Antony Loewenstein

This is the not the behaviour of an ally; it’s the actions of a country utterly incapable of viewing the human rights of Arabs as equal to Israelis:

The Israeli ambassador to Australia found Kevin Rudd to be “very pro-Israel” and senior Australian diplomats warned the former prime minister that his condemnation of Iran risked retaliation against Australia’s embassy in Tehran, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.

The secret cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, reveal the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, was pleased with Mr Rudd’s “very supportive” attitude towards Israel’s position in the Middle East peace process and his strong attacks on the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The revelation of Mr Rotem’s description of Mr Rudd last year comes as the Foreign Minister wraps up a visit to Cairo where he expressed concern that ”no real progress” has been made in the US-brokered Middle East peace process.

Following a weekend meeting with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit, Mr Rudd said Israeli settlements on Palestinian land were ”destroying” the chances of peace. He said he would visit Israel this week and reiterate his position, but added Israel had security fears that needed to be taken into account.

The leaked cables reveal that Israeli diplomats saw Mr Rudd as an important ally.

Mr Rotem told US officials in July 2008 that during his first meeting with Mr Rudd after the 2007 federal election, the newly elected prime minister had described Mr Ahmedinejad as a ”loathsome individual on every level” and that his anti-Semitism ”turns my stomach”.

The US embassy noted that while opposition leader, Mr Rudd had taken a “very strong stance” on Iran, including calling for Mr Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for his calls for the destruction of Israel.

The Israeli ambassador said that the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Michael l’Estrange, and the director-general of the Office of National Assessments, Peter Varghese, had “met several times to convince the PM to think through the consequences of his rhetoric on Iran”.

“The Israeli ambassador believes PM Rudd is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear program and firm in his desire to do whatever possible to signal Australia’s opposition to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions,” the embassy reported. “The Israelis believe Rudd is very firm in his overall support for Israel.”

Asked by the US embassy about whether Mr Rudd’s views on Iran had elicited any response, Mr Rotem said the Iranian government had reacted to the prime minister’s statements by taking ”retaliatory measures” against the Australian embassy in Tehran.

“These measures make it harder for the embassy to conduct its day-to-day business,” Mr Rotem observed.

The Australian government has never publicly acknowledged any Iranian response to Mr Rudd’s public criticism of Iran and its President.

Mr Rotem went on to tell the US embassy that Israel saw Australia “as playing an important role in the ‘global PR battle’ on Iran because PM Rudd is viewed favourably by the ‘European Left’, many of whom are sceptical about taking a tough line towards Tehran”.

The ambassador said Israeli officials would normally have been concerned at the prospect of a Labor government: “However, this was not the case because Rudd had long gone out of his way to stress his strong commitment to Israel and appreciation for its security concerns.”

”Commenting that DFAT officials are very frank in expressing their annoyance with the PM’s micromanaging of foreign policy issues, Rotem laughingly said that ‘while I understand their point of view, how can I complain about having that kind of attention from the PM’.”

The Israeli ambassador’s enthusiasm for the Labor government extended to the deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, with the US embassy reporting in January last year that Mr Rotem was “very satisfied” with the Australian response to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

“Rotem said he had been impressed with acting PM Julia Gillard, who has taken the lead in co-ordinating the [Australian government] public and private response to the Gaza fighting … Rotem said that Gillard and [national security adviser Duncan] Lewis have been very understanding of Israel’s military action, while stressing the need to minimise civilian casualties and address humanitarian concerns.”

Mr Rotem said Ms Gillard’s public statements surprised many Israeli embassy contacts as being “far more supportive than they had expected”.

Mr Rotem told his US counterparts that several senior Labor Party contacts had told him privately that Mr Rudd had been “a bit jealous of the attention garnered by Gillard” and that this led him to speak to the Gaza issue later in January 2009.

The ambassador added that he would be “playing to Rudd’s vanity” to encourage him to pay an early visit to Israel and continue to speak out in support of a hard line against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

And fears that the Zionist state isn’t a rational player:

Australian intelligence agencies fear that Israel might launch military strikes against Iran and that Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities could draw the US and Australia into a potential nuclear war in the Middle East.

Australia’s top intelligence agency has also privately undercut the hardline stance towards Tehran of the United States, Israeli and Australian governments, saying that Iran’s nuclear program is intended to deter attack and that it is a mistake to regard Iran as a ”rogue state”.

The warnings about the dangers of nuclear conflict in the Middle East are given in a secret US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald. They reflect views obtained by US intelligence liaison officers in Canberra from across the range of Australian intelligence agencies.

“The AIC’s [Australian intelligence community's] leading concerns with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions centre on understanding the time frame of a possible weapons capability, and working with the United States to prevent Israel from independently launching unco-ordinated military strikes against Iran,” the US embassy in Canberra reported to Washington in March last year.

“They are immediately concerned that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities would lead to a conventional war – or even nuclear exchange – in the Middle East involving the United States that would draw Australia into a conflict.”

Al Jazeera English covered the Sydney rally for Wikileaks yesterday:

Pro-WikiLeaks demonstrations have been held across Australia against the arrest of Julian Assange, the whistleblowing website’s founder.

In Sydney, around 500 demonstrators [editor; more like 1500 people] gathered on Friday, to push for the release of Assange, who is in a British jail fighting extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations.

A group of WikiLeaks supporters also staged a rally in Brisbane, calling on the Australian government to respect freedom of expression.

WikiLeaks, which has provoked fury in Washington with its publications, vowed it would continue making public details of the 250,000 secret diplomatic US cables it had obtained.

Assange, an Australian citizen, has been in a UK jail waiting for news on whether or not he will be extradited to Sweden in relation to a number of allegations of sexual crimes made against him in that country.

Those who attended the rally in Sydney also condemned the Australian government for its stand on the issue.

“To say to the Australian government, the [Julia] Gillard Government … behaviour in the last two weeks has been utterly outrageous, outrageous,” Antony Loewenstein, one of the organisers said while addressing the crowd.

The US government and others across the world have argued the publication of cables is irresponsible and could put their national security at risk.

The WikiLeaks website was shut down after apparent political pressure on service providers, but WikiLeaks said there were now 750 global mirror sites meaning the data so far released remained publicly available.

Embarrassment

WikiLeaks has continued to embarrass the Australian government, with the latest batch of leaked cables revealing that Kevin Rudd, the foreign minister. derided the contributions of France and Germany in Afghanistan.

The cables, published in the Australian newspaper Fairfax, reported how Rudd likened the European fight against the Taliban to “organising folk-dancing festivals”.

In another of the cables sent to Washington in November 2009 Rudd, as prime minister, confided that the outlook in Afghanistan “scares the hell out of me”.

Protesters in Sydney said they were angry that Assange was arrested after voicing the truth.

Australia has previously faced some criticism in the media for not standing by Assange.

Robert McClelland, the attorney-general, and Gillard, the prime minister, have voiced strong criticism of Assange and WikiLeaks.

My following article appears on ABC Unleashed today:

Who can now say that the WikiLeaks cables detail no new information?

It was only last week that ABC TV’s 7.30 Report featured a story with supposed foreign affairs experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, who largely dismissed the significance of the document dump. Within a few days these men were all proven wrong.

Now we know Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib sends confidential information to the Americans. He’s not alone.

Crucially, however, our media class aren’t asking the next obvious questions.

The Australian’s Paul Maley argues that communication between politicians, journalists and diplomats is part of the daily job.

“It is no surprise the Americans were talking to Arbib,” he writes, “They talk to everyone.”

And yet the senior Murdoch journalist doesn’t understand that the general public are rarely told about such meetings. What is discussed? What are the agendas? Is there transparency in such dealings? And who is telling what information to whom? Who benefits and what stories are not being told to avoid embarrassing somebody?

The cosiness between these players is exactly what WikiLeaks is aiming to challenge. Why shouldn’t the voting public be privy to whims and wishes of the American government and their relationships with key government ministers, individuals voted in by all of us? If Arbib was warning the Americans he thought Rudd may fall, why wasn’t he telling his constituents, the ones who put him in office?

The fact that the US had followed the rise of Julia Gillard and approved her views on the American alliance, Afghanistan and Israeli aggression is worrying though unsurprising.

It’s extremely rare that a leader rises who hasn’t received American approval or extensive years of obedience grooming. Former Labor leader Mark Latham was loathed by the US because he publicly expressed scepticism about the US alliance, the war in Iraq and then-president George W Bush.

