Editorial (October 23, 2009)
A place among the nations
HOW is it that a small nation, whose historical right to its homeland was recognised by international consensus at the beginning of [last] century, now finds the legitimacy of that commitment scorned and eroded?”
That sentiment, referring to Israel, was written more than 15 years ago as part of the publisher’s synopsis of a young Binyamin Netanyahu’s book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whose name is also lent to this editorial’s title.
The question is as pertinent today as it was then. Today, Netanyahu, now prime minister twice over, is grappling with the dilemma of how to lead Israel through fresh challenges to its legitimacy.
In Israel’s view, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s endorsement of the Goldstone Commission Report on the Gaza war strikes at the heart of its sovereign right to defend itself against attack.
As if Israel did not have enough to deal with, a recent breakdown in relations with Turkey now threatens the strategic balance of the region. Turkey’s antagonistic gestures towards Israel have been accompanied by equally troubling accords with Syria and overtures to Iran.
Taken together, there is little doubt that Israel is in peril of creeping down the slippery slope towards international isolation.
But what can we do about it here in Australia? Quite a lot, actually. Israeli political analysts have suggested that those parties working to isolate Israel, in addition to those who listen to them, don’t do it because they are unfamiliar with the facts, but because they choose to disregard them.
In other words, beyond the act of explaining itself and disseminating the facts, Israel is fighting a war of perception in the world media.
Israel’s Australian friends must take this battle home and continue to speak out intelligently and constructively in the face of those who seek to tarnish the perception of Israel and its actions.
It’s a battle that can be won, precisely because Israel’s very establishment was a recognition of the Jewish right to a homeland. As a sovereign nation, it has earned its right to a place among the nations, to act in self-defence as every country must, and to take its seat among the peace-loving, open and democratic societies that represent the best the world has to offer.
Talking to Iran
AUSTRALIA as a middle power occasionally has some input into the Middle East beyond its United Nations voting strategies. It is sometimes viewed as a power broker whose lower profile can be useful in achieving breakthroughs that appear beyond the ability of the United States and the European powers.
A case in point was last week’s revelation that the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, an organisation set up by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, had hosted an encounter between Israeli and Iranian officials in Cairo only days after Teheran revealed its crucial second uranium enrichment plant.
As an Australian initiative on Iran, it sounds far more considered than Rudd’s 2007 election campaign promise to take the country’s belligerent, Holocaust-denying leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the International Court of Justice on charges of inciting genocide, a plan which has since been abandoned.
Contact between Israel and Iran is seldom, and no formal links have existed since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. So the idea of Israeli and Iranian officials sitting face-to-face is a novel one.
But even then, it begs the question of what exactly there is to talk about.
More broadly, negotiating with Iran, an aim the current US Administration seems firmly focused on, has resulted in an ongoing process that is slow and murky. Given Iran’s nuclear timetable, it is an indulgence for which there is alarmingly little time.
The three-day Cairo meeting, which included officials from Jordan, Egypt and Turkey, also canvassed the prospect of a nuclear-free Middle East.
Although Israel has never formally disclosed any nuclear status, it is arguably the only nuclear power in the immediate region, and Iran is in the final stages of becoming one.
While ridding the world of nuclear weapons is an admirable pursuit, the first priority should be stabilising the Iranian threat.
Creating a space in which world powers can talk with Iran is not necessarily a bad thing, if only so that it can later be said it was tried.
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