Labor kicks Israel to the kerb to save its political skin

Foreign Minister Penny Wong faces the media in Auckland on Friday. The shift in Australia’s approach towards Israel from friend to foe has been rapid and dramatic, and was not foreshadowed by Labor at the 2022 election. Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images).

The Albanese Labor government is engaged in a sustained campaign to actively downgrade and harm Australia’s relationship with Israel.

This campaign is being driven by local domestic political calculations. It is reckless regarding Australia’s national interests. It is fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in Australia. And it does nothing whatsoever to advance the cause of a durable peace in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Australia reversed a long-held position and voted for a UN General Assembly resolution that seeks to impose a territorial settlement on Israel.

Like most UN resolutions, it is an entirely one-sided document. It does not call for the release of hostages still held.

It does not demand that Hamas be marginalised or that the Palestinian Authority become a partner for peace rather than cheering on terrorism.

For more than 20 years, Australia has voted against or abstained on this resolution. Until now, this had been a bipartisan position. This is because we recognised that a resolution that imposed demands on Israel only, while giving the Palestinian side a free pass and ignoring Israel’s obvious security concerns, did nothing to advance the cause of peace.

But this is simply the latest in a series of gestures by this Labor government to actively position Australia as hostile towards Israel.

Last month the government denied a visa to a former Israeli cabinet minister proposing to visit Australia for an academic conference. The Israeli ambassador was summoned earlier in the year to be warned that Australia would not support Israel in responding to continued rocket attacks from Hezbollah.

Labor has failed to criticise the shameful overreach by the International Criminal Court of its own jurisdictional limits.

And it has put an effective stop on military exports to Israel, including for equipment that can be used only in self-defence.

The shift in Australia’s approach towards Israel from friend to foe has been rapid and dramatic, but it was never foreshadowed by Labor at the 2022 election.

At that time, Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong sought to reassure the public that it would be a mainstream Labor government on the issues of the Middle East.

Cabinet minister Ed Husic revealed the driving motivation behind Labor’s change in policies when he pleaded with his constituents earlier in the week not to vote in “anger” against Labor, and spruiked the government’s “advocacy” for Palestinian sovereignty.

Fearful of electoral backlash for maintaining a principled and bipartisan approach towards issues in the Middle East, Labor under the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister is now replicating the extremism of Jeremy Corbyn’s British Labour in an attempt to shore up votes and stave off the Greens.

Labor’s subordination of Australia’s foreign policy to its own domestic political imperatives is damaging our national interests.

The only fundamental fact that has changed in the Middle East this past year is Hamas’s murderous October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and a campaign of aggression waged against Israel from Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis in Yemen.

Labor’s shift towards hostility to Israel in the wake of these assaults can be interpreted only as a reward for such aggression. It is a morally bankrupt position for a country that has traditionally been a defender of international order.

Australia’s close security, defence and intelligence co-operation with Israel has helped protect Australian interests, including against domestic security threats and terrorist plots. By going out of its way to damage our relationship with Israel, Labor has shown it is willing to jettison this important security asset in pursuit of domestic political advantage.

Joining the anti-Israel chorus at the UN and adding to Israel’s international isolation is not going to further the cause of peace in the Middle East, despite Wong’s claims to the contrary.

Israel has shown that it is willing to make peace and provide territorial concessions in exchange for security.

It did so with Egypt in 1978, returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control in return for recognition. It came close to doing so with Syria over the Golan Heights in the early 2000s. And it has been willing to negotiate for the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for meaningful security guarantees, through the Oslo process and elsewhere, only for such efforts to founder on Palestinian rejectionism.

Israel acceded to international demands and withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, but without security guarantees. The result has been five wars, the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, and one of the most damaging and costly conflicts in the Middle East this century.

The historical lesson is clear. Peace is possible only if Israel’s legitimate security concerns are addressed.

Meanwhile, the Labor government’s continued targeting of Israel in its rhetoric, portraying it as the main culprit for all the troubles that afflict the Middle East, has created the permissive environment in which rank anti-Semitism has flourished.

This has now reached a new nadir with the firestorming of a synagogue in Melbourne. Australia’s Jewish community has never felt less safe in their own country.

Dave Sharma is a Liberal senator for NSW, was the member for Wentworth 2019-22 and was Australia’s ambassador to Israel 2013 to 2017.