Greens deputy leader refuses to say whether Hamas should be ‘dismantled’
Mehreen Faruqi’s has refused to say whether she believes Hamas should be dismantled, declaring Palestinians must decide their government if recognised as a sovereign state.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has refused to say whether she believes Hamas should be dismantled and declared it was up to Palestinians to decide whether the terror organisation should be its government if it was recognised as a sovereign state.
Senator Faruqi also played down the defacing of the Australian War Memorial with pro-Palestinian graffiti as nothing more than “some paint on a building”.
Amid fallout from former Labor senator Fatima Payman’s decision to cross the floor to vote with the Greens on recognising Palestine as a state, Senator Faruqi said the question on whether Hamas should be dismantled had “nothing to do with Palestinian self-determination”.
“The Palestinians need to decide where they want to go with their own region – not intervention from Western countries,” she told ABC’s Insiders. Asked again on the matter, Senator Faruqi said a more important question was why Labor was not “putting sanctions on Israel”.
“Hamas is an organisation that exists in the region that we are talking about here. Who will dismantle it?” she said, in response to being asked a fifth time whether she believed the organisation should be dismantled.
Senator Faruqi also defended the protest on the roof of Parliament House on Thursday, calling Anthony Albanese’s declaration that the actions were not peaceful “a bit rich”, and played down the vandalism of the AWM.
“I again think that talking about some paint on a building rather than what’s happening in Israel ... I wouldn’t have done it, but I understand that people are angry and people want some way of (getting) the government to listen to them,” she said.
The AWM was vandalised on June 14 with pro-Palestinian slogans that the memorial quickly covered up. ACT police said last week a search warrant had been executed as part of the investigation, but no charges had yet been laid.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the comments represented “another low” by the Greens, who he said were defending the role of terrorists and vandals.
“By not accepting that Hamas terrorists, who advocate the destruction of Israel, should have no role in future governance of Gaza, you have to wonder what Senator Faruqi’s vision is for Israel,” he said. “A Hamas-led government would rival Iran’s theocracy for suppressing all rights that we take for granted and the Greens should hold dear. That the Greens continue to defend vandalism of war memorials should be reason enough for Anthony Albanese to end Labor preference deals with the Greens.”
Senator Faruqi said it was “absolutely disgraceful” that Labor had been “vilifying Senator Payman for expressing her faith”, blasting the government for failing to back the Greens “very simple motion to recognise the statehood of Palestine”, as Senator Payman had done.
The Greens maintain Labor has been “putting caveats” on calling for Palestinian recognition by saying such recognition “must be part of a peace process and a two-state solution”.
Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts said the Greens’ refusal to back Labor’s motion that called for Palestinian statehood as part of a two-state solution was not “adding up”.
“They don’t support a two-state solution because peace would require picking a fight with their activists,” he said. “Why is it that the Greens are quick to condemn anyone but Hamas?”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said Hamas was “indisputably a terrorist organisation and it is therefore ludicrous to prevaricate about whether it might play a legitimate political role in the Middle East”.
“Hamas coldly, calculatedly started this latest war, which has brought untold misery to tens of thousands of people on both sides of the conflict,” he said. “Its leaders have repeatedly stated they have no interest in or capacity for looking after the welfare of Palestinians, or making a permanent peace with Israel on any terms.”
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