Why Israel’s supporters need more people like Sussan Ley
After any election defeat, parties review their policies and positions. Some things are discarded, other things are re-embraced.
There are some things so strongly supported across the breadth of the Coalition, such as Australia’s support of like-minded democracies such as Israel and Ukraine and our support of Australia’s Jewish community against the scourge of anti-Semitism, that I can confidently predict a continuation in current policy.
Suggestions that Sussan Ley’s previous positions on Palestine are likely to lead to a shift in the Coalition’s position on these policy areas are wrong.
I know Sussan well. She has thought deeply about these issues and engaged with all sides. It is a journey and an approach we need more Australians to take.
After the 2022 election Sussan stood unopposed as a candidate for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party.
Ley grew up in the United Arab Emirates, where her father, a British intelligence officer, was stationed. He had served previously in Israel during the British Mandate in the years before Israel’s independence.
Sussan was a supporter of the Palestinian cause not because it was a cause of the progressive left but because she had grown up in Arab countries and had heard stories of her father’s experiences in Jerusalem. She served for many years as a co-chairwoman of the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine and undertook a trip to the Palestinian territories with the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.
Interpersonally I always liked Sussan.
While accepting that she and I had come from different starting points (I have always been a strong supporter of the state of Israel), I was particularly concerned that our putative deputy leader had been a supporter of the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
This was contrary to long-held Coalition policy that recognition of a Palestinian state should occur only when the Palestinian leadership had recognised Israel’s right to exist and final status issues had been settled.
So when Sussan called me to canvass for my vote, I said to her that I had real difficulty in supporting her because of her support for unilateral recognition, which has never been, and should never be, our policy.
I was concerned that as deputy leader she would have great influence on the future foreign policy direction of our party even if she were not our foreign affairs spokeswoman.
Support for the state of Israel, the only Western liberal democracy in the Middle East, is an article of faith for the Liberal Party and I wasn’t the only colleague giving her this message.
Sussan and I talked about the changing circumstances in the Middle East as the result of the Abraham Accords.
The UAE, where Sussan had grown up, had recently changed its position in relation to Israel.
I suggested to Sussan that the two of us visit Israel and the UAE to see how the Abraham Accords had changed the relationship between Israelis and Arabs. I also wanted her to hear the perspective of Israelis that she had perhaps never heard and asked her to reflect on whether unilateral recognition was really helping the cause of Middle East peace.
The timing of the visit in October 2022 coincided with the Israeli election and occurred a week after Penny Wong’s ham-fisted changing of Australia’s position on West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
I had asked the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council to prepare an itinerary for us that included Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Tel Aviv, Sderot and the Gaza border including one of the kibbutzes, Nahal Oz, that later was one of the sites attacked during the October 7 massacre in 2023.
We met top Israeli experts on the Abraham Accords and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We also heard Palestinian perspectives during a visit to Ramallah. We met the Palestinian prime minister at the time, Mohammad Shtayyeh who told us how delighted he was that Australia had changed its position on the capital of Israel.
It was Sussan who told him firmly that was not Liberal Party policy.
In the UAE we met Emirati businesspeople who had connections to both Israel and Australia. I really got to know Sussan on that visit. I saw her listen closely and engage with new perspectives, in particular the shared optimism of Israelis and Emiratis about the new relationship and the prospect of a deal with the Saudis that would reshape the Middle East.
The Abraham Accords are different to the cold peace that Israel has with Egypt and Jordan. It is a peace based on friendship and shared strategic objectives.
In those heady days it seemed as if the region was on the cusp of a new era of peace and prosperity. Sussan was impressed by the peace initiatives on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians we visited in the West Bank.
She got a real sense of Israel’s strategic challenges, particularly from Iranian-backed terrorist groups – Hezbollah by the visit to Golan Heights and the border with Lebanon; and the fragility of existence in places such as Sderot, with its bomb shelters in playgrounds and schools in the event of rocket attacks from nearby Gaza.
When Sussan returned from the trip, she made speeches reflecting on her visit, repudiating her previous position and outlining her new perspective. She developed a warm friendship with Israeli ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon and she attends Jewish communal functions as a welcome friend. After October 7, she was as clear-eyed and as strong in her condemnation of attacks on Israel by Palestinian terrorists and in her support for Jewish Australians as any of our Coalition colleagues.
I have no doubt that Sussan Ley is sincere in her appreciation of the changed circumstances in the Middle East, both before and after October 7.
She understands the challenges that Israel faces and the importance of supporting Israel as a Western liberal democratic ally.
I also know that she remains a friend of the Palestinians, and she does so because she wants to see peace in the Middle East. She understands that peace won’t come until you have Palestinian leaders who want to recognise Israel’s right to exist, cease their campaign of terror and seek a relationship with Israel much as the UAE has.
Supporters of Israel need more people to come on the journey that Sussan has taken and look at the challenges of the Middle East from all vantage points.
When the Liberal Party needs to look afresh at our policy positions, it is good to have a leader who is prepared to listen and consider new perspectives on old problems – and, when the facts change, be prepared to change her opinion too.
Julian Leeser is the Liberal MP for Berowra.
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