Gillard calls for an honest friendship

 

NAOMI LEVIN

IN her keynote address to the inaugural Australia-Israel Leadership Forum on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard extolled the virtues of honesty within friendships.¬†Speaking in Jerusalem, she told the audience, “the root of true friendship is honesty”.¬†”We should be honest about the difficulty of achieving a just and lasting settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Gillard said. “We should be honest about where we all fail to live up to our ideals.”

Gillard, who is visiting Israel for the second time, refrained from making sweeping policy statements or politically charged remarks, choosing instead to emphasise the importance of dialogue.¬†She said conversation was “the true root of democratic freedom”.¬†”While I have been privileged in recent days to speak with individuals who play a global role, we know that the choices and options available to leaders actually depend on a different kind of conversation,” she said.

“A conversation that is happening in cafes and at school gates, in churches, mosques and synagogues, around dinner tables, in front of television screens and behind closed doors, between teachers and students and across the internet.”¬†She spoke of Australia’s support and friendship with Israel and said the leadership forum, which she and other parliamentarians were participating in, would further develop country-to-country links.”Our friendship has blossomed in so many different ways,” she said.

The Fairfax press reported on Wednesday that Isaac Herzog, the head the Israel-Australia parliamentary friendship group, expressed the Israeli Government’s gratitude to Gillard.¬†”You stood almost alone on the world stage in support of Israel’s right to defend itself,” Herzog said in reference to Gillard’s strong language of support for Israel during the conflict in Gaza in January.

While in Israel, Gillard visited Yad Vashem. She became the first member of the Rudd Government to meet new Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and also held talks with President Shimon Peres, Defence Minister and Labor leader Ehud Barak, as well as senior members of the Palestinian Authority.¬†”We know that nobody has a complete solution to offer. But I know that the possibility of a solution will be strengthened by commitment to fresh engagement and open exploration of the way forward,” she said before her meetings.