What’s with the outrage over the Albanese government’s decision to break with the US and recognise a Palestinian state?
The gesture is close to meaningless given the one-in-a-million chance of there ever being a two-state solution, for the many reasons The Politics outlined last week. Australia’s Palestinian community sees the move as somewhere between tokenistic and insulting, and demands tougher action against Israel. There’s also the suggestion that Australian recognition will embolden Hamas. This might have some weight in the propaganda wars but ignores wider factors such as Israel’s role in a spreading hunger crisis in Gaza.
At least some of the fury relates to the prime minister’s decision to part ways with the US. Cue the usual suspects, including the Coalition.
Serving notice
But if ever there was a good moment to cast off Australia’s foreign policy servitude, this is it. The UK, another forever partner with the US, has also managed to go its own way (and soon, probably, New Zealand). This suggests President Donald Trump’s administration is the problem.
When it comes to the US, there was no more loyal deputy than former Liberal PM John Howard who, in his eagerness to please, signed Australia up to George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” (along with the UK) to invade Iraq. That misadventure showed that when it comes to the cultural, religious and historical vagaries of the Middle East, the US has often acted disastrously.
It blundered into Iraq, believing it could install an American administrator, Paul Bremer, to navigate the tribal and sectarian complexity. The army sent the barely literate grunts of Bumfuck Arizona to run Abu Ghraib prison, with shocking consequences. The US left behind a power vacuum which was eventually filled by the marauding ideologues of ISIS.
Strong-arm tactics
And now we have the Trump administration, with its extremists and flim-flam merchants running the show. In six months Trump has his own brand of mayhem to bear. He has toyed with the idea of turning Gaza into a kind of Trump Riviera. He recklessly posted a ritzy AI-generated Gaza of the future with him as national hero drinking cocktails with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has given Netanyahu the green light to do as he sees necessary to (somehow) finish off Hamas. As The Politics wrote last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson broke with protocol to visit an Israeli settlement on the occupied West Bank at a time of increased settler violence against Palestinians. He gave his imprimatur to Netanyahu’s plan to annex the entire territory.
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has departed from all diplomatic norms and become a political headkicker on behalf of Netanyahu. Last week he led a belligerent attack on UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. He wrote on social media:
“So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas and feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved? Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? … If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!“
Aid and abet
Following on from The Politics story last week, there are more ugly claims against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israel-backed body charged with distributing aid to Gazans. Former employee Anthony Aguilar’s accusations against GHF and its head, high-profile Christian Zionist Pastor Johnnie Moore Jr, include that:
- GHF recruited local Palestinians to assist in distributions, but then didn’t make arrangements to feed them;
- US mercenaries are paid US$1,380 a day to work at its Gaza distribution centres. If a mercenary spends three months in Gaza, they return with more than US$100,000;
- There are more than 300 US contractors working in Gaza. More than 80% are combat veterans from the military and “a good portion of them” from special operations, marine corps, navy SEALs, green berets;
- Moore makes misleading statements about the killing of Gazans and “gets away with it”;
- Moore labels critics of GHF as pro-Hamas.
GHF and Moore contest virtually all Aguilar’s claims. At the same time though, other aid organisations have condemned GHF’s distribution methods as providing a focal point for the killing of Gazans.
The scandalous performance of the GHF is the direct responsibility of the Trump administration. Is it any wonder that governments, including Australia’s, want to distance themselves from the ideologues and incompetents of that administration?
And while we’re at it,cancel that Aukus boondoggle,close Pine Gap, and the Northwest Cape spook facility, and chase the yanks out of the NT….now there’s a deal the POTUS and his out of control Whorehouse can’t possibly refuse.
Totally agree with your comments. Severe sanctions and isolate Israel.
Albo had little choice but to agree to a future nigh impossible to achieve Palestinian state. At least he made a decision after much prompting from his Caucus and political advisors. He’s smart enough to realise the Trump admin will get itself involved in an unwinnable war like in Vietnam and Iraq and wants to separate. He really needs to fix his whole Aukus disaster first and get rid of Marles .
Well said! We need this rubbish out of Australia.
US Senator Bernie Sanders suggests the US has given Israel more than US$22 billion since the war began.
Enough said!
Piss-weak Albo needs to go all out… ditch AUKUS, get serious about trading with nations other than the US, impose sanctions on Israel (in particular anything that supports their military such as choking off access to info from Pine Gap). But he won’t move until almost every other nation has made similar and likely far stronger moves. Middle power? We’re more like a middling power under Albo and we’d be a muddling power under sycophants like the Coalition.
