GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:41): In 1947, the Palestinians were promised a state of their own by the UN General Assembly in a resolution which Australia's Doc Evatt played a crucial role in crafting. Seventy-eight years later, Palestinian people remain stateless. Much worse, since 1947 they have been systematically dispossessed of their homelands, effectively living under Israeli military rule.
Palestinians notionally have their own government, in a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas. But their freedoms are very limited by Israel. According to one report, around 700,000 Israelis now live in what was previously Palestinian territory, in the West Bank.
The International Court of Justice declared that Israel's occupation and settlement policies in the Palestinian territories are illegal under international law. Terms including 'genocide', 'ethnic cleansing' and 'apartheid' are increasingly being used by credible individuals and reputable organisations to describe the situation in Palestine. It is reported that two Israeli human rights organisations, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, have also labelled the country's actions in Gaza as genocide.
In 2023, former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr opened a major speech about the Israeli-Palestine situation with the words 'occupation, illegality and apartheid'. He then went on to clearly articulate the case that those three words best describe Israel's incursion into Palestine lands. At the last count, over 130 of the UN's 193 member states have recognised Palestinian statehood.
Last week, France said it would also add its name to the list, which opens the door for the UK to do the same. The UN had itself, in an overwhelming vote, backed a resolution in 2012 granting Palestine the status of non-member observer state. For decades there has been a widespread consensus that the best outcome for Israel and Palestine is a two-state solution, with each state having clear borders and self-governance.
The first step to a two-state solution is to recognise the right of both states to exist. It is a position the ALP adopted in its national platform in 2021. A two-state solution has been consistently rejected by Israel since 1947.
Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign affairs minister who subsequently made a personal intervention in the Israel-Palestine issue as president of the International Crisis Group, in an address to the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine in Canberra on 13 June 2023 methodically exposed Israel's legal and moral breaches against the Palestinians. Gareth Evans, who, I believe, began on the side of Israel, has now become a critic of Israeli regimes and an advocate for the Palestinians.
Since the cowardly Hamas killings of Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages on 7 October 2023, the situation in Palestine has become a humanitarian disaster and a living hell for the Palestinian people. Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble. An estimated 60,000 people have been killed.
Most people have lost their homes, food aid has been restricted by Israel and too many of those who survived the bombings are starving or have been left with life-limiting injuries. The response by Israel has been, firstly, to attack the credibility of its critics; secondly, to run its own propaganda campaign of disinformation; thirdly, to play the victim and weaponise antisemitism; and, fourthly, to bully others into silence.
Hamas's actions must also be condemned. The October 7 killings, the taking of hostages, the death of hostages and the failure to release the hostages still held are all matters that need to be responded to. Clearly the world has condemned them, and rightly so.
But the facts, particularly those in relation to human rights violations by the Netanyahu government, are indisputable. Aid agencies and aid workers who are on the ground risking their own lives to help others have no reason to lie. Killing and starving innocent people, including children and babies, who have had no role whatsoever in the Israel-Palestine conflicts or the October 7 events, can never be justified.
Destroying homes, schools, hospitals and churches where Palestinian people are taking refuge and restricting food, water and medical aid to people left homeless is a breach of both international law and basic human decency. On 7 July I attended, as I do every year, the 30th commemoration of the genocide in Srebrenica, where 8,372 defenceless Bosnian men, women and children were slaughtered by armed forces while the rest of the world looked away.
At those services, there is always a prayer that what happened at Srebrenica never happens again—nowhere and to no-one. Sadly, 30 years later, it is happening again in much larger numbers to the Palestinian people whilst the world does not look away but looks on with indifference or powerlessness. Words and UN resolutions are clearly not enough.
After almost two years of bombings and killings, people around the world are understandably becoming desensitised to the daily news reports of more bombings and killings. Yet the reported 60,000 people—perhaps even a lot more—who have been killed, of whom 70 per cent were women and children, were people who had committed no wrong and whose lives were just as precious to them and their families as all of our lives are to us.
Innocent civilians, babies, children, women and elderly should not pay with their lives for the actions of Hamas. The Netanyahu government is breaching international law and international morality. The banning of foreign journalists from Gaza, other than a select few operating under strict rules of the Israeli military, is not stopping the truth from getting out.
The bombings of homes and buildings, the loss of human lives, the damage to schools, the attacks on medical facilities, the destruction of water supplies and sanitation, the blocking of food supplies, the killing of people simply seeking aid and food, the arrest and detention of thousands of Palestinians, the forcible displacement of over 90 per cent of Gaza's Palestinian population and the overcrowding of refugee camps are not simply consequences of war but deliberate actions by the Netanyahu government to drive Palestinians away from their lands.
People throughout the world are turning against the Netanyahu government, including Israeli people. Around the world, people are saying enough is enough. The world must respond, and Australia's response also matters.
I welcome recent strong statements from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that the Netanyahu government is breaking international law. I also welcome Australia joining with other nations in signing a strongly worded statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, for the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, for the conflict in Palestine to end and for the lifting of restrictions on the flow of aid.
The statement also strongly opposes any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. To date, the Netanyahu government has ignored international condemnation of its actions, court rulings, sanctions and UN resolutions. Nevertheless, calls for further sanctions against Israel and the intervention of UN peacekeepers are growing louder while support for Israel is sinking.
The situation in Gaza has reached a crisis point. Innocent people are dying from a man-made catastrophe. The world should speak as one, and this parliament should speak as one, to save lives and render assistance to the Palestinian people, just as we have always done when a natural weather event has caused human tragedy in other parts of the world.
The change in tone from the US is also welcome, but it too needs to do more to bring about a ceasefire and lasting peace. In years to come, future generations will look back at the situation in Palestine over the last two years with sadness, disbelief and disappointment. It simply cannot continue.
We must do better.