When I look at the pro-Hamas Greens and the demonstrators at our universities and on our city streets, I can only look on in wonder. I wonder what it is about Jews that riles them so much they ignore all the other wars on Earth – there are 18 armed conflicts in Africa alone – and all of the victims of those wars. And I wonder what it is about Jews that drives the Greens and the demonstrators to abandon their professed “progressive” views to support Hamas which is cruel, bloodthirsty, mysoginistic, homophobic, transphobic and anti-democratic.
And let’s reflect on the Labor Party’s position. A Palestinian from Gaza who professes support for Hamas, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation, can get a visitor visa to Australia. So presumably can supporters of al-Qa’ida and Islamic State, or is Hamas somehow more virtuous than them. If so, how?
This selective morality of the left is frankly astounding. And after all the world has been through for centuries, why does the left find it hard to understand why a Jewish state would desperately fight to ward off an existential threat? Doesn’t it understand that the threat to Israel comes not just from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis but from Iran? They are Iranian proxies armed and funded primarily by Iran. They are controlled by Tehran.
Left-wing politicians in the West delight in lecturing the Israeli government to accept a two-state solution and proclaim their recognition of a Palestinian state. That’s nice virtue-signalling but it’s not going to change anything on the ground.
For as long as the Israelis think the Palestinians, led by the Iranian theocracy, want to wipe them out, there can’t be peace. That’s not hard to understand but the left, including in Australia, is in a do-or-die contest to hoover up the anti-Semitic vote. So the left engages in Israel bashing. Now that really is a dog whistle. But it’s not a solution to the violence in the Middle East.
Well, during a visit to Iran as foreign minister, my Iranian counterpart was lecturing me about how inappropriate he thought our Middle Eastern policy was. So I asked him: Would Iran support a two-state solution? No, he said, it wouldn’t. Iran wanted the creation of a greater Palestine. I told him if he wanted peace then Israel had to be able to live within secure borders. Iran could help achieve that peace. Of course my pleading achieved precisely nothing, as you can imagine. But I remain resolute in my view that if Iran accepted Israel’s right to exist, peace could come to the region. The West needs to harden up its Middle East policies and recalibrate its Iran policies. Until now, they’ve been woeful.
Back in 2008-09 the brave people of Iran rose up against their extremist theocratic leaders in what was called the Green Revolution. What did the Americans do? Instead of supporting the revolution they decided to open negotiations with the regime to limit its nuclear program. That program was in clear breach of international law.
Instead of rewarding the ayatollah for signing a 10-year agreement with $16bn of released funds, the Obama administration should have given Iran a brutal ultimatum: adhere to your obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or there will be catastrophic consequences.
Donald Trump abandoned the meaningless temporary nuclear agreement, only for poor old Joe Biden to try to re-establish it. In the process he released a further $10bn of frozen Iranian funds. The negotiations have failed but imagine how weak America looks in the eyes of Ayatollah Khameini. And also imagine how the Iranian people feel about American and Western weakness.
A Western diplomat friend of mine who has been living in Iran for the past four years told me last week that no more than 20 per cent of Iranians support their authoritarian regime. The country is an economic basket case and the public are deeply opposed to the regime’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the other militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
The Iranians, my friend affirmed, are no lovers of the Palestinians and are disgusted that the regime is spending so much money on supporting Palestinian militants rather than the Iranian people.
That explains why the Iranian leadership didn’t instantly retaliate after the recent killings of the Hamas leader in Tehran and the Hezbollah commander in Beirut, despite its threats. Triggering a wider war with Israel and the West would be hugely unpopular in Iran and could lead to an end of the regime.
Bearing all that in mind, the Americans and their allies need to recalibrate their Iran policy. Instead of quivering in the White House fearing “escalation” in the Middle East, which sends an obvious message of Western weakness, the Americans and their allies need to do the reverse: they should tell Tehran’s rulers it is completely unacceptable to keep funding and supporting war being waged against Israel and also our Arab allies through surrogates such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
If they continue to do so, that will constitute a major escalation and the consequences for them will be catastrophic. Would this risk war with Tehran? Of course, but we are already in a war of attrition with them. And they think, thanks to Biden’s shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the West has no staying power. A war of attrition is a winning strategy they judge. Think this through. There may eventually be a ceasefire in Gaza but for how long? Iran will make sure it doesn’t last.
There would be strong support from most Arab leaders for a much tougher approach to Tehran. The Egyptians loathe Hamas and the other Iranian surrogates. So do the Gulf states and Jordan. And if Iran does wind back its support for anti-Israeli extremism then we might, just might, start making progress towards a two-state solution.
Meanwhile, back here in Australia, we should do more to pressure Iran: demand it support a two-state solution and stop its wars in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But no, our policy is determined by the unholy battle between the Greens and Labor for the anti-Semitic vote. It is shameful.
Alexander Downer was foreign minister from 1996 to 2007 and high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018.
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