In November 2012, Australia abstained from supporting the UNGA recognition of Palestine as a "non-member observer state" by a vote of 138 to 9, rendering PM Abbot's latest "clarification" that Australia still "strongly" supports the "two-state solution" a hollow statement.
Quoted by Emeritus Professor Peter Boyce AO, President of the Australia Institute of International Affairs in Tasmania , a 2010 study found that 78% of Australians were opposed to Israel's settlements policy and only 22% thought Jerusalem should be recognized as Israel's capital. More recently, at the time of the 2012 General Assembly vote on Palestinian non-member observer state status, 51% of Australians thought their country should vote "Yes" and only 15% "No."
"Australia has had an important role in the establishment of the Israeli state" and it "stood alone among western governments in its uncritical alignment with Israel," Professor Boyce wrote.
Certainly Boyce had history in mind. Australia in its capacity as the Chairman of the UN General Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine helped to push through the UN Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. It was the first UN member state to vote in favor of Israeli statehood and the first to grant Israel de-jure recognition when the U.S. recognized it de-facto only. Israel was also the first Middle East country with which Australia established diplomatic relations in 1949.
Australia had defended all Israeli wars on Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as "in self defense," especially the 1967 war in which it occupied more Palestinian territories and the lands of four Arab countries.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Email address removed
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