Anthony Albanese is both wrong on both politics and policy with Labor’s new Israel-Palestine policy

A view of the city of Jerusalem. Picture: AFP

In capitulating to left-wing pressure to make another futile gesture against Israel, the Albanese government is wrong on the inter­national law, wrong on the morality of the situation and probably wrong on the politics.

The previous Coalition government decided very deliberately not to refer to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as occupied territories.

They are, rightly, described as disputed territories.

The last clear and uncontested sovereignty of the territories was exercised by the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. To claim that Israel has occupied the territories and that this occupation is illegal implies that Israel should simply withdraw from the territories.

Here’s a news flash for Canberra. The Ottoman Turks are unavailable to resume sovereignty.

Prior to Israel taking control of the West Bank in a war of self-­defence, the previous occupying power of the West Bank was ­Jordan.

Jordan bears this resemblance to the Ottoman Turks: it, too, is not available to resume sovereignty of the territory.

If Israel’s presence in the West Bank is illegal, that implies Israel should simply withdraw. Yet if it did so, there would immediately be a Palestinian civil war, as happened in Gaza when Israel withdrew from there. The extremists would take over and begin launching attacks on Israel, as they constantly promise to do. This would lead to all-out war and reoccupation by Israel.

Several Israeli prime ministers have made serious and genuine statehood offers to the Palestinians involving more than 90 per cent of the West Bank, all of Gaza and compensating territory from Israel proper. The Palestinian leadership was never able to accept such a deal, refusing to accept that such a state would mean the end of all claims against Israel, and pursuing absurd demands that it knew would make a deal impossible, such as that every Palestinian and all who can claim Palestinian ancestry had the right to live permanently in Israel proper.

In fact before the Arab armies attacked Israel on its gaining its independence in 1947-48, there were numerous Jewish communities in the West Bank. These were evacuated or killed in the war in 1948.

Nonetheless, Israeli settlement expansion today is unwise and Australian governments are perfectly entitled to point that out and to criticise it.

While the government claims it is bringing clarity to our policy, the policy now will be intensely confused and jumbled. Does the Albanese government now regard all Jewish presence in east Jerusalem as illegal? Does the government now claim that Israel itself does not enjoy sovereignty even over West Jerusalem? Will the government now be instructing Australian diplomats not to visit the Israeli Knesset, in West Jerusalem, or the Israeli national court, or the president’s residence where our ambassadors present their credentials, in West Jerusalem?

The Albanese government and certainly Foreign Minister Penny Wong are smart enough to know that nothing Canberra says or does will have any effect on the Israel/Palestinian dispute. This empty symbolism is aimed entirely at placating the Labor Left.

The Labor Left, like the left more generally, has two abiding foreign policy passions: a deep dislike of the US and a deep hatred of Israel.

It’s quite clear the Coalition is a better friend of Israel than is Labor. The ALP Left threatens to impose, via national conference, a timetable on the Albanese government to extend formal diplomatic recognition to the non-existent Palestinian state. That would be foreign policy as theatre of the absurd.

It also threatens to embarrass the government by moving and debating resolutions against AUKUS.

The government is trying to prevent conference conflict on these issues. A better template is that which Bob Hawke followed, taking the Labor Left on directly and by force of advocacy defeating its arguments within party forums.

A sensible Labor prime minister staring down the Left of his own party to pursue sensible nat­ional security and foreign policy would earn the support of mainstream Australia, a la Hawke.

On another security matter, the Albanese government has embraced a sensible, important and long overdue reform by setting up a parliamentary committee to oversee the Defence Department.

Defence has been a black hole of wasted money and broken strategic dreams. This committee is a very good idea and government deserves credit for embracing it.