My Daily Advertiser Op Ed column for Wednesday 27 March 2024

by ray goodlass

Palestine decisions both bad policy and bad politics

Since the attack by Hamas on October 7 and subsequently the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza, the Australian government’s response has been based on pleasing both the powerful established Israel lobby on one side, and the growing pro-Palestinian lobby and sympathisers on the other. While at the same time maintaining solidarity with American foreign policy, of course.

The result is nothing to be proud of, policy devoid of principle, not helping anyone, and bad politics to boot.

It was a prime example of Paul Keating’s maxim that “Good policy makes good politics”. The corollary is that politics without principle makes bad policy.

Of course, neither any Australian policy nor Keating’s pronouncements would make a scrap of difference to the Netanyahu’s disproportionate response to Hamas’ 7^th October attack. We are irrelevant to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocidal response.

“Acting on principle rather than politics in the face of human tragedy should be for our own self-respect, how we hope our nation will be seen and not be embarrassed by it”, wrote Michael Pascoe in The New Daily.

Time and again, betraying principle has a way of coming back to bite us. Joining wars for political reasons, not principles, has killed Australians, made Australians killers and contributed to broader outrages. Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples.

What I’m referring to here is the complete embarrassment of Australia withholding funding from UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), prevaricating about restoring it, and finally being shamed in the wake of other nations’ actions to “unpause” it, as Senator Wong put it, thereby mangling the English language in a way that is sadly not unusual in the Australian political lexicon.

The government deserves no credit for finally doing the right thing only when it had no other option.

Overlooked the will-we-won’t-we over resuming aid is the debt Australia owes the Palestinian people. It should not be forgotten that Australia played a role in creating the millions of Palestinian refugees.

For three-quarters of a century we have been told it is a proud role. As the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade notes, “Australia was the first country to vote in favour of the 1947 UN partition resolution, which ultimately led to the creation of Israel as a nation state”. We have continued our wholehearted support ever since, irrespective of the merits of the actions of its government.

The corollary of that, voting to give away land that wasn’t ours to give, remaining second only to the United States in supporting Israel ever after, is that we helped create the losers as well as the winners and have responsibilities to act with principles in our dealings with both.

In January, when Israel alleged a dozen of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff were involved in the October 7 terrorism, there was an instant reaction by some countries, including Australia, to cease funding the organisation trying to keep people alive in Gaza, despite the allegation being unproven.

Anyway, our funding of UNRWA is not funding for Hamas. Instead, it is feeding people who are being starved and killed and maimed by a government Australia continues to support and dares not censure.

The tragedy for us is that this little saga has nothing to do with whether some Australian dollars might find their way into a Hamas member’s pocket – it’s because of domestic politics.

The same fear of being wedged by the Coalition that drove the Labor leadership to adopt AUKUS overnight on the strength of a verbal briefing had the government scared of doing what it knew was right on UNRWA.

The opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Simon Birmingham, has said “If UNRWA funding from Australia was to be restored, it should be done only in concert with a key partner like the United States”. Cap in hand, presumably, as he groveled.

That’s it. In the Coalition’s servile world, Australia should only do what the United States tells us to do. Forget the rest of the world and certainly don’t think for ourselves, just wait until Washington decides for us. However disappointing Labor’s performance has been, you can rely on Birmingham/Dutton/Paterson to be worse.

The ‘Trumpification’ of the LNP proceeds at a brisk pace. This is Australian domestic politics: a principle-free zone that leads to bad policy.