It’s worth recalling that Latham called former prime minister John Howard an “arselicker” of the Bush administration and described a delegation of Liberal party politicians going to Washington as “a conga line of suckholes”.

Latham would undoubtedly use equally colourful language to describe Arbib and Kevin Rudd. So why did ABC TV’s 7.30 Report feel the need to mitigate the damage to Rudd and Australia with the latest release of cables this week by featuring a soft-ball interview with assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell?

Host Kerry O’Brien didn’t even blush when he acknowledged that, “he [Campbell] asked to come on the program to counter the damage from today’s exposure in Fairfax newspapers of the US embassy cables”. Since when is the ABC designed to offer air-time to a senior US official with a clear agenda to kiss and make up with Canberra? Moreover, viewers were expected to believe that Rudd was one of Barack Obama’s “best mates”?

The interview was symptomatic of the greater media malaise in this massive story; journalistic jealousy and closeness to state power.

The latest leaks that show profound Australian Government doubts over the Afghan mission are damning. Ministers are complicit but what about the journalists who visit Afghanistan, embed with our troops and paint an overly rose picture of brave men and women in a winnable war? Scepticism is often in short supply when reporting from the front lines.

When Hillary Clinton recently visited Australia, she was treated to a light interview with ABC’s Leigh Sales (who even Tweeted a grinning photo of the two). There were no challenging questions, just friendly banter and space for the Secretary of State to spin lines about loving Australia and its hospitality.

To learn a few weeks later, via WikiLeaks, that Clinton directed US officials across the world to spy on unsuspecting governments and UN officials should elicit outrage from a media fraternity that recently offered little more than obsequiousness before American power. There’s been not a peep.

Such obedience doesn’t come naturally; it takes years of practice. Annual events such as the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue – a secret gathering of politicians, journalists and opinion-makers – consolidate the unhealthy, uncritical relationship between Australia and America. Many corporate journalists have attended, including the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher and former Labor MP and ABC reporter Maxine McKew. It aims to consolidate American hegemony rather than challenging it.

It’s largely a one-way street. Australians display loyalty to an agenda and the Americans are allegedly thankful. As US participant Steve Clemons wrote in 2007:

“Phil Scanlan, founder of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, is proud of the fact that in 15 years, no-one has leaked any of the internal conversations of the conference. I won’t either… unless I get permission from one of the speakers or commentators to do so which is allowed by the rules.”

The Australia-Israel Leadership Dialogue, inspired by the American one, is once again about to head to Israel for a short burst of Zionist propaganda. Journalists and politicians invariably return with the required Israeli talking points (let me guess this year; Iran is the greatest threat to the Middle East and the world?).

The Age’s Michelle Grattan tweeted this week of the post-WikiLeaks reality of the tour:

“All those pollies travelling to the Aust-Israel dialogue might be a bit more inclined to zip their lips in private.”

But why are such gatherings so secret? Why do journalists allow themselves to be romanced without revealing the kinds of agendas they’re pushing? It’s obvious why; being close to top officials and politicians makes them feel connected and important. Being an insider is many reporters’ ideal position. Independence is secondary to receiving sanctioned links and elevated status in a globalised world.

The WikiLeaks documents challenge the entire corrupted relationship between media and political elites. Founder Julian Assange is an outsider and doesn’t attend exclusive and secret meetings where the furthering of US foreign policy goals are on the cards. He aims to disrupt that dynamic. Many in the media resent not being leaked the information themselves and are jealous. Others simply dislike a lone-wolf citizen with remarkable tech-savvy to challenge their viability.

One can dismiss The Australian’s bragging of knowing virtually everything in the WikiLeaks cables before they were released – if only they more deeply scrutinised the effect of war policies they backed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and beyond – because the key point here isn’t merely covering disillusionment over Rudd or Gillard or anyone else. It’s something far bigger; a fundamental re-writing of the relationship between journalists and governments.

The WikiLeaks cable dumps have revealed a chasm between establishment attitudes towards truth-telling and furious attempts to protect the embarrassed. The sign of any healthy democracy is the ways in which it deals with the most sensitive of information. Senior media figures and government authorities are often remarkably consistent in their messaging. They move in similar worlds and they often rely on each other for sourcing.

It’s this kind of dangerous, mutual sycophancy that WikiLeaks could break.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney journalist, author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution and currently working on a book about disaster capitalism

More invaluable insights into how diplomacy really works. Egos and bowing to the US and Israel. That’s quite a vision for world peace and security (and what’s a few thousand civilians killed by our cluster bombs?)

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is an abrasive, impulsive ”control freak” who presided over a series of foreign policy blunders during his time as prime minister, according to secret United States diplomatic cables.

The scathing assessment – detailed in messages sent by the US embassy in Canberra to Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton over several years – are among hundreds of US State Department cables relating to Australia obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to The Age.

”Rudd … undoubtedly believes that with his intellect, his six years as a diplomat in the 1980s and his five years as shadow foreign minister, he has the background and the ability to direct Australia’s foreign policy. His performance so far, however, demonstrates that he does not have the staff or the experience to do the job properly,” the embassy bluntly observed in November 2009.

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The cables show how initially favourable American impressions of Mr Rudd, as ”a safe pair of hands”, were quickly replaced by sharp criticism of his micromanagement and mishandling of diplomacy as he focused on photo and media opportunities.

In a December 2008 review of the first year of the Rudd government, US ambassador Robert McCallum characterised its performance as ”generally competent” and noted Mr Rudd was ”focused on developing good relations with the incoming US administration [of President Barack Obama], and is eager to be seen as a major global player”.

Despite this, what were described as ”Rudd’s foreign policy mistakes” formed the centrepiece of the ambassador’s evaluation. Mr McCallum thought the prime minister’s diplomatic ”missteps” largely arose from his propensity to make ”snap announcements without consulting other countries or within the Australian government”.

According to the embassy, the government’s ”significant blunders” began when then foreign minister Stephen Smith announced in February 2008 that Australia would not support strategic dialogue between Australia, the US, Japan and India out of deference to China. ”This was done without advance consultation and at a joint press availability with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi,” Mr McCallum wrote.

Mr Rudd’s June 2008 speech announcing that he would push for the creation of an Asia-Pacific Community loosely based on the European Union was cited as a further example of a major initiative undertaken ”without advance consultation with either other countries (including South-East Asian nations, leading Singaporean officials to label the idea dead on arrival) or within the Australian government (including with his proposed special envoy to promote the concept, veteran diplomat Richard Woolcott)”.

Similarly Mr Rudd’s establishment of an international commission on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation was ”rolled out … during a photo-op heavy trip to Japan … His Japanese hosts were given insufficient advance notice and refused a request for a joint announcement”.

The US embassy noted that Mr Rudd did not consult any of the five nuclear weapons states on the United Nations Security Council and that Russia had lodged a formal protest. One of Mr Rudd’s staff gave the US embassy a few hours’ advance notice of the announcement ”but without details”.

The cables also refer to ”control freak” tendencies and ”persistent criticism from senior civil servants, journalists and parliamentarians that Rudd is a micro-manager obsessed with managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision-making”.

Eleven months later, in November 2009, the embassy delivered another sharp assessment that Mr Rudd dominated foreign policy decision-making, ”leaving his foreign minister to perform mundane, ceremonial duties and relegating the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to a backwater”.

”Other foreign diplomats, in private conversations with us, have noted how much DFAT seemed to be out of the loop,” US Charge d’Affaires Dan Clune reported. ”The Israeli ambassador [Yuval Rotem] told us that senior DFAT officials are frank in asking him what PM Rudd is up to and admit that they are out of the loop.” Mr Clune added that morale within DFAT had ”plummeted, according to our contacts inside as well as outside the department”.

The embassy also assigned blame for DFAT’s decline to the weakness of Mr Smith, who was dismissed as being ”on vacation”.

”Surprised by his appointment as foreign minister, Smith has been very tentative in asserting himself within the government,” Mr Clune wrote. ”DFAT contacts lamented that Smith took a very legalistic approach to making decisions, demanding very detailed and time-consuming analysis by the department and using the quest for more information to defer making decisions.”