The clearest sign that the ‘Two State Solution’ is utterly unworkable is that countries like the UK, France. Canada and Australia are belatedly recognising Palestine. Thirty years ago that might have meant something. It is a pretty useless gesture now, unless it is followed by sanctions on Israel for attacking another ‘State’.
Tis.
In fact the real problem is that the UN/West didn’t bring Israeli to heal 70 or 80 years ago when the Zionist’s were permitted to invade Palestine provided it in some way provided for the Palestinian people. It’s interesting to speculate on what might have been avoided: September 11?, Iraq?, Afghanistan?, …
Or can they?Something funny going on with the comment section.
I guess the US/israel pro killing baby alliance is not a good club to be in,even putin has only managed to kill 2000 or so children while the US/israel military alliance has killed 17000 and counting….if i was australian pm i wouldnt be wanting to shake the hand of the convicted sex offender trump or the genocidal war criminal netanyahu …its a dirty job being a world leader but some leaders are just to dirty to engage with…
Yes, but Russia is the designated enemy and Israel is a friend and, apparently, we share ‘values’. That’s what’s important and not the number of people killed or the intent with which it was done.
Post 1967 Australian foreign policy: Israel acts, USA approves, Australia approves too. Lazy and easy; keeps the Israel lobby off the government’s back, USA sees and purrs contentedly, we swallow our pride and accept nodding donkey status. Today, after taking our craven compliance for granted for so may years, it comes as an unpleasant surprise for Israel to find that the nodding donkey has unexpectedly become unruly. For us, that alone is the pay-off. Now that that the umbilical cord has detached we can relax and take ethical positions, annoying Israel, irritating the USA (what better time than in the Trump era?) but finally free.
It seems to me that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. We need to rid the world of old white men who love power and don’t care who they destroy to maintain it.
Well, you’re not wrong, but the EU has a white woman in charge and I’d argue she’s going head to head with any white man in charge of anything.
I reckon Albo has pissed off the left extremists and the right extremists and ended up in the middle again.
How does he keep on doing that?
Sarah Ferguson’s interview with Israeli ambassador, Amir Maimon was a joy and showed that Australia’s announcement is so much more than symbolic, he (Maimon) was seething and he’s just one of Bibis minions.
Hi Merrie, old white man here. Totally agree with you. Why the F are so many of us total deadshits? Glad to be one who prefers to build than destroy.
Despite his belated recognition of the Palestinian People to exist as a sovereign, independent nation, Albo, the little grey dormouse, resorts only to words, which are cheap, rather than initiating actions and deeds (read sanctions), with teeth. Despite appearances, the little grey dormouse is not developing anything like a backbone. That is the sort of chimera which is all too common in both the Sahara Desert and the ranks of his lemon coloured Labour jellyfish. That said, his spineless, cowardly policy to either not recognise the Palestinian state, or cowardly ‘sook out’ by abstaining on a General Assembly vote to recognise Palestine as a legitimate state, with the protection of the UN and international law, until they get the ‘okay’ from Daffy Donald Dump, reminds me of the farcical situation we had from 1949-1972, when Pig Iron Bob, and his equally stupid, narrow-minded, racist sycophantic successors refused to recognise the People’s Republic of China, simply because successive US presidents refused to do so. This really shows what a pathetic little lapdog and twerp that Albo the little grey dormouse really is, (putting him in the same category as Harold’ All the way with LBJ’ Holt, who became fish food or shark snack decades ago) ignoring the fact that, along with most of Asia, Africa, and Central/South America, US allies in Europe. such as Norway and Spain, not to mention most of Central and Eastern Europe, Turkiye (another US ally), and most of Asia, are preparing to recognise, or have already recognised, Palestine as a legitimate nation-state.
We are finally beginning to remove the shackles chaining us to US. Now we need to go further. Sanctioning Israel would be a small start, reducing trade with US would take us a little further.
Next step would be to use the euro for international trade so America would no longer have the power it now holds.
The big step, however, would be to convince the rest of the world that the veto some countries hold in UN has made that organisation unworkable and we need to set up a world organisation without veto powers. An enormous process but Russia and America have shown us it is necessary.
Without vetoes there would have been a possibility of forcing Israel to a ceasefire. This step is too late to help Palestine but the threat of a new world grouping without America and Russia having dominance might cause the Trump administration to re-think their support for Israel to avoid losing their world dominance. It will be almost impossible to accomplish but a great dream if the will and determination are there.
Humanity matters, it’s just that some take longer than others to get there.
The benevolent gifts left to us by evolution and species was great and magnanimous, however we haven’t respected that contribution at all, as evidenced by the rapid destruction of species at an alarming rate over the past 50 years.
Humanity learning to take care of the environment – earth sciences, physical, political, financial and how they nurture that and live, well that’s another matter altogether.