Mundine hits out at Labor grandees
Former Australian Labor Party (ALP) president and Aboriginal leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine has hit out at the Labor leaders who called for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
FORMER Australian Labor Party (ALP) president and Aboriginal leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine has hit out at the Labor leaders who called for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Writing this week in The AJN and the Australian Financial Review, Mundine describes Jews as Israel’s “first peoples who lived there for millennia before Arab colonisation” and expresses his disappointment that during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, Labor luminaries Bob Hawke, Kevin Rudd and Gareth Evans called on Australia to formally recognise a Palestinian state.
“Symbolic recognition of a state when none exists is a hollow gesture that doesn’t confront the elephant in the room: Palestinian leadership doesn’t really support a two-state solution,” Mundine wrote.
“Likewise, most Arab nations. They won’t recognise Israel’s right to exist.”
He said that the Palestinian leadership baulks at supporting a Jewish state. “This intransigence has repeatedly stood in the way of statehood and weakened the Palestinian position. If not overcome, there will never be a Palestinian state.”
Speaking to The AJN on Wednesday, Mundine, who is chairman and managing director of Nyungga Black Group, explained that he has been interested in the Middle East since he was a child.
“I just find it amazing, and I was discussing this with my wife today, that the Jewish people have such strong emotions about this subject because they really care.
“On the other hand, some people simply have a blind eye to the reality and what is happening on the ground.”
He said that “there is too much bulls**t in this space” and that the former Labor leaders are simply playing politics.
“They are trying to get the Muslim community on side in some of the electorates in Sydney and Melbourne – there is no doubt about that in my mind,” he said.
“Commonsense needs to prevail. The track record is that the Israelis pulled out of southern Lebanon and went to war with Hezbollah, they got out of Gaza and now face Hamas, they pulled out of the Sinai and now Egypt is fighting a war against ISIS subsidiary groups.
“Why would you expect Israelis to wake up tomorrow and leave the West Bank?”
Mundine also questioned why politicians have unrealistic expectations of Israel.
“If your neighbour continues to throw rocks through your window, like the Palestinians continue to attack Israel, and your neighbours don’t accept that you live next door, then what do you expect?”
JOSHUA LEVI
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