In one of the more troubled areas of a troubled world – the Middle East – there are a very few certainties. One of those is this – there can be no possibility of any sort of lasting peace without a settlement of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
I am well known as a long-time supporter of the right of Israel to exist as a state behind secure and recognised borders – nothing has changed in that respect. What has changed is the sentiment of Israeli political leadership.
I will always remember my meeting immediately after the end of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 with its then Prime Minister Golda Meir. I listened with admiration and in total agreement as this wonderful woman, still traumatised with grief, looked into my eyes and said there could be no peace for Israel until there was an honourable settlement of the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Golda Meir was absolutely right and her words have a particular resonance – and invoke a special responsibility – for Australia. It was our great foreign minister, Dr HV Evatt who chaired the UN Special Committee on Palestine and it was the Resolution of that Committee that authorised the partition of Palestine into two states.
It was upon the basis of this resolution that the State of Israel was established in 1948. The resolution gave the already settled and the newly arriving European Jewish settlers – who by then constituted one-third of the population and owned less than six per cent of the land – exactly 56.47 per cent of the Palestinians’ best cultivated land and cities. The two-thirds population of indigenous Palestinians who owned more than 94 per cent of the land were given 47 per cent of their own country.
Read the full article by Bob Hawke in the Australian Financial Review. (subscription required)