David Pearl, a Treasury official who served on Mr Smith’s staff in 2004, told American diplomats that the foreign minister was ”very smart, but intimidated both by the foreign policy issues themselves and the knowledge that PM Rudd is following them so closely”.

Former DFAT first assistant secretary for north Asia, Peter Baxter, lamented to embassy officers that ”Smith’s desire to avoid overruling DFAT recommendations meant that he often delayed decisions to the point that the PM’s office stepped in and took over”.

The US embassy further recounted that after Israel initiated its military offensive in Gaza in December 2008, Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem contacted Mr Smith at his home in Perth to ask for Australia’s public support. Despite the obvious diplomatic and political sensitivity of the issue, ”Rotem told [the embassy] that Smith’s response was that he was on vacation, and that the ambassador needed to contact deputy prime minister Gillard, who was acting prime minister and foreign minister at the time.”

Paradoxically, Mr Rudd’s determination to dominate the foreign policy agenda diminished the influence of his own department, with one DFAT assistant secretary explaining to the embassy that the foreign policy staff of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) were ”overwhelmed supporting Rudd’s foreign policy activities, particularly his travel, which has reduced its ability to push its own agenda”.

In concluding his assessment, Mr Clune suggested that Mr Rudd’s ”haphazard, overly secretive decision-making process” would continue to generate foreign policy problems.

Seven months later, Mr Rudd lost the prime ministership, but he remains very much in charge of Australia’s diplomacy.

No wonder Australia is so upset over Wikileaks; released cables show a government keen to keep military options (aka US fire-power) on the table. And Canberra’s enthusiasm for special forces in Pakistan is another worrying sign that “fighting terrorism” knows no limits, legalities or bounds:

Kevin Rudd warned Hillary Clinton to be prepared to use force against China ”if everything goes wrong”, an explosive WikiLeaks cable has revealed.

Mr Rudd also told Mrs Clinton during a meeting in Washington on March 24 last year that China was ”paranoid” about Taiwan and Tibet and that his ambitious plan for an Asia-Pacific community was intended to blunt Chinese influence.

It also reveals Mr Rudd offered Australian special forces to fight inside Pakistan once an agreement could be struck with Islamabad.

The cable details a 75-minute lunch Mr Rudd held as prime minister with Mrs Clinton soon after she was appointed US Secretary of State.

Signed ”Clinton” and classified ”confidential”, it is the first of the WikiLeaks cables that includes a substantive report on Australia.

The unprecedented disclosure of such a frank exchange between political leaders is bound to complicate Australia’s ties in the region, especially with Beijing.

At the lunch Mrs Clinton confided to Mr Rudd America’s fears about China’s rapid rise and Beijing’s multibillion-dollar store of US debt. She asked: ”How do you deal toughly with your banker?”

In a wide-ranging conversation Mr Rudd:

Described himself as ”a brutal realist on China” and said Australian intelligence agencies closely watched its military expansion.

Said the goal must be to integrate China into the international community, ”while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong”.

Characterised Chinese leaders as ”sub-rational and deeply emotional” about Taiwan.

Said the planned build-up of Australia’s navy was ”a response to China’s growing ability to project force”.

Sought Mrs Clinton’s advice on dealing with the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, whom she labelled the ”behind-the-scenes puppeteer”.

Mr Rudd agreed any success in Afghanistan would unravel if Pakistan fell apart – and that Islamabad must be turned away from its ”obsessive focus” on India. He also discussed ways to bring China to the table in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The disclosures in the cable, posted online by the British newspaper The Guardian, will complicate Mr Rudd’s already testy personal links with China after his reported reference to Chinese negotiators as ”rat f—ers” during the Copenhagen climate change conference.

Mr Rudd gave Mrs Clinton a candid assessment of the Chinese leadership, drawing a disparaging contrast between the President, Hu Jintao, with his predecessor, saying Mr Hu ”is no Jiang Zemin”.

Mr Rudd said no one person dominated China’s opaque leadership circle but the Vice-President, Xi Jinping, might use family ties to the military to rise to the top.

Mr Rudd said he had urged China to strike a deal with the Dalai Lama for autonomy in Tibet and while he saw little prospect of success, he asked Mrs Clinton to have ”a quiet conversation” to push the idea with Beijing’s leaders.

On his plan for an ”Asia-Pacific community”, Mr Rudd said the goal was to curb China’s dominance. He wanted to ensure this did not result in ”an Asia without the United States”.

Mrs Clinton has since publicly praised Mr Rudd for his advice on China and credited him for the US decision this year to join the East Asia Summit.

Mr Rudd is in the Middle East and a spokeswoman said he did not have any comment on the release of the cable.

The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, declined to answer questions on any damage to Australia’s ties with China or the role of Australian special forces in Pakistan arising from the revelations in the cable.

In a statement issued by a spokesman he said: ”The government has made it clear it has no intention to provide commentary on the content of US classified documents.”

In the cable, Mr Rudd appears eager to impress on Mrs Clinton his knowledge of international affairs, promising to send her copies of his speech in April 2008 at Peking University and a draft journal article on his Asia-Pacific community plan.

The thoughts of chairman Rudd

Kevin Rudd’s China strategy

‘‘Multilateral engagement with bilateral vigour’’ — while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong.

Rudd on China’s military modernisation

Australian intelligence keeping a close watch, and Australia responding with increased naval capability.

On the Chinese leadership

President Hu Jintao ‘‘is no Jiang Zemin’’. No one person dominated, although Hu’s likely replacement Xi Jinping could rise above his colleagues.

On China’s attitude to Taiwan and Tibet

Chinese leaders paranoid about both. Reaction to Taiwan sub-rational and deeply emotional. Hardline Tibet policies crafted to send message to other ethnic minorities.

My following investigation appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

The Middle East “quagmire” is largely “the fault of Israel”, according to Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU).

In an interview with Crikey, the author of Confessions of a Faceless Man said that he was a “critical friend of Israel” and the ongoing building of illegal settlements in the West Bank was “mad”.

An investigation into Australian’s union embrace of the Palestinian issue, the growing popularity of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the pro-Israel stance of Howes and the AWU has discovered deep divides between the AWU and many other mainstream unions.

Following Britain’s biggest union decision earlier this year to boycott Israeli companies, Australian unions are also signing up to target firms that profit from Israeli colonies in the West Bank.

The unions include the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. The move was condemned by The Australian and Howes last month. “We don’t believe that it’s in the interests of Palestinian or Israeli workers to seek to divide them in the peace process,” he said to the Murdoch paper.

Howes told Crikey that he opposed BDS because he supported a two-state solution and believed “Israel was a vibrant democracy”. But he included this: “If I thought BDS could solve the problem (the Middle East conflict) I would back it but I know it will have no effect on the ground in Palestine. The analogy with apartheid South Africa is wrong because BDS had no effect there until Western states, including the US, boycotted the country.”

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Jewish writers overseas are expressing public concern over the direction of Israeli politics.

Gideon Levy, in Israeli daily Haaretz, says that “your beloved Israel is addicted to occupation and aggression”. Bradley Burston in the same paper claims that Americans are “emotionally divesting” from the conflict. This Washington Post report cites the fact that ultra-orthodox Jews are reproducing at such high rates that a more pro-settler mindset is gaining a foothold in the country and reducing its secular footprint.

More illegal structures are being built in East Jerusalem, yet barely any of this seems to enter the Australian discussion. Recent studies indicate the Jewish Diaspora here is “most closely tied to Israel” compared to every other Diaspora community.

This mindset has resulted in very few major figures speaking out against Israel’s occupation or ongoing siege of Gaza. I spoke to countless union officials and leaders across the country and most refused to talk on the record about these matters, the AWU and Howes.

Why? Perhaps it indicates an awareness of Howes’ media reach, his likely longevity in the Labor Party and union movement — he was recently voted one of the most powerful people in Australia in the Australian Financial Review.

But Howes is a contradiction. He is a man of the Labor Right, who is pro gay marriage and pro-refugees, supportive of nuclear power and the US alliance, mildly open to climate change and vehemently pro-Israel.

Howes told Crikey that he opposed Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla, Israeli discrimination against Palestinians, settlement expansion and the blockade of Gaza and acknowledged that he displeased Zionist audiences when he told them these views. He constantly said that he was optimistic about Middle East peace under US President Barack Obama and was hopeful  Washington wouldn’t allow the situation to deteriorate further.

