turn a willfully blind eye to atrocity and act as an apologist for a ruthless and unrelenting campaign of ethnic persecution and dispossession in the name of racial supremacy.
It is, in essence, an egregious act of complicity in crimes against humanity and should be condemned as false propaganda at every turn.
Visited Israel or Supported 'Birthright' Trips:
By visiting Israel, individuals actively endorse and support a regime built on systemic oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through settler colonial terrorism. These visitors are complicit in legitimizing and normalizing a brutal apartheid system recognized and condemned by numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, the ICJ, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. [1] [2] [3]
Visitors to Israel tacitly approve severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, land confiscations, home demolitions, and the devastating blockade on Gaza, which has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions. These are not mere allegations but documented realities. The apartheid system privileges Israeli settlers while subjecting Palestinians to systemic discrimination and violence, with segregated roads, military checkpoints, and a separation barrier that fragments Palestinian communities and restricts their freedom. [4] [5] [6]
Tourism economically supports the state, indirectly funding the military occupation and the infrastructure of apartheid, including illegal settlements and state violence. Without acknowledging or engaging with the Palestinian experience, visitors normalize and legitimize these oppressive practices. [7] The financial impact of tourism cannot be understated. [8] Visitors who spend money in Israel bolster the systems of oppression that deny Palestinians their basic human rights. This financial support funds the Israeli military and infrastructure supporting illegal settlements. [9]
Programs like Birthright trips further legitimize the subjugation of Palestinians by promoting a one-sided narrative that erases the realities of occupation and apartheid, falsely presenting Israel as a safe and welcoming homeland for Jews while ignoring Palestinian suffering and dispossession. [10] [11] [12]
Visitors to Israel without a critical perspective are complicit in the violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They lend credibility to a regime widely condemned for its discriminatory practices and human rights violations. By choosing to visit Israel, these individuals endorse a state that systematically violates international law and human rights, contributing to the ongoing suffering and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
Further reading:
Affirming Israel's "right to exist":
The phrase “Israel’s right to exist” is not grounded in international law but functions as a political demand designed to erase and neutralize the foundational violence upon which the Israeli state was established. No country has an enshrined “right to exist” under international law; what is codified, instead, is the right of peoples to self-determination. Yet Palestinians — an indigenous population subject to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid — are uniquely coerced to affirm not just Israel’s existence, but its existence as a Jewish ethnostate. The demand to recognise an illegal state built on the erasure of Palestinians serves a clear colonial function: to reframe a settler-colonial project as a matter of mutual recognition, while masking the dispossession and ongoing subjugation of the native population.
Reaffirming this “right” without condition is not neutral — it is a weaponized narrative that forces the oppressed to validate the conditions of their own oppression. It silences the Nakba, the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948; it ignores the demolition of over 500 villages; it legitimizes the denial of the right of return, a right Palestinians hold under UN Resolution 194. In reality, this dog-whistle turns a settler-colonial enterprise into a moral imperative, requiring Palestinians to grant legitimacy to a state that continues to colonize their land, suffocate Gaza, fragment the West Bank, and implement apartheid policies across all territories it controls.
This language operates as a form of colonial gaslighting by shifting the global discourse from justice, land, and liberation to “recognition,” painting Palestinians as irrational or hostile if they refuse to validate a system structured on their displacement. It allows Israel to demand unconditional acceptance while giving nothing in return — not rights, not reparations, not even a meaningful recognition of the Palestinian people as equals. Internationally, it upholds a model where settler-colonialism is not only protected but sanctified, positioning Israel as eternally under threat while Palestinians are cast as aggressors for simply insisting they too have a right to exist with dignity on their ancestral land.
In this way, the assertion that “Israel has a right to exist” functions not as a principle of peace, but as a discursive tool of imperial domination, maintaining asymmetry and preventing justice. To challenge it is not to deny Jewish safety or personhood — it is to refuse the erasure of a people whose lives, land, and future have been systematically stripped under the banner of legitimacy. True peace cannot be built on the demand that the colonized affirm the righteousness of their own dispossession.
Normalization:
Israel enforces normalization as a fundamental tactic of its settler-colonial regime and apartheid system, compelling the depiction of its occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide as everyday realities while suppressing Palestinian resistance and rights to justice, return, and liberation. Normalization portrays Israel's domination as a legitimate state worthy of standard diplomatic, economic, cultural, and academic engagements, ignoring demands for dismantling oppression and reinforcing Jewish supremacy over Indigenous Palestinian land and people. This strategy is egregious because it whitewashes the continuous Nakba, land expropriation, and systemic violence, isolating Palestinians and bolstering settler colonialism by undermining international solidarity and legitimizing illegal expansions that perpetuate genocide. [1]
Through diplomatic channels, Israel advances normalization via agreements like the 2020 Abraham Accords with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, forging full relations without mandating an end to occupation or apartheid. These pacts favor economic and security benefits for authoritarian leaders while forsaking Palestinian self-determination, directly sustaining settler violence by allowing unchecked settlement growth, home demolitions, and refugee denial amid increasing trade and tourism. Such normalization is harmful as it fragments Palestinian society, deepens territorial apartheid, and obstructs land returns, contributing to ethnic cleansing by normalizing the oppressor-oppressed dynamic without addressing root injustices. [2] [3]
Culturally and environmentally, Israel promotes "eco-normalization" through entities like the JNF, using tree-planting over razed villages to frame dispossession as advancement. Academically and artistically, collaborative projects often impose false equivalence between occupier and occupied, disregarding underlying oppression. This is egregious because it colonizes minds by presenting apartheid as inevitable, supporting occupation through deceptive coexistence narratives that erode resistance and enable further genocide, as seen in events that cover up root causes without pursuing justice. [4] [5]
The Palestinian-led BDS movement rejects normalization as complicity in oppression, mandating that joint activities with Israelis recognize Palestinian rights and focus on co-resistance against occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid. Normalization activities, such as festivals or conferences portraying symmetry, are boycottable for being morally reprehensible and intellectually dishonest, perpetuating false premises of equal responsibility. By isolating Palestinians and validating Israel's actions, normalization sustains settler-colonial violence, allowing expansion of illegal settlements and denial of basic rights while fragmenting global opposition. [6]
Normalization undermines the Palestinian struggle by treating Israel's regime as normal, countering anti-colonial efforts like BDS that draw from South African anti-apartheid precedents. It decolonizes minds from hegemonic attempts to accept colonialism, emphasizing that genuine relations require dismantling structures of domination first. This tactic is appalling as it reinforces genocide by whitewashing oppression under slogans of peace, contributing to ethnic cleansing through economic ties that fund military occupation and displace communities. [7] [8]
Human rights analyses confirm that such international engagements maintain apartheid by failing to address crimes like dispossession and persecution, allowing Israel to evade accountability. Normalization isolates the oppressed, portraying resistance as abnormal while entrenching settler privileges, as evidenced in Arab-Israeli projects that ignore Palestinian rights. Ultimately, it perpetuates a colonial order where occupation becomes routine, demanding rejection to achieve liberation and end the ongoing Nakba. [10]
Tell us why Steve Ciobo should be removed by emailing us at [email protected]