Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in recognition of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I want to thank the member for Fowler for bringing this motion to the House and for his important advocacy on this issue, as well as for his longstanding advocacy on all other human rights issues.

This day of solidarity with the Palestinian people is important. It not only affirms the principles of justice and international law; it also serves to hold a mirror to the world and to the institutions of the United Nations. It is a day which holds member states to account on progress towards their commitments to the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, including their right to self-determination and a future built on peace, dignity, justice and security.

Earlier this year I noted the international community must not absolve itself of the responsibility it has to ratify its own resolutions. This year alone, we've seen this reality tested and come out short on all the benchmarks of humanitarian and international law. Instead of implementing resolutions that form the basis of a future built on the principles we serve to uphold, we instead continue to see Palestinians suffer the indignities and violence of occupation and conflict. I also said then that Australia has a long history of engagement in multilateral institutions as a middle power, with a pragmatic problem-solving ethos that gives priority to our diplomatic engagements. What framework do countries such as ours have to speak of if not the resolutions of the United Nations and the principles of international law?

When it comes to the question of Palestine and, indeed, to all of our international obligations, we can't simply refer to charters and principles without any enforcement during times of deceptive calm while doing away with them in their entirety during times of heated attacks. The irony is that doing so doesn't just absolve us of responsibility; it has the unintended consequences of denying us the ability to hold others to account in the international arena—not just on this question, but on issues within our own regional sphere.

I emphasise this because we're not here today to memorialise. The member for Fowler's motion stands to affirm an issue that not only remains alive and impactful but also, in fact, has a major impact on a significant number of matters affecting our world today. Action means ending the crippling military occupation, the world's longest in modern history, and addressing matters that the United Nations identifies as critical—namely, Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, security and water. This day of solidarity reaffirms the saying that, where there is no justice, there is no peace to be found and, ultimately, no security for all sides.

It's not just solely an international issue; its context finds itself here, which, as this motion recognises, is very important to many across the Australian community—including in my own community. Today I want to reference Hisham, my constituent, who spoke to me about his late father, Hayel, who was also my constituent and a member of our local Palestinian community. I want to quote Hisham:

My father was born in Safad, in the north of what was Palestine. Very early on he became a refugee, forced to live stateless. My grandmother carried my father and his brother in her arms to the point of exhaustion as they made their way across the border into neighbouring Lebanon, forced to split from my grandfather along the way.

What was meant to be temporary refuge became permanent exile. All the while, Safad become inaccessible to him. Jerusalem became inaccessible to him. The waters and land of what was once home became foreign.

And my father, like the hundreds of thousands of others who shared his fate, were forced to live as stateless refugees, without peace and security and without a place to call home.

Hisham goes on to say:

That's how this tragedy continues—because everything stems from a lack of resolution brought about by a lack of resolve.

At what point does the international community say 'let's live up to our own values'—at what point does the world recognise that Charters, resolutions and laws are there to be actually implemented?

These words are poignant because, with each aspect of the conflict that needs to be addressed, there remains an internationally recognised and agreed-upon mechanism from which to refer to. These are the resolutions of the United Nations itself. Today not only affirms our solidarity with the Palestinian people; it is a day which serves to reaffirm our commitment to international law.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today in support of the motion of the member for Fowler in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Until a number of years ago, I was blissfully unaware of the intricacies of what was going on in that part of the world. I would see the news reports that were coming through about issues in Gaza and the West Bank and would not really take much notice. But, after spending eight days in the West Bank, you cannot unsee what you see. What I saw during those eight days were a people who are under military rule, who are suppressed and who have no rights. In some ways, where it's espoused that they do have rights, they don't have rights. Under the Palestinian Authority, which has control over the major cities in the West Bank, the Israeli army can come and go as it pleases under whatever circumstances it wishes.

The debate in this place sometimes becomes, 'Are you for or against it?' and, if you're for Palestine, somehow you're supposed to be anti-Semitic. I'd like to think that I've been around long enough for people to know that I'm not a radical in any event. But when I see an injustice, it needs to be called out. I ask people, 'How would you manage if you had a business that relied on water supply, like a brewery, but for days on end the water supply gets cut off, because it's not under your control?' The electricity supply can be cut off for days on end, because it's not under your control. You can go away for a weekend and come back and find that someone has moved into your home, and, when you call the police, they arrest you—not the people that are in your home. I saw that with my own eyes in Hebron, where the centre of the town had been overtaken illegally by settlers.

I saw settlements. The image of some temporary buildings on top of a hill in the West Bank does not describe the settlements. There are 620,000 Israelis living illegally in the West Bank. These are cities with shopping centres, swimming pools, movie theatres and substantial, solid homes. These are permanent settlements. The access to the settlements is on roads that only Israeli citizens can use, not Palestinians. How would you like to live in a land where not only is your access cut off by roads that you're not allowed to use but, at times during the year, military activities mean certain parts of your country are no-go zones? How would you like to be a farmer and know that all the lowlands and the Jericho valley, the highly productive lands, have been taken from your control and you have to eke out a living on a bare, bony ridge?