I asked Howes why his union was so active in pro-Israel activity, what his members thought about it and who was paying for it all. “Most AWU members probably don’t care about Israel but we are a democratic union and I’ve received virtually no criticism for our stance. I’ve received one letter about it and it was backing our position.”

A union source told Crikey that the AWU was run like a business with little member discussion about important issues, so any serious disagreement of the union’s Israel policy could be ignored. It is impossible to determine how much AWU members’ money is spent on pro-Israel advocacy.

In his younger days, when Howes was in the Trotskyite Democratic Socialist Party, he said he “may have been anti-Israel” but the issue barely came up. “I strongly believe that Israel has the right to exist but it has no right to occupy other’s lands.” He took comfort from the fact that “most Israelis oppose colonies” but I asked if this was truly the case when settlements continued to expand at an unprecedented rate. It was because of Israel’s political system, Howes countered, that allowed “fringe” parties too much power.

Howes has placed pro-Israel campaigning at the centre of his union’s business. At the 2009 national conference, an Israeli trade union leader praised the AWU’s stand against boycotts. Howes himself gave a speech recently at the Zionist Federation of Australia conference in Melbourne where he vehemently opposed BDS but barely said a word against the occupation and implied that Palestinian workers were against BDS. In fact, the opposite is true, with the vast majority of Palestinian civil society groups agreeing in 2005 to a cultural and academic boycott of Israel.

Zionist advocacy is conducted in the AWU by a handful of major figures: national communications co-ordinator Andrew Casey in Sydney and campaigns co-ordinator Daniel Walton, who just returned from a Zionist lobby-paid trip to Israel. Several union sources told Crikey that Casey and Howes spend considerable time trying to pressure other local unions not to join the BDS movement.

Howes said he spoke regularly to union leaders in Australia and overseas and the vast bulk of them who do back BDS are doing so “because of constant Palestinian activist pressure” rather than actual belief in the ideology behind it.

Indeed, although the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union recently signed up for BDS, national secretary Dave Oliver, when contacted by Crikey, refused to comment beyond simply acknowledging the union’s “support for BDS at the national council”. I have been informed that Oliver is concerned about talking publicly about BDS for fear of upsetting Howes.

Howes, who acknowledged many times during our interview that he “didn’t know that much about the issue”, told me that he spends “0.1% of my time on Israel” and fully backs the TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) campaign that links some Israeli and Palestinian workers and “challenges the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement”.

Supporting TULIP  makes sense for Howes when he told me that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East — he included Hamas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda — “must be fought”. I challenged him to acknowledge that none of these groups are alike — for example, Hamas and Hizbollah have major electoral support — and conflating all Islamist organisations into one evil entity is the classic and deliberate mistake made by neo-conservatives since September 11.

Other union leaders do not share Howes’ liberal Zionist and rose-coloured view of the Middle East. The CFMEU’s John Sutton told Crikey that his union backed BDS and Palestine because of its history of supporting “left causes”. Israel was moving further to the right, he said, and he rejected allegations that he was anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. “I don’t back full BDS, just boycott of settlement products”, Sutton told me. “I back a two-state solution and UN resolutions.” He hoped the ACTU would follow the CFMEU’s embrace of BDS but knew Howes was desperate to avoid the major union body backing a partial BDS motion.

Former NSW CFMEU’s state secretary and political aspirant Andrew Ferguson told Crikey that the views of the AWU and Howes were “not relevant” to the BDS campaign. Ferguson’s union “has a large non-English speaking and Arabic membership, many of whom are pro-Palestinian”. He told me that Andrew Casey, AWU’s Jewish communications man, “reinforced Howes’ view on the Middle East”. Ferguson said Howes “has a strong point of view” on the Middle East and “he pushes that legitimately”.

It’s not a view shared by departed Labor politician Julia Irwin. She spoke exclusively to Crikey in August about the Zionist lobby’s infiltration of the ALP. When asked about Howes last week, Irwin said that her former Labor colleague Michael Forshaw, currently chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, “often argued that his union [the AWU] had long and binding ties with the [Israel union] Histadrut and this was the basis of his support for Israel”. The reason behind the affection for Israel felt by Howes was no different.

Irwin also expressed concern that ALP Jewish backbencher Michael Danby would likely become chair of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee next year, potentially upsetting Arab states with his hard-line Zionist views. She exclusively told Crikey that Minister for the Arts, Simon Crean, “who fought off a determined challenge from Jewish influences in the Victorian ALP to retain pre-selection”, was furious with the potential Danby position but Danby had “done his homework”, being close to the architects of Rudd’s deposing.

When I asked Howes about the only Labor MP who spoke publicly for the rights of the Palestinians, he said that Irwin had “gone as far as her abilities would allow”. He claimed that there were several other ALP parliamentarians who were critical of Israeli policies but he couldn’t name one who said anything on the public record.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the long interview with Howes was a discussion about what was actually happening in Israel and Palestine. He was not like Canadian leader Stephen Harper, who this week said that Israel must be supported no matter what. “Unless Israel moves soon [and ends the occupation], disaster awaits”, Howes told me. “I don’t give a blank cheque for Israel.”

However, one of his columns in this year’s Sunday Telegraph was a complete backing for the Israeli assassination of Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and the use of Australian passports in the hit. He argued that Israel, along with “moderate” Arab states and Australia, were engaged in a war “fighting Islamo-fascism” and the extra-judicial murder of untried “terrorists” was a “small victory”.

But Howes wanted to stress that even he had limits. “If Israelis become hell-bent on ethnic cleansing [of Palestinians] I’ll know, and my support won’t continue.” Although it is true that the ALP has a long tradition of blindly backing the Zionist state, Howes said that he regularly condemned Israeli actions “but The Australian and Australian Jewish News only report my pro-Israel comments”.

He denied having any ALP career ambitions but argued that “being critical of Israel isn’t an impediment to career progression” in the party.

Although Howes has long spoken warmly towards Israel, his planned upcoming Zionist lobby trip to Israel will not happen, along with Labor front-bencher Bill Shorten and ALP politician David Feeney, due to the presence and tensions with Kevin Rudd, according to comments by Howes on ABC in Melbourne on 11 November. Howes told me that he realised deeper involvement in the issue was required when former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a motion to congratulate Israel on its 60th anniversary in 2008. “I thought it was highly inappropriate [for some union leaders and pro-Palestinian activists] not to praise Israel’s achievements. The activists had to be challenged.”

On the day of Rudd’s motion, a large advertisement appeared in The Australian condemning the move and accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing. Howes responded at the time: “In a de facto manner, Julie Irwin and some trade union people can be perceived to be supporting the lot of Islamic Jihad and Hamas through the action they have taken here.”

But union head Andrew Ferguson indicated to Crikey that he had recently noticed a small shift in the ability of the Zionist lobby to “convince Australian unions of the Israeli position”. Although he said the ALP was a “conservative party and never backed a pro-Palestinian position”, there was more questioning within ALP ranks and less fear of being accused of backing terrorism and Hamas for simply speaking out.

Demographic shifts in Australian society, Ferguson stressed, were changing perceptions of Palestine. As Israel moves further to the right, younger members of the ALP [such as Muslim and Arab members] and the general public were moving the Labor movement in a different direction. “In 10-15 years time,” he said, “we will see a real shift” towards more critical perspectives on Israeli actions.

Crikey has obtained a motion that was passed at the Brisbane South ALP regional conference (and other regional conferences) in late October, which signals growing anger within Labor ranks. It stressed support for a two-state solution but called for an end to Israel’s “separation wall” through the West Bank, an end to the siege on Gaza, cessation of West Bank colonies and a fair outcome for Palestinian refugees.

It was then sent to the ALP National Executive for action and shows frustration that the Gillard Government and Labor leadership are willing to simply mouth the official US policy on the region. Howes had no criticism of Gillard’s position on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

But Ferguson warned me not to under-estimate the power of Zionist lobbying and money on mainstream politicians to be seduced by the Zionist narrative. Witness the upcoming largest Australian parliamentary delegation ever to visit Israel organised by Melbourne-based, Zionist lobbyist Albert Dadon. They will be accompanied by journalists from most major Australian media companies.

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution.

Crikey Ed: This story originally cited national occupational health and safety unit director Dr Yossi Berger in Victoria in relation to Zionist advocacy conducted in the AWU; this reference has now been removed due to inaccuracy.

