Hamas has not changed its spots
May 5, 2017 | Gareth Narunsky
Hamas leaders have been clear the new policy document neither replaces or amends Hamas’ homicidal and antisemitic founding charter nor accepts Israel’s existence.
It’s time to put the 18C debate to bed
March 6, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
Now that the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into Freedom of Speech has handed down its findings, it’s time to put the idea of making changes to Sections 18C or 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) to bed.
Australia has been a good friend to Israel
March 2, 2017 | Mark Leibler
Australia has been a good friend to Israel since before the establishment of the Jewish state.
The friendship has transcended partisan politics, and been enhanced and promoted by successive leaders of both nations.
Against this conducive backdrop, last week’s historic first visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the warm, respectful reception he was given by our own prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has surely taken the relationship to a new level.
An Israeli-Palestinian peace requires the right sort of pressure
February 26, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein & Jamie Hyams
To read Mark Kenny’s analysis of Israel and Palestine (“Blind support for Israel unhelpful”, February 19), one would think the West Bank was a place where arrogant, lawless Israelis tormented and oppressed innocent Palestinians almost for sport, while steadily undermining the only real chance of peace: the two-state resolution. The good news is that reality is somewhat different. The bad news is that peace will still be difficult to achieve, just not for the reasons Kenny gives.
Bibi’s visit and the ties that bind
February 22, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
AS Australia prepares to welcome the first ever visit by an Israeli Prime Minister, cooperation and dialogue between our two nations have never been stronger.
It’s a record of friendship over a hundred years that few countries can match – marked by shared democratic and egalitarian values, common challenges, bustling trade and a long friendship in which both countries take great pride.
Bob Hawke is wrong: recognising Palestine would just encourage intransigence
February 16, 2017 | Mark Leibler
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is correct that, as former Israeli PM Golda Meir said, there can be no peace for Israel without an honourable settlement of the aspirations of the Palestinian people. However, there can also only be peace if both parties negotiate that honourable settlement in good faith, and are prepared to make the painful compromises required.
UN Resolution 2334 only damages peace prospects
February 15, 2017 | Dov Bing & Colin Rubenstein
New Zealand’s role in co-sponsoring United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334 isn’t anything to cheer about for those who care more about peace than symbolism. In fact, it damages prospects for peace.
End the Madness over Jerusalem
February 13, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
The City of Jerusalem, holy to the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths, is known to cause its own particular kind of madness. About 50 foreign visitors to the city a year experience what is known as “Jerusalem Syndrome” – psychotic delusions that they are biblical figures or harbingers of Armageddon.
The city also causes some peculiar diplomatic madness. Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, but almost no country recognises it as such.
Two-state outcome damaged by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334
January 4, 2017 | Colin Rubenstein
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop are to be admiringly applauded for demonstrating courageous and astute political leadership in making it clear that Australia would have opposed the appallingly flawed and one-sided United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 on the Israeli-Palestinian issue that also epitomises the politicised, dysfunctional state of the UN…
Free to speak and debate, not to hate with Racial Discrimination Act
December 12, 2016 | Colin Rubenstein
Freedom of speech is essential to democracy; so is the freedom to debate.
No significant voice in Australia argues otherwise.
It is also the case that Freedom of Speech is not an absolute right in Australia nor in other similar liberal democracies – even if some voices in Australia pretend otherwise.