The policy of the Australian people and our government is to look to a two-state solution. I think that we're beyond that. I think we have a level of apartheid, with a suppressed people, and the West Bank has been cut up to such an extent that I don't know how that would work. As the member for Calwell says, I think it's going to require a lot of effort from the world to actually come up with a solution that's relevant to now. One of the most tragic things I saw was interviews with university students in Bethlehem; realistically, their future was very bleak.

As the member for Calwell did, I would like to recognise one of my constituents—the mayor of Coonamble, in western New South Wales, Al Karanouh. Al's family were from Jaffa and in 1948 were moved out, initially to Lebanon and then to the four corners of the globe. He has relatives living all over the globe. One of his family members still carries the key to the house in Jaffa around their neck, as a permanent reminder of what they have lost. Al turned up in Coonamble with basically the clothes on his back. He built a successful business, became the mayor and is driving that community with the same passion as Palestinians are all over the globe. I support the Palestinian people. The globe needs to act. World leaders need to act. (Time expired)

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the motion moved by the member for Fowler and I'd like to acknowledge his ongoing advocacy for the Palestinian people. The motion, of course, is in recognition of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, on 29 November. Israel has a right to exist and Israelis should be afforded the right to live in peace without any fear of attack from either beyond their borders or within. But Palestinians should also have these same rights to live in peace.

The establishment of Israel resulted in more than 700,000 Palestinians being forcibly removed from their homes and lands to become internally displaced or refugees in neighbouring countries. In 1967, 300,000 more Palestinians became refugees, some for the second time. To this day, they and their families are under the UN refugee charter and resolutions and have the right to return to their homes. Many of these refugees are in the West Bank and Gaza, stateless in neighbouring countries or spread throughout the world. Palestinians make up 21 per cent of the global refugee population.

In the West Bank, Palestinian families and communities have lived under Israeli military occupation for over 50 years. All aspects of their lives are controlled by Israel. Movement is restricted, building permits are denied; access to land and water, and trade with other countries, is severely limited. People living in the West Bank should have the right to live in their own homes without a looming threat of being forcibly removed. Gazans should have the right to live without the fear that a bomb will level the building they occupy, and they should not be subject to a blockade. They should be allowed to come and go from the Gaza Strip whenever they like. Palestinians should have the right to live in a state of their own. Too often, these rights are violated.

The violence we saw earlier this year claimed the lives of over 200 Palestinians, including at least 65 children. The world watched as the fighting unfolded. What we saw was absolutely unthinkable. We also saw the lives of 12 Israelis, including two children, lost. This must be condemned in the strongest of terms. We saw the bombing of a building housing the very little media that exists in the Gaza Strip, crippling the world's access to on-the-ground reporting. We saw the anger of oppressed people and the heartbreak of children who had lost their parents and of parents who had lost their children.

Today, Palestinians are in a terrifying position. Under the Oslo agreements of 1993, Israel controls almost all the region's water resources. Eighty per cent of the water goes to Israel and only 20 per cent to Palestinians. Palestine is forced to buy back this water, of which up to a third is lost to leakage. As a result, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have water consumption levels far below the World Health Organization recommended level. This is what happens when a group of people aren't afforded the basic human right of self-determination.

One example of the oppression faced by Palestinians is the story of jailed World Vision Gaza program manager Mohammed El Halabi. In 2016, Mr El Halabi was arrested while crossing the border between Israel and Gaza. He was accused of redirecting more than $50 million in aid money to Hamas and other militant groups. He was interrogated for 50 days and has spent the last five years in jail, despite investigations by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, independent auditors and World Vision finding no evidence of wrongdoing. In fact, World Vision said that its entire Gaza budget during the time frame was half the alleged money that was taken. Mr El Halabi still has not faced trial. His legal defence has been restricted, and he has attended more than 150 court appearances. No substantial evidence to support the allegations against him have been produced in this time. Mr El Halabi is so respected that, in 2014, he was named a humanitarian hero by the United Nations. He was offered a plea deal but refused, maintaining his innocence. So he continues to languish behind bars.

