Jewish principal attacks Kooyong MP for Israel-Hamas post

Kooyong Independent MP Monique Ryan has defended her position on the war between Israel and Hamas after the principal of a prominent Jewish school in her electorate published a letter calling it ‘unacceptable’ that Israel’s suffering was not mentioned in the post on the Blue Green MP’s social media calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Ryan wrote: “We have no greater responsibility than protecting our children. As a pediatrician, I find the human suffering in Gaza unbearable.

“I join my medical colleagues around the world in calling for a humanitarian pause so that aid can reach those in desperate need.”

On Thursday, Jeremy Stowe-Lindner, president of Bialik College, said her “use of the word ‘intolerable’ is appropriate – the blindness of the apparently ethical to the suffering of one side is indeed intolerable.”

“(U)n reference to the suffering alone in Gaza is unacceptable,” Stowe-Lindner wrote in a letter to Ryan.

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“Perhaps a reference to the unbearable suffering of the families of 1,400 Israeli citizens who were murdered, raped and beheaded on October 7 would also be appropriate?”

But Ryan dismissed the director’s two-page statement, saying it misrepresented her positions taken publicly after Hamas’s first attacks last month.

“As I said in Parliament, I unequivocally condemn Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, I call for the release of the hostages and I reject anti-Semitism in the strongest possible terms,” Ryan said in a statement Thursday evening.