Much to be done if Gaza ceasefire is to succeed
Labor Friends of Israel welcomes the announcement of a ceasefire arrangement between Hamas and Israel.
If this deal and its process holds we should all rejoice at the return of the hostages, which includes infants, the elderly and the disabled. It also offers the hope of the liberation of Gazans from Hamas tyranny and violence that has blighted their lives for 18 years and delivered them nothing but untold suffering through this war.
This of course needs to be accompanied with a note of caution, given the fraught history of negotiations and the utter unreliability of Hamas as a terrorist organisation that is unaccountable and whose ultimate goals are antithetical to a two-state solution and the existence of Israel.
It should be noted a complete halt to hostilities is contingent on further phases and that this requires many details to be settled, including the basis on which the IDF would withdraw from Gaza. It must be understood no such withdrawal will take place unless there are cast-iron guarantees concerning the complete withdrawal of Hamas and termination of its administrative or armed functions. This would also need to be accompanied by firm arrangements on what will fill the security void and how any alternative security presence would interact with Israel and rigorously oversee the border situation with Egypt.
The release of the hostages of course comes with Israel having to open the jail doors for what will likely be “hundreds” of convicted terrorists with blood on their hands. This is a terrible dilemma for Israel that it has lived through a number of times. As opposed to Hamas, which uses Palestinians as cannon fodder for its extreme agenda, Israel focuses on the value of the lives of its people. An example of what this can mean is the deal to release 1027 criminal prisoners in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. These criminals had been responsible for killing 569 Israelis.
Among those released was Yahya Sinwar, who was convicted for the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the torture and murder of four Palestinians. While in prison Israel gave Sinwar life-saving surgery to remove a brain tumour and provided extensive access to education. Their reward was to have 1200 citizens murdered, tortured, raped and sexually mutilated on October 7 when Sinwar unleashed his genocidal offensive to wipe Israel off the map.
He was the reason the war dragged on so long, well after the plan to generate an uprising of Israeli Arabs and the West Bank came to nothing and the failure of his ally Iran and its galaxy of proxies who unleashed an offensive to depopulate Israel and destroy its economy.
Many have issued statements that this ceasefire must now lead to a resolution of the Israel/Palestine situation to finally deliver the two-state solution.
That is a solution that could have been achieved if the Arab leadership of the region had accepted the UN partition plan of 1947. It could have happened at any time between 1947 and 1967 if Egypt and Jordan had terminated their illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by creating a Palestinian state.
It could have happened after the Six Day War of 1967 if the region had accepted Israel’s offer of “land for peace” which was met with the “three noes” (no recognition of Israel, no peace, no negotiation). It could have happened if there had been Palestinian follow-through on the Oslo Process. It could have happened if the Clinton/Barak offers had been accepted at Camp David in 2000, or the deal Ehud Olmert put forward in 2008 had been embraced.
To go forward now will involve reassuring a traumatised Israel that its security will be assured, that any new Palestinian leadership that administers both the West Bank and Gaza is not riven with corruption, is democratic and committed to peace and human rights. There will need to be reform of Palestinian educational material to cease the racist indoctrination that made October 7 possible.
Israel has delivered to the world the opportunity to recast the Middle East more broadly to give peace a real chance. The IDF has lost hundreds of soldiers and seen more than 18,000 wounded to undo the malevolent stranglehold of Iran across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
We now have the chance to end Iran’s imperial ambitions and that genocidal, theocratic, tyrannical regime. LFI welcomes our government’s statement acknowledging the reforms required of the Palestinian Authority and its confirmation that Hamas can play no role in a future government.
We welcome the confirmation there will be no recognition of a state of Palestine until this outcome is assured. Going forward our government can support the Palestinians through advocating for and providing practical support for a non-UN reconstruction regime that is accountable for funds deployed, to ensure these funds do not support terrorists.
The expertise of Austrac could be useful here. It might also offer to assist with educational materials. Finally it should work to forge an international diplomatic effort to corral Iran, dismantle its proxy world and ensure it does not acquire nuclear weapons. It should also work to save the UN from dominance by autocratic regimes and the relentless propaganda that is generated by their exploitation of this dominance. We should use the AUKUS Pillar II process to find ways to counter the extensive information warfare employed relentlessly during the conflict by Russia, Iran, China and North Korea to corrode democracy.
Mike Kelly is a former Labor minister and army officer and co-convener of Labor Friends of Israel.
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