Critics miss their opportunity
THE recent campaign to pressure Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call off her visit to Israel says much more about the people behind it than it does about Israel. The great irony is that the campaign also represents a missed opportunity for these critics to lobby for genuine progress in the Middle East. First there was the motive -— to deligitimise Israel for its attacks on Gaza at the end of last year. "We consider this trip a dreadful affront to the many Palestinians left maimed, wounded, traumatised and homeless by Israel's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip in late 08/early 09," stated a petition signed by 170 "eminent Australians".
MICHAEL VISONTAY
THE recent campaign to pressure Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call off her visit to Israel says much more about the people behind it than it does about Israel. The great irony is that the campaign also represents a missed opportunity for these critics to lobby for genuine progress in the Middle East. First there was the motive -— to deligitimise Israel for its attacks on Gaza at the end of last year. “We consider this trip a dreadful affront to the many Palestinians left maimed, wounded, traumatised and homeless by Israel’s devastating assault on the Gaza Strip in late 08/early 09,” stated a petition signed by 170 “eminent Australians”.
“Every parliamentarian ought to think seriously about the moral implications of Australia normalising relations with a state that is still under investigation for war crimes committed during Israel’s Cast Lead Operation,” the petition further read. It is true that Israel is being investigated, under UN auspices by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, for possible war crimes. But it is also true that Hamas, which fired rocket into Israel and provoked the assault, is also being investigated for possible war crimes by Goldstone. Neither of these two facts were acknowledged in the petition.
There has been ongoing criticism of the visit, with some politicians labelling the two-day dialogue, organised by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, as nothing more than a privately funded public relations exercise for Israel. This ignores the fact that Gillard will be visiting Ramallah and meeting leaders of the Palestinian Authority. Strange, too, that these same critics have not circulated any similar petitions ahead of the annual Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, now running for 16 years.
One year ago, Gillard attended this event in Washington, and nobody batted an eyelid. At the time, the US administration led by George W Bush was still running the Guantanamo Bay detention facility where terrible human rights abuses, were a documented occurrence. Cultural visits like this go on all the time between countries and their political and business leaders. The whole point of dialogue is to strengthen the ability to communicate and speak candidly when it’s necessary, and to build up a reservoir of understanding, common interest and goodwill. Which leads on to the missed opportunity I mentioned at the beginning.
The foreign policy announcement last week by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Israel would recognise a Palestinian state was a major step forward. But the conditions he attached to this recognition made his concession virtually academic. In particular, to say a Palestinian state would have to be demilitarised is to deprive it of the very rights that Israel has constantly asserted during years of suicide and rocket attacks: the right to defend itself and its citizens. Naturally, given the history of violence between the two peoples, the Israeli government is wary. But how could Netanyahu possibly expect Palestinian leaders, and people, to accept such shackles on their statehood? Nor should they.
Here is a fresh and important issue, which the Australian politicians should raise with their Israeli counterparts during this visit.
If the signatories of the petition really want to advance the cause of the Palestinian people, they would be better off attempting to persuade Gillard, and other Australian politicians, to talk to their Israeli counterparts about the wisdom of these caveats on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Prior to Netanyahu’s speech, Gillard described the dialogue as “an important new initiative”.
That was before there was something genuinely new and substantive to talk about. In the end, the coincidence of this trip and Netanyahu’s speech vindicates the whole idea behind the visit: the opportunity to speak openly about important issues of mutual interest. You can’t do that from the other side of the world, no matter how many people sign your petition.
Michael Visontay is a lecturer in journalism at the University of NSW.
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