Trump puts Israel on top shelf

Any doubt about what Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office signals for the Middle East crisis has been given a swift answer with the announcement Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader welcomed to the White House since Joe Biden’s departure. No less significant, however, was the Trump administration’s action at the UN on Wednesday when, amid furore in the Security Council, it upended Joe Biden’s longstanding support for the work of the controversial UNRWA Palestinian aid agency. Instead, Mr Trump has given full-throated backing to Israel’s “sovereign right” to bar the UNRWA from working in the Jewish state.

UN officials claim the Israeli move – in response to evidence Hamas-supporting UNRWA employees, their salaries paid by international donors, played an active part in the October 7, 2023 slaughter of 1200 Jews, and hundreds more are terrorist sympathisers – will “cripple” the work of what has, for decades, been the primary provider of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The UNRWA has also claimed to be the “backbone” of the global humanitarian response to the Gaza war.

When Israel first announced its intention to ban the UNRWA last November, Foreign Minister Penny Wong denounced the decision, insisting that, contrary to Israel’s condemnation, it “does life-saving work … Australia opposes the Israeli decision … Australia again calls on Israel to comply with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale in Gaza”.

Together with its invitation to Mr Netanyahu, the Trump White House’s support for the Israeli ban amplifies just how deep the divide is now between the new US administration and the Albanese government when it comes to Israel and the Gaza war. While Mr Biden was president, Anthony Albanese and Senator Wong could claim with some justification that they were working in sync with Washington, despite their failure to support the US opposition to Palestinian statehood at the UN. But whatever alignment there was under Mr Biden clearly no longer exists, and it will be a pity if Mr Albanese and Senator Wong fail to understand the significance of both the White House’s invitation to Mr Netanyahu and the US’s changed stance on the UNRWA.

When Mr Biden began his term, it was then Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga who got the nod to be the first foreign leader to visit. That Mr Netanyahu has the highly significant honour now, despite the arrest warrant against him issued by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes, should leave Mr Albanese and Senator Wong in no doubt what the change in the White House means.

Australia was among the first countries to restore funding to the UNRWA after details of the involvement of Hamas workers in the October 7 bloodbath emerged. The UN agency’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, claimed in the Security Council on Wednesday that since October 2023 it has provided two-thirds of all the food aid given to Palestinians, given shelter to over a million displaced people, and vaccinated a quarter of a million people against polio. That’s all very well. But the Trump White House’s support for Israel’s “sovereign right” to ban its operations shows the UNRWA still has a long way to go before it will overcome the massive damage done to it by its own Hamas terrorist employees.