Yet more evidence that the Australian political and media are largely bought by the Zionist lobby, unable to think for themselves. This upcoming trip will result in the following (let me make some wild guesses). Iran is a focus, Palestinians have to stop incitement, the occupation isn’t really a problem and Australia must support the Middle East’s “only democracy”.

How many of these folk will actually leave the official tour and visit the West Bank for a period of time or even Gaza? As global public opinion increasingly recognises Israeli apartheid, our “leaders” are blind to facts on the ground (such as the latest evidence that the Israeli siege on Gaza has nothing to do with security and is all about punishing the Palestinians there).

Just like politicians who visited apartheid South Africa, we will not forget these people, who remained silent and who became complicit:

The largest ever Australian parliamentary delegation to visit Israel will travel to Jerusalem in December.

They will be part of a dialogue hosted by the privately funded Australia Israel Leadership Forum.

Julia Gillard has given approval for six ministers and parliamentary secretaries to be part of the trip led by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.

They will be part of a record 17 members of the House of Representatives and Senate who will take part in the visit.

The other Labor MPs are Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, Industry Minister Kim Carr, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Mike Kelly, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs Richard Marles and MPs Michael Danby and Anthony Byrne. Bill Shorten, the Assistant Treasurer, is expected to join.

The Liberal Party plans to send nine members and senators — deputy leader Julie Bishop, Christopher Pyne, Andrew Robb, George Brandis, Kevin Andrews, Brett Mason, Mitch Fifield, Steven Ciobo and Guy Barnett.

And the ABC will break with long-held tradition and allow a journalist to attend, political editor Chris Uhlmann. AILF is the project of Melbourne property developer Albert Dadon and is modelled on the Australian American Leadership Dialogue begun by businessman Phil Scanlon.

Mr Dadon said the record number of participants “is testimony of the goodwill that exists between Australia and Israel”.

Asked who was paying for the 17 members of parliament, Mr Dadon said: “The general rule for parliamentarians taking part in the leadership forum is that they pay their own way to Israel and we take care of all expenses on the ground except for ministers, who are also paying for their expenses.”

Five journalists are expected to attend, Uhlmann, Greg Sheridan from The Australian, Steve Lewis from News Limited, Tony Walker from The Australian Financial Review and Lenore Taylor from The Sydney Morning Herald.

On the trip, a ceremony will be held at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum to honour William Cooper, the Aborigine who led a protest to the German consulate in Melbourne in 1938 after Kristallnacht (On November 9, 1938, the Nazis launched their first anti-Semitic attack on German Jews, to become known as the Night of Broken Glass).

While various organisations protested after Kristallnacht, Cooper is the only known individual to have organised a demonstration.

Funding for a “chair” dedicated to studying resistance during the Holocaust will be formalised.

“It’s fitting that the study chair at Yad Vashem that will be researching the resistance against the Nazi occupation during the Holocaust be dedicated to the memory of the only man in the world who had the courage to protest and stand up against Kristallnacht,” Mr Dadon said.

My following lead essay appears in the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings:

I first discovered the importance of the Israel/Palestine conflict in my early teens, in Melbourne. I remember sitting around the Sabbath table with my parents and cousins, discussing the events of the week as we consumed schnitzels, soggy vegetables and chicken soup. In an age before the internet, we relied on print and radio for information about the Middle East, and it all seemed terribly far away. During the Intifada in the late 1980s, where there was the first mass-organised Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation, many middle-class Israelis suddenly realised that their government’s actions would come at a high moral price.

My family would rail against Palestinian ‘terrorism’, they abhorred then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Israel was blameless, cast as the eternal victim of irrational Jew-hatred. But the racism against Arabs, and blindness to the validity of Palestinian resistance, struck me as sick, a hangover from a Nazi-at-the-door mentality. I complained and challenged these positions, but I was usually dismissed as young and ignorant.

More than fifteen years later, I wrote My Israel Question as a statement against predictable thinking on the Middle East. I was writing as an atheist Jew, and called for a Judaism that wasn’t infected with Zionist supremacy. I opposed the occupation, challenged the Zionist lobby’s bullying of politicians and journalists, and asked for open debate. In return, I received vitriol and hate-mail from an insecure Jewish community wedded to the idea of Israel as a homeland (even though most of them never wanted to live there, preferring a far more multicultural nation in Australia).

But times are changing. I’ve seen a growing willingness in the wider community to challenge Israeli actions and question the Australian government’s unequivocal support of the Jewish state. These kinds of views, unprecedented a few years ago in mainstream society, are principally due to Israel’s increased intransigence and criminality – a consensus that is growing, despite both the Labor and Liberal parties refusing to open their eyes to the new reality in Palestine. Not that you heard any of this during the federal election campaign. In fact, foreign policy was mostly absent from the debate.

On 25 June, the day after Julia Gillard politically assassinated Kevin Rudd for the prime ministership, the Australian’s Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan, informed readers that ‘anyone who expects foreign policy to move to the left … will be disappointed.’ He outlined the continuity in the Labor party, namely the US alliance, backing the war in Afghanistan and support for Israel, ‘despite a vigorous campaign to talk [Gillard] out of attending’ last year’s first Australia-Israel Leadership Forum’. Her message in foreign affairs and national security, as Sheridan wrote, ‘is one of … reassurance’.

It was a position enthusiastically shared by the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove. He argued that the Afghan conflict was fought for ‘honourable ends’, and Gillard’s ‘most important [foreign policy] theme would be continuity’. As Deakin University’s Scott Burchill dryly noted about such punditry: ‘In other words, don’t change a thing, don’t think afresh about any policies, even a futile war – everything is going swimmingly.’

A few days later, Sheridan wrote that the Rudd government’s expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Australia in May – after Israel was found to have murdered a Hamas operative in Dubai in January with the aid of foreign passports, including Australians’ – ‘may have been the single foreign policy issue that did Rudd the most harm in domestic political terms’.

Rudd’s motivations? Labor professionals were worried that friends of Israel would turn to Tony Abbott’s Liberals. None of this, of course, came to pass during the election. With the exception of the Australian Jewish News attacking the surging Greens for their supposedly anti-Israel stance, Israel was all but excluded from discussion.

The message from the foreign policy establishment was clear. There were acceptable boundaries of movement; stepping outside of them would be condemned. Indeed, Gillard herself told the Sydney Morning Herald, less than two weeks after her ascendancy, that ‘it’s not my intention to change any of the fundamentals of our foreign policy.’ The key planks outlined were the US alliance, ‘continued deployment in Afghanistan, support for Israel and focus on our region’. It was only after the August poll, and more futile Australian deaths, that a robust parliamentary debate on the Afghan deployment looked possible.

The prime minister’s list was curious for its additions. It would interest most Australians that the Jewish state was a ‘fundamental’ aspect of our global positioning. But it is a subject that undergoes virtually no debate in the Australian parliament or within the major political parties. It is an article of faith, a state religion without compare.

Australia is not unique in this position. Recall the 2008 US presidential election. Israel was the only country that all major candidates had to continually pledge allegiance: during the Vice-Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, both explained how much they admired Israel, a curious game of one-upmanship. There were no expressions of desire for Colombia, Saudi Arabia or East Timor. Australia maintains a similar, sycophantic position.

The rise of Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott will change little, if anything, towards pressuring Israel over its oppressive policies in the West Bank and Gaza. And deplorable statistics are irrelevant to Canberra’s relationship with Tel Aviv.

In July, independent Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a startling report that found twenty-one per cent of the built-up area of West Bank settlements was land that Israel recognised as private property, owned by Palestinians. The ongoing siege of Gaza contributes to malnutrition and stunted growth in young children in this open-air prison. Every human rights group in the world demands a lifting of the blockade.

Are these the ‘shared values’ with Israel Western leaders constantly talk about? David Cameron, Barack Obama and Julia Gillard continuously defend their stance by highlighting Israel as the Middle East’s ‘only democracy’. Compared to Iran and Saudi Arabia, this position can be argued, but the Jewish state deliberately discriminates against non-Jews on the basis of race and religion alone.

I visited Gaza for the first time in July 2009 to report on conditions in the occupied territories. I wanted to see for myself the devastation of the war six months earlier, and speak to Palestinians about their lives. In Gaza, I saw the effects of years of isolation: a people desperate for recognition and humanity caught in a futile battle between rhetoric and reality, growing Hamas extremism and perceived Zionist pragmatism. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened by Israeli missiles, with rebuilding impossible due to lack of resources. Nobody was starving, and food-stuffs were entering from the Egyptian smuggling tunnels, but people told me they craved freedom of movement; the right to be free and independent.

