“Know yourself”, advised the ancient Oracle of Delphi. For if we lack the courage to be honest about ourselves as individuals, nations, and as a human race, then we are entirely unprepared for an unforgiving reality ahead.

The violent anti-Israel protest in Melbourne two weeks ago was highly instructive in terms of the state of Australia and the current debate on national security.

In many ways it clearly displayed human nature and our need for both national cohesion and a plan for national defence. The protest was ostensibly for peace in the Middle East. It was a protest against violence and bloodshed. And yet within only a couple of hours many of the peace protesters themselves became violent and shedders of blood.

Police officers who have dedicated their lives to protecting fellow citizens were savagely ass­aulted with rocks, bottles and acid, not to mention urine and horse manure.

Police Association of Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said some officers in hospital testified they had “never in their careers … confronted more violence” than they did at the hands of these “peace” activists.

Then there was the abuse of animals, with police horses having an irritant squirted up their nostrils. If anyone was to commit such a deed to a horse at any other time they’d be condemned for animal cruelty. But apparently cruelty against ­animals is fine if it’s in the cause of peace.

We must also address what has animated much of the apparent concern for Palestinian Muslims over the past year.

Muslims residing in China, known as Uyghurs, have been subject to torture, forced sterilisation, murder, and removal to concentration camps for decades now. Muslims have been slaughtered en masse in Myanmar and India.

More than 300,000 ­Syrians were killed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in his crackdown on democracy, the overwhelming majority of whom were fellow Muslims, who make up around 90 per cent of the population.

Yemen is 99 per cent Muslim, and in the civil war, also involving Saudi Arabia and Iran, more than 377,000 Muslims have died, with millions more displaced. The overwhelming majority of Muslims killed in recent years have been killed by other Muslims.

Who remembers a single protest on the streets of Australia over the past 10 years for these Muslim lives? It seems that it’s not really the fact that thousands of Muslims are being killed in Gaza that’s the problem for protesters; it’s that they are being killed by Jews.

As seen in the post-October 7 protests around Australia, a vicious tribalism has emerged in this country, undoubtedly caused by a range of things, including irresponsible immigration and irresponsible universities that have allowed rabid anti-Israel prejudice to fester in their humanities departments for decades. In this respect, the radical secular left has found a cosy bedfellow with Islamic Jew hatred.

There is a Solzhenitsynian lesson in realism here, especially to be learned by those sympathetic with left-wing peace movements but who would not themselves resort to violence. As the Russian seer said, “The line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart.” The potential for prejudice, cruelty and violence resides in every human heart, even those who make a display of standing against prejudice, cruelty and violence.

The challenges Australia faces from within and without require not simply intelligent leadership, but courageous, moral leadership. Our leaders must make two things issues of national priority. The cultivation of national unity and patriotism, and the pursuit of international security through military strength and strategic alliances.

In the midst of WWII, Robert Menzies warned us that, “There can be no passionate patriotism or willing self-sacrifice unless we know … we are fighting for good things.” Australia recently rose against the challenge of division by voting No to the voice referendum. The so-called voice to parliament would have done little more than fan the flames of national division and anger, as well as been a distraction from real Indigenous suffering. What the referendum showed is that Australia may not be hopelessly divided. That is, beneath the culture wars and the increasingly evident ethnic fissures there is a broad sense of Australianness and a desire for deep unity. Much as John Howard cultivated a sense of Australian unity and pride by reinvigorating the ANZAC heritage and civics education, so we need political leaders to bravely cultivate Australian unity and pride again.

I say “bravely” because any leader who goes down this path will be, like Howard, confronted by a barrage of ­accusations of racism, jingoism, and historical denialism from the Labor left, journalists, the ABC, the Greens, and outraged humanities academics.

Indeed, universities are some of the most prolific contributors to this hatred of Australia and recent ugly anti-Israel, Jew-hating tribalism. It’s hard to believe that children can be led to chant “Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!” on the Sydney University campus without any objection from its leadership. Would they have been so accommodating if those children were told of the thousands of Christians being slaughtered by Muslims in Africa, and then led to chant “Crusade! Crusade! Crusade!”?

Apparently, encouraging children to chant “Intifada” on the Sydney University campus is fine, but establishing the Ramsay Centre for the Study of Western Civilisation is racist and dangerous. Such is the twisted logic of so many in ­academia.

Much as individuals and crowds have the capacity for violence, even those who define themselves as peace-seeking, so can states, as history testifies. As John Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato point out in their book How States Think, unlike life in a well-ordered country like Australia, “uncertainty is the defining feature of international politics”. If those who are bent on peace in a safe and ordered society like Australia will not hesitate to use violence, how much more will those bent on conquest, or simply national self-interest in a world in which, to quote Carl von Clausewitz, “all information and assumptions are open to doubt”?

Australia lies in a potential theatre of war as China becomes increasingly assertive and the world over the past four years has become increasingly dangerous. Australia must be a part of what the American security expert Elbridge Colby calls a “strategy of denial”: an Asian-American alliance to dissuade and contain Chinese expansion.

But this means Australia must have something to offer, namely military might, and a population unified and patriotic enough to be willing to mobilise. Countries will not risk their soldiers for us if we lack the military hardware and personnel to fight for them in turn.

To return to the Delphic Oracle, knowing ourselves means, as Solzhenitsyn said, knowing that we as individuals and collectives are capable of the very crimes and sins of which we so self-righteously accuse others. The protests against alleged Israeli atrocities, protests that themselves turned violent – not to mention their glorification of terrorism – demonstrated this uncomfortable reality. But this must lead us to recognise that we live in a world that is dangerous, not to mention a region with the only global actor with the capacity to rival our closest ally the US.

The instability globally – and, to some extent, nationally over the past 12 months – calls for courageous leadership that recognises the need for military strength, and for a level of national unity that may itself function as a disincentive for other nations to behave aggressively towards us.

These are two major projects that we all – not just our governments – must play a major role in. The defeat of the voice referendum shows that a large deposit of national pride and unity still exists. It only awaits leaders, educators and citizens at large with the courage to cultivate it again.

John Anderson was deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party, 1999-2005.