Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Australia this week is a sign of desperation. Never before has a sitting Israeli prime minister come to this country.
There is growing global sympathy – crucially, from ordinary people rather than governments – for the Palestinians and mounting criticism of the fundamental structures of apartheid Israel. It’s a sense of isolation that has prompted Netanyahu to cross the planet to this mediocre middle power.
Israel was established in 1948 on the basis of driving 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. That Israeli land grab, begun much earlier by Zionist colonists, has continued ever since.
Palestinian citizens of Israel have a second-class status, with inferior civil rights, education, social security and access to jobs. Palestinians on the West Bank are under Israeli military control, as their land is whittled away by Israeli colonists. The Gaza Strip is an appalling prison, blockaded by Israel, where about 1.9 million Palestinians live on only 365 square kilometres.
There are about 10 million people in the Palestinian diaspora, prevented from living in and many even from visiting their homeland.
Whether Labor or the Coalition has been in office, Australian governments have been among the fiercest supporters of apartheid Israel since its creation. Unlike about 138 other countries, Australia has refused to recognise the Palestinian Authority as the government of a Palestinian state. Slavish backing of Israel is mainly a byproduct of the Australia-United States alliance, which has long benefited Australian capitalism.
Read the full article by Rick Kuhn at WAtoday and in The Age.
[Dr Rick Kuhn is an honorary associate professor In sociology at the Australian National University, was a founder of Jews Against Occupation and Oppression, and co-wrote Labor’s Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class. rick.kuhn@anu.edu.au]