Gaza was a contradiction. I stayed in a modern hotel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, while a few metres away rubbish gathered in the streets. Hamas gunmen watched traffic as officials entered clothing shops to demand the removal of female mannequins; Islamisation of the society has only worsened since.

In truth, the Australian political leaders have chosen to side with a country that has continually occupied another people for over sixty years. It is seen as politically cost-free; a powerful Zionist lobby, sizeable Jewish donations, relatively disorganised Arab and Palestinian communities, and corporate media determination to present ‘balance’ for its readers and viewers have all contributed to the inertia.

An objective analysis of successive Australian governments reveals a remarkable consistency in attitudes towards Israel. Former prime minister John Howard regularly praised the Australian Jewish community for its social involvement and staunch support for Israel. He rarely, if ever, condemned any Israeli atrocity or act of war.

Kevin Rudd was much the same. He once told a meeting of Jewish leaders in 2007 that support for Israel was in his DNA – it is a country framed as forever defending itself against annihilation from threatening Arab neighbours. It was a romantic image, and many on the Left believed it after Israel’s founding in the late 1940s. It was easy back then – and the ALP was one of the first political parties in the world to support Israel in the UN – when a post-Holocaust generation wanted to accept the state as a noble attempt at socialism and equality.

But it was a deadly myth that began to crumble after the Six Day War in 1967, which saw Israel gain control of the Gaza Strip. Religious fundamentalism and the settler exodus moved quickly into the mainstream, backed and funded by secular politicians to entrench the Zionist ideology of continued expansion. By the 1980s, dissenting Israeli historians discovered in the archives what Palestinians had been claiming for years: ethnic cleansing took place in 1948. Israel was born on the back and blood of another people, an eerie comparison to other colonial nations, including Australia.

But Western leaders continued to sprout untruths about the realities in Palestine. Occupation was ‘disputed territory’. Terrorism was only labelled such when committed by Palestinians. Israel was always ‘striving for peace’. Barack Obama said as much during a press conference in the White House in mid-2008, after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But, of course, the November mid-term elections were imminent, and Jewish support for Democrat candidates would be jeopardised without Washington’s support for Tel Aviv.

***

In Australia, public debate is anaemic. The only politician brave enough to speak out in parliament about the Middle East has been departing Labor backbencher Julia Irwin. A lone voice on challenging Israeli spin, she has paid a price for her actions: shunned in cabinet and mostly ignored in the mainstream media. Irwin told parliament in late June of this year that she vehemently opposed the continued expansion of Jewish colonies in the West Bank. ‘This is no more acceptable to the rest of the world than the former apartheid regime in South Africa,’ she said. A few weeks earlier she had called for a boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel because, ‘while nations’ leaders fail to act, responsible citizens throughout the world are beginning to take action.’ BDS is currently booming across the globe, from dock workers in the US refusing to unload Israel ships to musician Elvis Costello bypassing the country on tour in protest of its occupation policies.

During a recent interview with me in Crikey, Julia Irwin explained that Israel could survive economic isolation but, like apartheid South Africa, the Jewish state ‘cannot survive a cultural and academic boycott … While politically Israel lurches further to the right, Israelis must come to realise that they are all judged by the actions of their leaders.’

But most of our politicians remain tone-deaf to the shift in public opinion. Days after Gillard assumed the prime ministership, a former Israeli ambassador to Australia, Ross Burns, wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, questioning the appropriateness of her partner, Tim Mathieson, being given a property sales consultant job in 2009 by prominent Zionist lobbyist, Albert Dadon. Burns also accused Gillard of being ‘remarkably taciturn on the excesses of Israeli actions in the past two years’.

National Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, Paul Howes, responded in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph that Dadon was simply ‘prominent in the local Jewish community’ and it was ‘one of the crassest examples of shoddy journalism I’ve seen.’ Dadon, a new generation of Israeli lobbyist with a kinder face, courted Kevin Rudd from the moment he entered parliament, and took Gillard to Israel on the inaugural Australia–Israel Leadership Forum. A collection of corporate journalists and politicians privately discussed ways to enhance the relationship between Israel and Australia. The event was modelled on the equally secretive annual Australia–US Dialogue. These meetings are deliberately designed to advocate ideas that exclude the public, pushing ‘continuity’ in foreign affairs despite growing public unease over US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israeli behaviour in Palestine.

Ironically, we now have the regular and unedifying sight of the Zionist lobby complaining to the government that its positions aren’t pro-Israel enough. When Foreign Minister Stephen Smith marked the fourth anniversary of the Hamas capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry found his tone ‘extremely troubling’ because he hadn’t condemned Hamas enough for its barbarity – more of an Israeli government talking point than anything else. No such compassion for the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned illegally in administrative detention without any chance of a fair trial or hearing.

Australians are worthy of a frank assessment of our unqualified support for Israel. America is beginning to embark on this conversation; a recent article on the Daily Beast website claimed the Jewish state would always be in a perpetual state of war and questioned whether Washington should back a nation that seemed so unwilling to end its conflict with the Muslim world. But it seems, for the time being, that neither the Labor nor Liberal parties have any interest in finding a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and Australians deserve far better. The rise of the Greens in the August election provides the best hope yet of the Australian parliament debating what we are supporting in the Middle East.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution, both published by Melbourne University Publishing.

Surprise, surprise:

The diplomatic relationship between Australia and Israel has resumed on its normal course, less than three months after Stephen Smith expelled an Australian diplomat from Canberra.

And despite a frosty few months, the two countries – which both share a desire to see Iran’s nuclear weapons program halted immediately – never ceased to share intelligence on the rogue state.

In a wide-ranging interview with The AJN during a campaign stop in Melbourne, Smith spoke about the resumption of that relationship. He made no pledges about the foreign policy direction a future Gillard government would take, but spoke in depth about some of the decisions made over the past almost three years.

“I am now very confident that things are now back to business as usual,” he said of the diplomatic ties between Australia and Israel.

“Often when you have a difficult issue that you’ve got to manage, your capacity to manage that and then to move reasonably quickly off it, reflects the strength of the relationship.

“Yes it was a difficult time and I obviously thought very carefully about all of the issues and came to the decision that, as I said publicly, we could not turn a blind eye to what had occurred.

“I’m very confident now that in terms of agency-to-agency relationship, government-to-government, nation-to-nation, it is business as usual.”

He added that at no time during the diplomatic impasse, did the two countries stop cooperating to quash the rogue Iranian regime.

“One area [of the Australia-Israel relationship] we did not want to see disturbed was the ongoing cooperation and exchange of information on Iran,” he said.

Asked whether he thought the forthcoming direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians means that the time for peace is right, Smith showed some trademark diplomacy.

“I think your attitude has got to be that it is always right,” he said. “You always have to try and take the opportunity and often when things appear to be at their worst is often a time when you can move forward.”

“We’re very supportive of President [Barack] Obama’s efforts, we’re very supportive of Ambassador [George] Mitchell’s efforts and we make the point to all of the players in the Middle East … that it is absolutely essential that we get long-term enduring peace.
“The issues are complex, complicated and there are strong views respectively on both sides, but we can’t give up because solving these Middle East issues is very important to peace and security, peace and stability throughout the entire world,” he said.

The shallow nature of debate over Israel/Palestine in Australia:

Labor has hit out at claims that the Coalition will always back Israel in sensitive votes at the United Nations.

Seizing on reports that Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop told a Jewish community forum in Melbourne last month an Abbott government would always vote against UN resolutions critical of Israel, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said she had shown an ”an immense lack of judgment”.

Such a change could see Australia voting against resolutions put to the General Assembly each year calling on Israel to respect the Geneva conventions governing the rules of war in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Howard government switched Australia’s vote to abstain in 2004 after Australia had previously backed the resolution over decades. But Australia has never before voted against the resolution.

“Julie Bishop clearly doesn’t understand the serious implications of what she has committed a Coalition government to do,” Mr Smith said yesterday.

But Ms Bishop has denied the Coalition intends to take a blanket approach to voting on UN resolutions should it win office.

”I said we would return to the voting pattern of the Howard government,” she told The Age yesterday.

