Daphne Anson: "Joining In The Popular Kicking Of Israel Is Not a Sign Of Moral Courage"

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday, 10 March 2013

"Joining In The Popular Kicking Of Israel Is Not a Sign Of Moral Courage"

" Israel is Australia's friend and ally. The Labor Party used to know this and care about it. Joining in the popular kicking of Israel is not a sign of moral courage, though it will win plaudits from the usual suspects at the UN and in conventional international relations think tanks.

But it is an immoral position that betrays fundamental political, moral and ethical values that Labor used to understand pretty well."

So writes Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, who's long been a staunch supporter of Israel, in his column of 9 March, which argues that the Zygier affair "brings to the fore the strange pathologies in Australian opinion concerning Israel. It also underlines how badly the Labor government has gone off course in its conception of Israel, and Israel's place in the world" and claims that former Minister for Foreign Affair Kevin Rudd and current incumbent of that post Bob Carr are responsible, along with the still baneful influence of an earlier holder of the office, Gareth Evans, and the mindset that believes,with ex-President Jimmy Carter, that

"The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with."

Observes Sheridan:

'Last year in a cabinet revolt, Julia Gillard was overridden on a key UN vote. Australia was set to vote no to elevating the status of the Palestinian Authority to an observer state at the UN. Carr and Rudd opposed Gillard's position (though Rudd was not a player in this vote). Under the baleful influence of [then Minister for Foreign Affairs] Gareth Evans, a tremendously negative force on contemporary Labor foreign policy who offers only a bureaucratic version of conventional wisdom (and conventional wisdom is often wrong), Canberra changed its vote and abstained.

In its own terms, this was a very bad move. There will never be a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute until both sides compromise over an agreement. This UN move, along with many tens of millions of dollars of increased Australian aid to the Palestinians, gives them something for nothing. It helps convince the Palestinian leadership that the way to success doesn't involve compromise and negotiation. Instead the international community will do their job for them. It is a destructive syndrome.

Then, in the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting in January, Carr ratcheted up Australia's rhetoric on Israel. For the first time, his office briefed journalists, Canberra was describing all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. Also, we were calling on President Barack Obama to lead a new peace effort on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

To simply call all Israeli settlements illegal is simplistic, reductionist, almost childish. It jumbles together in one category Jewish suburbs of East Jerusalem, large settlement blocks envisaged under every serious negotiation as staying with Israel, and those settlements illegal under Israeli law. It fails to recognise that there has been no physical expansion of settlement territory since 2004, that settlements occupy less than 3 per cent of the West Bank, that any settlement territory kept by Israel will be matched by land given to a Palestinian state from Israel proper and that settlements have never before been an obstacle to negotiations. Australia's position is also wrong in international law. Jordan, which formerly controlled the territory, is not the sovereign power and UN Security Council resolutions require a negotiated outcome.

But why take this position at all, except to kick sand in the Israelis' eyes? China claims all of the South China Sea almost right up to the Philippines shore, yet Canberra maintains a strict neutrality. If Israel is a friend, why the gratuitous aggro?' [Emphasis added here and below]

Sheridan points to the current unrest in countries bordering Israel, and how that renders demands that Israel urgently seeks peae with the Palestinians unfair and unrealistic:

'At the moment, Syria does not exist as a nation ... its army has abandoned the border regions with Israel. Egypt is in terrible internal turmoil. Its army has effectively lost control of the vast Sinai area that borders Israel. No one can know what its future government will be like. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. The Palestinian leadership is murderously divided between the West Bank and Gaza. Surely it is intellectually fraudulent to imagine that any Israeli government could make a comprehensive peace in this context.

Underlying this is the cardinal doctrine of conventional wisdom among Guardian readers, UN habitues, European think tank staff and the like, and that is the implausible notion Israel is at the heart of Middle East disputes and the West's troubles with Islam....

Just because an idea is widely uttered at the UN doesn't mean it embodies any reality...."

The entire article is available here

3 comments:

Rita10 March 2013 at 22:29
"It's no secret I admire Rudd and Carr." writes Greg Sheridan. I respect Mr Sheridan, but I do not share his admiration.

Both Rudd and Carr have been embarassing in their courtship of the UN and do "whatever it takes" (to quote a famous Labor man) to park their derriere on a seat at the (in my view discredited) UN security council.

Rudd, during his election campaign in 2007 promised the Australian Jewish community that he would take Ahmadinejad on legally (in an international court) for his threats etc. towards the Jews. As soon as he had won the election, and while his Australian Primeministership still enjoyed a great honeymoon and he had as much power as any Prime Minister will have, he followed this Iranian wannabe Hitler, meekly, on the platform at the UN, far from showing him the cold shoulder, quite the contrary.

As to Bob Carr, all his pronouncements about the Jews (sorry "Israel"), plus his canvassing voices in his government for a vote against Israel at the UN (because that was what the cowardly Australian "Abstention" really meant, made me come to the personal conclusion that he simply doesn't like Jews very much.

And I dont like him very much.

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Rita11 March 2013 at 09:26
"If only John Howard could be cloned! A great PM and friend of Israel."

And not just a "good weather friend" either. One of the few redeeming features I found in our present Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was her soi-disant "unwavering" support for Israel. Well, once Bob Carr, the FM appointed by her, started his work, this support wavered pretty fast.
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