by KEVIN ANDREWS – THE comment by Foreign Minister Penny Wong that a “secure and prosperous future” for Israelis and Palestinians could only come with a “two-State solution” is a crass domestic political statement.
Not only does the announcement break the long-standing bipartisan position for a two-State solution in the Middle East, it fails to establish the necessary preconditions for the recognition of Palestine.
- Fearing an attack from The Greens, Labor caved to domestic Islamic pressures.
- It’s concerning that the national interest is being abandoned by Labor.
- According to ABS statistcs, 29 of 151 federal seats have 5 per cent or more people of Islamic faith.
This tragic saga started with the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1139 people in southern Israel. Some 240-250 innocent civilians were taken as hostages, some of which remain in captivity.
Ms Wong’s announcement follows the Israeli determination to eliminate Hamas from Gaza, during which an aid convoy was wrongly attacked, and aid workers killed, including an Australian.
REJECTED
Her statement fails to recognise that Palestinians have repeatedly rejected a solution to the ongoing conflict over many years.
It reflects two underlying domestic political factors: the influence of the Left in the Australian Labor Party; and Muslim groups’ campaigns against Labor MPs, especially in Western Sydney.
A newly-established website (muslimvotesmatter.com.au) lists 32 seats it claims are vulnerable to loss. Most of these seats are held by Labor, some with small margins.
Prominent amongst them is the seat of Watson held by Workplace Minister Tony Burke with a margin of 15 per cent but with a voter base that comprises 27 per cent Muslim voters.
Education Minister Jason Clare in Blaxland has a margin of almost 15 per cent, but 35 per cent of voters are Muslim.
Similarly, Energy Minister Chris Bowen in McMahon has a margin of 9.5 per cent and an almost 15 per cent Muslim voter base.
All three are members of the Right faction.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 of the 151 federal electorates have 5 per cent or more people of Islamic faith. Significantly, 27 of those 29 seats are held by Labor.
Of those 29, four are marginal – the Labor-held seats of Werriwa and Parramatta; Fowler, which Labor lost to independent Dai Le at the 2022 election; and the Liberal-held Banks.
Meanwhile, 16 seats are held by Labor on margins of 10 per cent or more.
This electoral panic is reinforced by the Labor Left’s pro-Palestinian leanings. Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are prominent members of the Left faction, which now has ascendancy.
AMBITIONS
State branches of the Labor Party are mostly controlled by the Left. And prominent figures such as former NSW premier, Bob Carr, have supported Palestinian ambitions for many years.
Fearing an electoral attack from the Australian Greens, the Labor Party has caved to domestic political pressures.
Speaking in 1975 on the 27th anniversary of Israel’s independence, then president of the Labor Party, Bob Hawke said: “Essentially Israel is asking this question – is the world going to insist on the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign independent state or will the world increasingly succumb to an array of economic pressures, unremitting propaganda and attempts to weaken the American commitment which in combination, will leave Israel friendless and expendable?”
It is concerning that this position – indeed the national interest – is being abandoned by Labor.
Acting in the national interest involves members of parliament standing up to vocal minorities, even in their own electorates from time to time.
Otherwise, they surrender their essential role to consider the issues free from partisan pressure and local sentiment, and become more like delegates.
This role was eloquently expressed more than two centuries ago by the significant Irish statesman, Edmund Burke.
JUDGEMENT
Speaking to the electors of Bristol, where he had been elected as their member in 1774, Burke said: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole,” he continued.
This was a clear and courageous statement. Burke proclaimed that his foremost duty was to participate and consider the debates on national issues and then to form a considered judgment, not simply to act upon the loudest voices in his electorate.
But this is exactly what the Labor Government in Australia, and US President Joe Biden is doing regarding the Middle East, particularly the conflict in Gaza.PC
Obviously the Jewish vote is of no significance?
It smacks of cant to hear a former Liberal Minister bewailing the caving-in to minority Muslim values in key electorates against what should be the moral and existential support of Israel.
For more than two decades, Federal governments of all stripes have not sufficiently tightened and scrutinised the influx of immigrants into Australia. Warnings from the senior bureaucracy of allowing dangerous ideologies into Australia have been over-ridden by the thought that electoral advantage would go to the Party who let in this or that group from overseas. Party politics always tramples principles of national well-being
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As this country’s longest-serving Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke once said: “If the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind.”