”I make no apology for my strong support of Israel. I think the Rudd-Gillard government weakened Australia’s stance at the United Nations as they pursued votes for their campaign for the Security Council.”

Ms Bishop said the Coalition would oppose what are seen as one-sided resolutions against Israel but her comments at the Jewish forum had been mis-reported. ”Maybe that’s what they wanted me to say, but I didn’t. I’m very careful about these things,” she said. ”Of course I’d never say I’d never ever abstain, there could be all sorts of circumstances that arise in the future. I don’t know, Israel could do anything.”

She challenged Labor to state how it intended to vote on future UN resolutions involving Israel.

Debate over Australia’s ties with Israel is likely to be prominent when Mr Smith and Ms Bishop face off today in a foreign policy election debate at the National Press Club.

The Coalition criticised the government’s response to an Israeli raid on a flotilla of protest ships that killed nine activists.

”Of course the Israeli government does, from time to time, make mistakes,” Liberal leader Tony Abbott said last month. ”What government doesn’t, from time to time, make mistakes?”

He said the Coalition had an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. ”I want to assure you that a Coalition government would never support a one-sided UN resolution against Israel to curry favour with an anti-Israel majority.”

Labor changed Australia’s UN vote in 2008 after winning office to again support the Geneva conventions resolution. Mr Smith said UN votes were an important diplomatic tool that required judgment on a case-by-case basis.

Following my article in yesterday’s Crikey about departing ALP MP Julia Irwin speaking honestly about Israel/Palestine – check the comments on the original piece that shows the massive interest in these rare statements – please find below the complete transcript of the interview with Irwin:

ALP Policy:

While some of my former colleagues may disagree, I have always felt that my statements on the Israel/Palestine conflict have been broadly in line with ALP policy.  That probably says more about the nature of party platforms and the process of their creation than it does about toeing the party line on an issue. This was most noticeable going back to my 2002 motion which called for an active role for the United Nations in the peace process.  While this was covered in the official policy of the time, it seemed to upset Israel supporters in Caucus more than most of the items in the motion.  As the role of the United Nations generally is a pillar of the ALP’s Foreign Policy, the potential role of the United Nations in the Israel/Palestine conflict (apart from its membership of the Quartet) is rarely canvassed.

When I put the question of UN involvement to Ehud Barak when he visited Australia, he almost exploded. It seems this proposition is also strongly opposed within the Labor Party.   Labor’s faith in the United Nations goes back to the days of Doc Evatt and before that to the League of Nations.  Labor’s refusal to back the Iraq war and in part its opposition to the Vietnam War was based on the fact that neither were endorsed by the UN.  Calling for UN action, (including the recent calls for an independent inquiry into the Mavi Mamara incident) could therefore always be seen as complying with ALP policy.

ALP response to my views on Israel/Palestine conflict:

With a few exceptions, the great majority of the Caucus have strong pro Israel views.  Many have visited Israel as guests of various groups.  You would find a check of the Register of Members Interests worth reading as it discloses who has been to Israel and who paid for the trip.  Many Members and Senators from right wing unions have had close links with the Israeli union movement over the years and have maintained entrenched views.

I would have to say that my stance has cost me some “friends” but I should add that many of my colleagues these days begin a conversation with the remark “I know we don’t see eye to eye on the Middle East but;”

While ALP Officials, Eric Roosendaal and Mark Arbib have spoken to me and requested that I should have my speeches vetted, visit the Holocaust Museum, visit Israel and meet with members of various Jewish organisations, these requests have not been followed up.  After one speech on Palestine, the ALP chief whip tore up my application for leave from the House when I was to attend an Inter Parliamentary Union meeting in Geneva. This was later approved but not before some emotional displays on both sides.

I should add however that I have enjoyed strong support from many rank and file members of the ALP.  After speeches and statements I would receive a flood of emails and letters congratulating me on my stand.  There is obviously a strong groundswell of support within the ALP for a more independent position when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Discussions with leaders:

The only time I have had a direct discussion with party leaders on the Israel/Palestine conflict was with Simon Crean.  He phoned me when I was visiting a Detention Centre in Port Headland to say that he was due to speak to a Jewish group and he would be telling them that he had spoken to me.  He did not take the opportunity to demand any action from me which I took to mean that he respected my position.  Until very recently neither Kevin Rudd nor Julia Gillard had spoken to me on the issue.  Both appeared to be strong supporters of Israel.  As you may know, Kevin and Julia visited Israel together with senior faction figures in early 2006, before Kevin’s successful leadership challenge later that year.

Then, strangely, at the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday before he was deposed as Prime Minister, I had gone up to Kevin to ask him to sign a hardback edition of “The True Believers” which had been signed by all Party leaders from Gough Whitlam.  Kevin was surprisingly friendly and inquired about the reaction of supporters of the Palestinian cause to the Government’s handling of the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over the theft of Australian passports and his statement calling for an inquiry into the Mavi Marmara incident.  His remarks lead me to believe that there had been some change in the Government’s position with regard to Israel even if it was only a small step from being totally uncritical.

Other MPs willing to speak out on Palestine:

Apart from Maria Vamvakinou and Melissa Parke, most Labor MPs are silent on the issue of Palestine.  I should point out that most members regard Foreign Affairs as a specialist policy area and rarely make public statements on these matters.    Tibet, Burma and Zimbabwe would be exceptions. I myself was reluctant to enter the field as I have often said my main area of interest is social policy.  After describing conditions in Gaza as being like a concentration camp I faced enormous pressure from colleagues and apologised for any offence in the Parliament. But you have to take the view that you are a member of the National Parliament and you can’t avoid Foreign Affairs policy.

Without naming names, I could point to at least one ALP member who receives big donations from Palestinian interests but is silent on the issue.  (I should add that I have never been offered financial support for my re-election campaigns from groups outside my electorate and none with direct links to Palestinian interests).

On the Liberal side Susan Ley has made statements from time to time.  It is interesting to note that she succeeded Tim Fisher, and has a family connection with Middle East affairs.

Why are MPs unwilling?

There is certainly a belief that support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position.  Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate unconditional apology. For all MPs there is the desire to “play it safe”.  Why make enemies over an issue which does not directly affect your local community? And I have to add that many Labor members have an intense dislike of Arabic people. That’s something that comes across in their less guarded moments.  They will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not Palestine.

Effect of the Israel Lobby:

On the Labor side (and as far as I know the same applies to the Liberals), a newly selected member for a winnable seat is hosted to a private fund raising dinner.  A table full of Jewish businessmen are happy to hand over $10,000 for the candidate’s first campaign.  That’s a big bonus for a new member and many never forget the generosity. I was never afforded such an honour but I can say that I would have been suspicious of the motive.

And then there are the trips to Israel.  The chance to see the achievements of sixty years of Zionism, and to look down on the depressed Palestinian villages is hard to pass up for some.  How could any member not be impressed by such achievement, and how could they not share the fear of the backward Arabs threatening such an enlightened society?  Any check of the Register of Member’s Interests reveals how Tel Aviv is such a popular destination, especially when it’s free.  A visit to Israel is almost a rite of passage for new MPs and Senators.

Shortly after my motion on the Israel/Palestine conflict in 2002, the Israel Lobby sprang into action.  “Jewish Friends of Labor” was formed and no doubt has been a rich source of support for Labor candidates ever since.  As I have told Michael Danby, Julia Irwin has been the best electoral asset he has had.  The Jewish Lobby needs support from both sides of politics. It cannot afford to snub Labor even if most  Jewish voters live in blue ribbon Liberal seats.

Personally, while I have survived 4 terms, I have no doubt that senior ALP figures have promised to end my career on more than one occasion.  At the grass roots level, in the branches and the wider electorate the lobby has no influence.  Only at the highest levels can a member be threatened.  But a party which allows that to happen is not worthy of public support.

My ALP Policy:

My 2002 motion not only reflected my policy approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it is I believe, still,  the only workable approach for the long term settlement of this running sore of international concern.

At its core was the need for the United Nations to play the dominant role in the peace settlement.  Resolutions since 242 have been ignored and this has totally undermined the standing of the UN.  The UN is the most significant supplier of aid to Palestinians and has a long history of involvement in the issue going back to the original partition of Palestine. The UN is the only entity that comes close to being an honest broker in this conflict.