How has Australia reacted to this and many other injustices? Tim Costello, the former CEO of World Vision Australia, said that the Australian government has responded by cutting aid through the World Bank to Palestine, halving our commitment through UN bodies and axing an NGO partnership supporting farmers throughout Palestine. Further, he said, 'Australia's silence makes us complicit.' It falls to countries like Australia to engage in a process that will peacefully create a Palestinian state while ensuring the security of a Jewish homeland. I call on the government to ensure that Australia constructively uses our voice to support peace and security.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

' DOWD (—) (): I support the member for Fowler and the previous speakers. They were spot on. Anyone who's been to that part of the world, Palestine and Israel, knows exactly what they're talking about.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is on 29 November. We shouldn't have this day. The Palestinian people should have equal rights. That's not asking too much. I've never met a Palestinian who doesn't want to be on equal terms. The days of conflict between Israel and Palestine have disappeared. Now all they're seeking is peace in that land. They should have their basic rights returned to them. At the moment, they have very few rights. Their rights to safety and self-determination don't exist. I've seen firsthand what it's like to live under apartheid rule. At a mosque in Hebron, a line going into the mosque had Israelis on one side and Palestinians on the other side. If that's not apartheid, I'd like to know what apartheid is. All they seek is fairness, equality and democratic rights for all parties who live in that one stretch of land.

I went to Palestine and saw firsthand the injustices done to the Palestinian people on a day-to-day basis. It was evident everywhere I went. Anyone who goes to Palestine knows this. A Palestinian man said to me: 'Ken, you might think you know a little bit about our problems over here, but, until you live it day to day, you do not understand. You're only getting a slight insight into what's going on.' Take the Jordan River. It's running dry. The Dead Sea—it's a good name for it, actually—is getting deader and deader. As the Palestinians lose water from the Jordan River to Israeli farmers, the salt content in the Dead Sea is increasing and the level of the Dead Sea is dropping. There were once resorts around the top of the Dead Sea where you had water views. Now, the water views are some 200 metres away from those resorts. That's how much the Dead Sea is shrinking.

Water is a big issue for the Palestinians. They don't know when they've got it from one day to the next. Those black tanks on top of their roofs—you can always tell a Palestinian house when it's got black tanks—are Palestinian tanks, and they are only allowed to pump water into those tanks on a certain day of the week or the month, depending how much the Israelis want to give them. These are the real things that happen in Palestine.

I call for the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It's called theft of the land. As the member for Parkes said, you can be in your house one day and the next day you get told: 'You're leaving. Please remove yourself from the house, because tomorrow the bulldozers will come in and it will be gone. Where will you go? Who knows? There are Israelis coming back from all parts of the world, and they need houses.' This is the issue. This is why you get the new settlements controlled by the Israelis at the expense of the Palestinians. They keep on expanding.

The West Bank was for Palestinians, under the 1948 agreement. Now, it's a hotchpotch of Palestinians and Israelis living in walled cities. Big, high concrete walls have been erected around these new territories. If a Palestinian happens to be working in a location inside those walls, he now has to get permission to go inside that wall to work where his family has worked for hundreds of years.

There are still people and refugees in camps. There have been since 1948. These people have got no future. The Gaza Strip should be abolished. Let the people be free to move outside those borders. I went to a university in Palestine, in Hebron, and they said the numbers are down because the Gaza people cannot move out of Gaza and come back into their universities. It's a crying shame what's happening over there, and we should do everything we can as Australia and everything we can with the United Nations to get rid of these inequities that are affecting the people of Palestine. (Time expired)

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the last 18 months, our world has seemed much smaller. The pandemic and the restrictions on movement have meant our focus has been close to home, so it's been very easy to overlook events and issues beyond our borders—too easy. With 29 November fast approaching, I thank my friend the member for Fowler for putting forward this motion, which acknowledges the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and their inalienable rights. I acknowledge also the previous speakers in the debate: the member for Flynn, who spoke so movingly about his lived experience and his concerns; the member for Parkes, who made a very powerful contribution that I found very affecting; and my colleagues, the member for Canberra and my neighbour and friend the member for Calwell, who has been such a longstanding advocate for justice in this space.

That we are having this debate matters to me. That we are demonstrating this sense of solidarity matters to me, and it matters to the people I represent in this place—Palestinian Australians and many others in Melbourne's northern suburbs, from a very diverse range of backgrounds, who want to see peace, justice and an enduring two-state solution and who too often despair at the lack of progress towards this and the terrible human cost that has been borne through these longstanding failures. Those costs are felt here in Australia as well as—much more obviously—in Palestine.

One of the reasons I was so keen to speak to this motion was to acknowledge the force of contributions made to me by constituents this year when I was able to hold street-corner meetings and street stalls in May, when our TV screens were filled with terrible images attesting to the deaths of 200 Palestinians and 12 Israelis—all deaths which we mourn. People urged me then not to look away. People sought reassurance that Australia would take on a constructive leadership role in standing up for human rights wherever they are threatened and standing up for international law. Labor has, of course, long supported an enduring and just two-state solution to this conflict, reflecting the aspirations of the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in their own state and the right of Israelis to live in peace within secure borders internationally recognised and agreed between the parties. I'm proud that Labor's platform supports recognition of the right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states with secure, recognised borders and, in government, to progress towards self-determination and recognition. This is as it should be.

