Prime Minister Netanyahu with his wife Sarah

Bob Hawke condemns expansion on eve of Netanyahu visit

Former prime minister Bob Hawke has slammed Israel for its expansionist settlement policy and challenged the Turnbull government to grant diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine ahead of an historic visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr Hawke is a long-time supporter of the state of Israel and its right to exist. But writing in today’s The Australian Financial Review he is scathing of the Israeli parliament’s decision to approve a law retroactively legalising 4000 settler homes built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

The aspirations of all those who had fought hard for peace in the Middle East are being “trashed by the inexorable expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank”, he writes.

“Australia was there at the very beginning.

“The least we can do now, in these most challenging of times, is to do what 137 other nations have already done – grant diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine.”

Mr Netanyahu is due in Australia next week. He is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit Australia since the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948.

But first Mr Netanyahu is travelling to the White House to meet with Donald Trump, whose comments about the Middle East are said to have emboldened Israel’s settlement building.

In contrast to the approach taken by Barack Obama, Mr Trump indicated he would ease pressure on Israel to limit settlements when he took office.

Read the full article by Joanna Mather at the Australian Financial Review.