The BDS movement:

I grew up in a time when in Australia and the western world there was great sympathy for Jewish people.  Our shock at the horrors of the Holocaust, our shame at our complicity in centuries of abuse and discrimination against Jewish  people and our belief that the provision of a Jewish homeland would set everything right.  We were in awe of the Jewish love of life and in its expression in artistic talent, intellectual achievement and benevolent service to others.  But now I ask, what has changed.  How could such people condone the oppression of others?

In the face of unquestioning support from powerful nations, Israel can comfortably survive the economic consequences of boycott, divestment and sanctions.  What Israel cannot survive is a cultural and academic boycott.  The sporting boycott of South Africa seems trivial today, but the clear message to white South Africans at the time was that they were out of step with world opinion.  While politically Israel lurches further to the right, Israelis must come to realise that they are all judged by the actions of their leaders.

Engagement of Hamas:

In the epilogue of a recent docu-drama it was noted that the same group that initiated negotiations between the ANC and the South African Government was seeking to engage Hamas in negotiations.  Given the unfounded level of fear in white South Africa of the consequences of majority rule, unconditional engagement with Hamas should be given some hope of success.

Two State Solution:

The question is have we already passed the point of no return.  Are the settlements “facts on the ground” as George Bush referred to them, if so what happens to the Palestinian people.  What cannot be denied is that demography is destiny, not ancient promises and modern day political slogans.

“We are fighting them in the bedroom” was the battle cry of one Palestinian father of 8 when I visited his two room house in Gaza. If there is to be a two state solution it will need to be resolved soon.  Despite the belief of the Israeli leadership, time is not on their side.  There can be no ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories.  Only a truly independent and viable Palestinian nation can allow a two state solution.  The alternative is an undemocratic, oppressive and uncivilised Jewish/Arabic apartheid state.

My following article appears in today’s Crikey:

The departing Labor member for Fowler, Julia Irwin, has revealed the deep influence of the Zionist lobby on the ALP and the inner workings of her party towards the Middle East in an exclusive interview with Crikey.

Irwin says Israel must engage with Hamas, argues that the two-state solution may be a lost cause, remains open to backing a cultural and academic boycott of Israel and provides unprecedented details about the Zionist lobby’s capture of newly minted Labor MPs.

Irwin claims that her statements on the Israel/Palestine conflict over the years “have been broadly in line” with party policy and urges “an active role for the United Nations in the peace process”. Such a view “upset Israel supporters in Caucus” from 2002 onwards. Irwin comments that the UN is generally backed by the ALP — note the party’s opposition to the Iraq war due to a lack of UN support — but the Middle East crisis is seemingly different.

“When I put the question of UN involvement to [current Israeli Defence Minister] Ehud Barak when he visited Australia, he almost exploded,” she says.

Irwin stands firm on her belief that the UN is central to solving the conflict.

When asked to explain why virtually every Labor MP backs Israel uncritically, Irwin responds that Zionist lobby free trips to Israel are central to cementing views. “Many members and senators from right-wing unions have had close links with the Israeli union movement over the years and have maintained entrenched views.”

AWU boss and Labor aspirant Paul Howes is constantly backing Israeli unions in the public sphere, despite the call by Palestinian civil society to boycott such groups due to their connection to maintenance of the West Bank occupation.

Irwin tells me that her critical stance — best revealed in two recent speeches in parliament, one calling for a full investigation of the massacre on the Mavi Marmara and the other condemning increased Israeli colonisation in Palestine — has cost her some friends in the ALP. “I should add that many of my colleagues these days begin a conversation with the remark, ‘I know we don’t see eye to eye on the Middle East but’ …”

She repeated her claim in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article that Labor power-broker Mark Arbib [alongside ALP officials and NSW Jewish treasurer Eric Roozendaal] have demanded her speeches be vetted before presentation. But she reveals to Crikey that it went further:

“[I was told I should] visit the Holocaust Museum, visit Israel and meet with members of various Jewish organisations [but] these requests have not been followed up.  After one speech on Palestine, the ALP chief whip tore up my application for leave from the House when I was to attend an Inter Parliamentary Union meeting in Geneva. This was later approved but not before some emotional displays on both sides.”

Significantly, Irwin says that she “enjoyed strong support from many rank-and-file members of the ALP” after a speech or statement on Israel/Palestine and would receive mountains of positive letters and emails. “There is obviously a strong groundswell of support within the ALP for a more independent position when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict.”

There is no evidence that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is even willing to entertain this issue, placing blind backing for Israel as one of her key foreign policy objectives. Opposition leader Tony Abbott is no different.

Irwin says that former leader Simon Crean called her many years ago to briefly discuss the Middle East but until recently neither Kevin Rudd nor Julia Gillard had approached her:

“Then, strangely, at the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday before he was deposed as Prime Minister, I had gone up to Kevin to ask him to sign a hardback edition of The True Believers which had been signed by all Party leaders from Gough Whitlam.  Kevin was surprisingly friendly and inquired about the reaction of supporters of the Palestinian cause to the government’s handling of the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over the theft of Australian passports and his statement calling for an inquiry into the Mavi Marmara incident.  His remarks led me to believe that there had been some change in the government’s position with regard to Israel even if it was only a small step from being totally uncritical.”

Irwin laments the lack of MPs speaking out on Palestine (except Victorian MP Maria Vamvakinou and West Australian MP Melissa Parke) and blames enormous pressure from ALP officials. Furthermore, “most members regard Foreign Affairs as a specialist policy area and rarely make public statements on these matters. Tibet, Burma and Zimbabwe would be exceptions”. But Irwin continually spoke out over Palestine.

Irwin’s departure from parliament will leave virtually nobody from the major parties to speak critically about the Middle East.

She tells Crikey, without revealing the name, that “at least one ALP member receives big donations from Palestinian interests but is silent on the issue.” Irwin says she has never received donations from groups with “direct links to Palestinian interests”.

Irwin cites the belief within the party that “support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position. Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate unconditional apology.” She continues:

“For all MPs there is the desire to ‘play it safe’.  Why make enemies over an issue which does not directly affect your local community? And I have to add that many Labor members have an intense dislike of Arabic people. That’s something that comes across in their less-guarded moments.  They will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not Palestine.”

One of the least understood realities of modern politics is the insidious influence of unelected lobbyists on the political process. Irwin is remarkably forthcoming in detailing how the Zionist lobby operates within the ALP:

“On the Labor side (and as far as I know the same applies to the Liberals), a newly selected member for a winnable seat is hosted to a private fund raising dinner.  A table full of Jewish businessmen are happy to hand over $10,000 for the candidate’s first campaign.  That’s a big bonus for a new member and many never forget the generosity. I was never afforded such an honour but I can say that I would have been suspicious of the motive.”

Irwin also cites the never-ending free trips to Israel — “a visit to Israel is almost a rite of passage for new MPs and Senators” and display by hosts of “backward Arabs threatening such an enlightened society” — and acknowledges that the lobby needs backing across the political aisle. “It cannot afford to snub Labor even if most Jewish voters live in blue ribbon Liberal seats.” Labor’s closeness to the lobby is well documented.

She tells Crikey that although she survived four terms in parliament, “I have no doubt that senior ALP figures have promised to end my career on more than one occasion.  At the grass roots level, in the branches and the wider electorate, the lobby has no influence.  Only at the highest levels can a member be threatened. But a party which allows that to happen is not worthy of public support.”

Once a strong believer in the two-state solution, today Irwin wonders if Israel has “passed the point of no return” with ongoing colonisation across the West Bank and isolation of Gaza. “There can be no ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories,” she warns and urges “unconditional engagement” with Hamas to facilitate a peace treaty. She remains pessimistic of future prospects. “Despite the belief of the Israeli leadership, time is not on their side.”

Irwin raises the possibility of backing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, a growing global movement to non-violently pressure Israel to embrace true democracy in Israel and Palestine or face increasing isolation.

The departing MP says that she grew up greatly admiring Jews and was shamed “at our complicity of abuse and discrimination against Jewish people” but “now I ask, what has changed? How could such a people condone the oppression of others?”

Irwin believes Israel can survive economic isolation but, like apartheid South Africa, the Jewish state “cannot survive a cultural and academic boycott … While politically Israel lurches further to the right, Israelis must come to realise that they are all judged by the actions of their leaders.”

While both major political parties continue pandering to Israel’s pro-settler fringe, the BDS movement is exploding everywhere, including Australia.