The member for Fowler, in his contribution, set out very articulately concerns that I share in relation to human rights, including access to the basic necessities of life; the many obstacles that have stood in the way of the peace process, including settlement building and the blockade; and, of course, the desperate and irresponsible politicking by the Morrison government around the unilateral recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, putting Australia out of step with the international community and at risk of undermining the prospect of a durable solution. From as far away as we are, it's easy to look away. But we can't, because everyone deserves the prospect of a future built on peace, dignity, justice and security. That this today, as we stand here, seems so remote for the Palestinian people doesn't mean it can be ignored. We all need to work harder to support an enduring solution, to put in place whatever tangible steps we can to advance a peaceful future for the people of Palestine and the people of Israel; in doing so, to call out any actions, by any party, which undermine the journey to such a peace; to speak up in this place, in our communities and internationally in support of human rights and in accordance with international law; and to recognise, as the member for Calwell did, that Australia has a proud record, as a middle power, of being an effective presence in support of a world governed in accordance with law, not in accordance with the dictates of power. That's a call that should be recognised.

In the lead-up to 29 November, I want to put on the record my solidarity, my hopes and my determination to do what I can in this place to stand up for the enduring values of human rights and to see those rights and a peaceful future extended to all of those in need of them.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] The piecemeal approach on the economic and security challenges in the occupied Palestinian territories, which we've seen not just for years but for decades, really does look like being perpetuated, particularly in recent events. I want to summarise the work of the relevant UN report but I also want to make it fairly obvious that many of us have travelled to this part of the world—and we deeply thank our hosts for making that possible—but we all have to be very cautious that we don't develop a political view on this complex part of the world based on whoever funded our last delegation to the region. We have to acknowledge that unravelling this is highly complicated and it goes back well over 70 years.

The point I want to make pretty clearly is that short-term fixes aren't going to be the answer. Picking out isolated anecdotes and fixating on them as representing some form of horrific injustice is not going to help fix the problem or the additional crises, led by COVID; nor is the respective parties failing to work together and failing to focus on the economic elements of this tragedy. They are the means through which we can one day have a political solution. If we keep putting the politics of all this first, at the expense of economic opportunity, that's where we will see the suffering. The UNSCO were right to point out this month that the economic and fiscal situation there is 'dire', and their report says that we've got to take this head on.

Every hour of every day that I was in that country, I was reminded of a famous quote: if you stay for a day in Palestine, you can write a novel; if you stay for a year, you can barely fill a page. The reality is that the longer you stay there the more you appreciate the complexity. We've had years of economic stagnation in the West Bank, which has seen a further collapse during COVID. The situation in the Gaza Strip has resulted from a multidecade decline, which is not something that can be turned around overnight, particularly given the high unemployment and the status of women in the country. It's increasingly difficult for the Palestinian Authority to even deliver on its mandate let alone cover its minimum expenditures or make any form of critical investment in the economy. That's what our clear and present challenge is right now—to not devalue, diminish or ignore the political challenges. Both parties, not just the PA, are responsible for the economic elements. It's not just of the water supply. We have to make sure that we are constantly focused on vocational training, getting more graduates and addressing unemployment and making small and micro business opportunities possible in the Palestinian-run areas.

The longstanding shortage of public funds is a concern, but we can't continue to expect the international community, 70 years on, to be primarily responsible for the support. Neighbouring Islamic economies need to be playing not just an increased role but almost the complete role in supporting the Palestinian territories both in finding a diplomatic solution to this but also driving the economic possibilities for this generation right now. There's no need for the international community to be running the schools and childcare centres. It's patronising. The Palestinian Authority, despite its lack of funds, needs to be making sure that this is done with international bilateral partnerships, where local countries with a stake in the reality on the ground are pulling their weight and not relying on this becoming a persistent global effort. It does not need to be that. Israel, too, can do far more in releasing clearance revenues, which they're unilaterally equating as the amount paid by Palestinians to its prisoners and their families or the families of those that are killed or injured during attacks.

This is a severe crisis. We don't want unilateral action. We need to be working on an integrated response. The report this month has called for that. In the last couple of days the chair's summary of the meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that met in Oslo on 17 November was released. It was virtually supported. But all met at that high level. They're trying to promote some form of cooperation between the parties but with an economic focus. We're identifying the next step. There's an IMF report.

The destabilisation we're seeing at the moment, the high friction created in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, breakdowns in ceasefires—all of that is ultimately being spawned by political obsession in the absence of any economic development. Both parties need to be focusing on that or having a second track that explicitly looks at economic development opportunities and overcoming structural constraints for the sustained development of the Palestinian territories. Against that backdrop, I'm calling for both parties to continue that renewed focus and to support the next step as we try and get economic development in the Palestinian state.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.

Sitting suspended from 11:33 to 11:34