I have two homelands; right now, Australia is complicit in hurting the other
Two lineages meet within me. One is rooted here: my mother’s Anglo-Australian family. The other flows from Lebanon: my father’s side. Where they meet, memory carries both survival and loss, writes Rita Jabri Markwell.
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I spend my time tracing the unseen threads that bind nations to their deeds.
I’ve followed the pathways that entangle a distant country like Australia in the suffering of others.
I’ve watched Australia cast long shadows beyond its shores—through fighter jet components, weapons parts, and military intelligence.
There’s the Pine Gap joint facility with the United States on Australian soil—never explained by our government. There’s the Wedgetail spy plane in the skies of West Asia, proudly feeding intelligence into U.S. and Israeli war machinery. And beside this witnessing, I have walked with those who seek to draw lines in the sand that even power must not cross, and to challenge the storytellers who dress hatred in the garments of truth.
This work didn’t begin in the past two years. It runs deeper—where two lineages meet within me. One is rooted here: my mother’s Anglo-Australian family. The other flows from Lebanon: my father’s side. Where they meet, memory carries both survival and loss.
I cannot accept that one half of me contributes to the suffering of the other. I have been uplifted to learn that many Australians from diverse lineages share this feeling. War was never distant in my childhood. I was born in France and raised mostly in Australia, but war lived in the stories my father carried from Lebanon’s civil war, and in my parents’ footsteps as they marched for a homeland under siege. I learned early that history is not passive—it shapes us, and asks something in return.
As an adult, I worked in First Nations justice, which eventually brought me to Parliament House. But I grew disillusioned with those halls of power, where consequences are managed rather than prevented. I turned instead toward Lebanon and crossed into Syria before its skies were torn open. I saw cities that held centuries like breath in their lungs.
Today, Lebanon stands again on the edge. Some voices call for alignment with the United States and Israel, promising safety through submission. Others hear something else in that promise: betrayal, expulsion, and genocide.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon are not new. They form a pattern—1948, 1978, 1982, 2006. Each time, destruction leaves deeper scars. Each time, resistance grows. Hezbollah emerged in the 1980s within that cycle. Australia now labels it a terrorist organisation. I reject adopting that language, especially when it erases the context of occupation and self-defence. Any crimes done by a party to conflict are war crimes, not terrorism.
At the same time, our government repeats that Israel has a right to defend itself, while describing the massacres of Palestinian and Lebanese as “regretted” without naming or condemning them. After decades of loss, the promise that surrender brings peace rings hollow.
Lebanon is a beautiful mosaic of sects and communities. Yes, there are those running campaigns to spread distrust along sectarian lines. Many fear that if military defeat fails, external powers will try to fracture the country from within. Division makes a nation easier to control. But Lebanon also carries a collective memory of civil war and a deep reluctance to relive it.
Still, the devastation is immense.
“We are seeing increasing and widespread displacement, with families in desperate need of essential food and medical care. More than one million people have already fled their homes, including over 200,000 children,” says Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, announcing $5 million in aid. I would rather a consequence be applied to the perpetrator to deter them, but that is too much for our government and all those before them.
ABC News reports of a bleak future for Lebanon, of the scores of entire families, schools, hospitals and villages wiped out by Israeli bombs. Reports of Israel spreading illegal white phosphorus again through the skies, of deep burn injuries that don’t heal, of children carrying those wounds for life. They did this before in 2024 and faced no consequence from our government.
Israel now speaks of a “buffer zone”—in practice, an occupation and kill zone, where returning civilians are shot dead. Land becomes occupied; resources will be extracted, including gas beneath the seafloor.
Distance offers no relief for those tied to that land by memory. Lebanon’s army cannot match Israel militarily. In that reality, Hezbollah remains effectively the only deterrent against an invasion that Israel has long planned.
Australia calls for Lebanese sovereignty while insisting Hezbollah disarm. The contradiction is obvious. What does sovereignty mean without the means to defend it?
Iran enters here as a key supporter of resistance, particularly as other regional governments remain constrained or silent. Yet Australia frames Iran solely as a sponsor of terrorism, aligning closely with U.S. and Israeli positions.
In 2025, new laws expanded that designation, despite already heavy sanctions. These moves raise practical and legal questions—for example, how Australia would handle scenarios involving the Strait of Hormuz if it had to pay a toll.
Australia has chosen a side—supplying components and intelligence—while claiming neutrality. That contradiction feels deliberate. I’ve started documenting this with others, trying to make sense of the scale of denial and dehumanisation.
When asked how it will protect the 15,000 Australians in Lebanon, the government points to a consular website. At the same time, it deploys military assets—spy planes and missiles to support those bombing them—while claiming they exist to protect Australians abroad.
Meanwhile, Palestinians continue to endure immense suffering without meaningful consequences for those responsible. Australian institutions—public funds, superannuation, government contracts—profit from that suffering.
These choices now hurt people’s survival here, too. When the government does criticise Israel’s ceasefire violations, it reflects concerns about the domestic impacts—especially fuel disruptions linked to the Strait of Hormuz. It’s sad, but international law has no meaning - our country has to be held to ransom by Iran to call out atrocities by its allies.
This pattern of behaviour from our leaders extends beyond war. It appears in domestic policy too—in unmet needs, deferred dignity, and harms acknowledged but not resolved. Again and again, human suffering is weighed against what industry wants.
Still, Lebanon endures. It is a land where mountains rise sharply from the sea, where valleys hold life, and ancient trees witness passing centuries. It is mornings scented with sweetness, tables where food is shared as care, epic music that lifts the spirit, and pain shaped into beautiful poetry.
Dad is now a granddad (jiddu). He makes ashta pancakes in the morning, buys us knafeh and lady’s arms (sweets), and shares Arab musical classics on WhatsApp to carry the family and me forward. I am learning to hold the ocean of grief that he held before me, and that is now filling with what my eyes see and my ears hear. I am learning to hold that grief without losing the softness of my heart.
Empires have passed through Lebanon, believing they would last forever. None did. And here in Australia, we face our own struggles with power, identity, and responsibility. Visiting the Cherbourg Ration Shed Museum yesterday, I learned about Queensland’s own history of racial apartheid. Beyond all the pain, shame and anger, let us never forget we still have each other—and a country worth defending from “status quo” political parties.
About the author
Rita Jabri Markwell
Rita is a Muslim solicitor and policy strategist at Birchgrove Legal, working across not-for-profit, employment, and human rights law. A Lebanese-Anglo mix with family roots in Beirut and regional Australia, Rita grew up swimming near the Great Barrier Reef thanks to her lighthouse keeper uncle. She’s worked with Aboriginal and Stolen Generations advocates in and outside parliament, including on the National Apology.
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