Australia’s immediate past Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has dramatically changed his views with respect to Israel and Palestine. In his article “Why I’m Now a Friend of Palestine” published in last Saturday’s The Weekend Australian he explains his change of heart:
“Pennant Hills Golf Club in Sydney is an unusual place for an epiphany on the changes in Israel. Still, it was there I met a Christian volunteer who went to the occupied territories to escort Palestinian children to school to protect them from verbal and physical violence by Israeli settlers. Violence against Arab Kids? Christian volunteers to protect them? From Jewish settlers? None of this was around in 1977 when I rented a room in Sydney Trades Hall and called on Bob Hawke, ACTU President, to help me launch Labor Friends of Israel. In 1977 the Israeli occupation was 10 years old. There were 25,000 settlers. It was easy to believe the Israelis were holding the West Bank only as a bargaining chip. Arabs were terrorists.
Now the occupation has lasted 47 years. There are now 500,000 settlers. Up to 60 per cent of the Israeli Cabinet is on record as opposing a two-state solution. Palestinians have been part of a peace process for 25 years. Israel has gone from secular to religious. The ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionists hold 30 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. It has gone from cosmopolitan to chauvinist, with some ministers espousing a brand of nationalism like that of France’s Le Pen or Austria’s Jorg Haider.”
Mr. Carr was Premier of New South Wales for 10 years. He was Australia’s Foreign Minister up until September 2013, when Labor lost the last federal election. He is an experienced and savvy political figure widely respected by both sides of politics. He is right in the centre of the Australian political firmament. The antithesis of a fringe player. The pro-Israel lobby has gone into overdrive to try and cut him down. Even equating him with David Irving! But Bob Carr carries too much gravitas to dismiss easily. He has strong credentials; he was, after all, the founder of Labor Friends of Israel.
Carr continues:
“Permanent occupation means Israelis get cast as Afrikaners and the world will recognize Palestine and isolate Israel. After all, the alternative would be unthinkable: to accept colonial rule with one religious and racial group enjoying the vote that the majority denied.
We have politely pitched the case for Palestinian statehood as creating security for Israel. But in view of the settlements and settler violence, I now pitch the case in terms of the rights of the Palestinian people, recognised in international law and every draft peace statement supported by the world for a quarter of a century.
Palestinians must commit to non-violent resistance, not a third intifada. They must build international support. They must engage with the righteous Jews who condemn the takeover of Zionism by the fanatics.
Forty years ago I signed up to be president of Labor Friends of Israel; I still count myself a friend of the liberals in that country but it serves the cause of a just peace better by me this week becoming a patron of Labor Friends of Palestine.”
It is heartening to see more and more people putting their heads up over the parapet. Mr. Carr is not the first but his standing means something. For the Pro-Israel Lobby to link him with holocaust deniers is laughable and demonstrates the paucity of their argument.
Needless to say, I phoned Mr. Carr’s office yesterday to express my appreciation.
Wonderful to hear this. Australia is gradually becoming influenced by zionists (like the US) resulting in pro Israeli stances on most issues. It is refreshing to see Bob Carr’s statement about being pro Palestinian, and great reading his reasons. Unfortunately, I doubt he can make himself heard by the present leadership, who is strongly pro Israel.
Interesting article about an increase in anti-semitism in Australia after the Israeli attack of Gaza.
“Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia soared by more than a third in the past year. The annual Report on Anti-Semitic Incidents in Australia, presented Sunday at the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s annual general meeting, logged 312 incidents between October 2013 and September 2014, about a 35 percent increase from 231 incidents the previous year.
Much of the increase in incidents was triggered by Israel’s operation against Hamas in Gaza, and encouraged by the hostile media it generated, according to the report.
Of great concern was that the number of physical assaults tripled, according to the report’s author, Julie Nathan.”
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.625872
Nice, but this story reminds me of eating just one potato chip.
I would have liked to hear a bit more about the tools which come to bear should any politician dare step out of line with Israeli policy. Certainly the former Foreign Minister must have some knowledge about that ugly tool which would benefit the rest of us from its exposure to the light of day.
Maybe I’m getting too old, and maybe I’m running out of patience for this to be anything other than a glass-half-full story. The occupation was just as brutal, unjust & ugly a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, when Mr. Carr’s new-found morality could have made a real difference.
As it is, I guess better-late-than-never epiphanies on golf courses will have to do.
Quick, shout something, antisemitism, holocaust, anything … dissent is getting out of control. Long live mankind’s right to Zionist speech.
I guess we all have had our peculiar epiphanies, but this is a fomer Foreign Minister. Surely some of this got through his bean before he met a Christian on the golf course.
>> Bob Carr:
Or it was around and you didn’t or chose not to see it.
1. What commitments must Israel and the international community make?
2. Why should the engage with “righteous Jews”, and not with “righteous Israelis”?
3. Where is the condemnation of Zionism for the religion-supremacist ideology it is? Why no insistence that it be replaced by justice, accountability and equality in Israel?
(If you put moderates instead of fanatics in charge of Jewish supremacism in a supremacist “Jewish State”, you may have a kinder, gentler supremacism…but you still have supremacism.)