At its latest meeting, the Be’er Sheva Dialogue pursued a fresh path to advance security cooperation between Australia and Israel in the face of a worsening strategic outlook. The war in Ukraine and Chinese belligerence in our region cast shadows over the dialogue, held in Canberra last week.
The dialogue is the peak independent platform for security exchange between the two nations. It is named after the Battle of Be’er Sheva (Beersheba in English), the victory over the Ottoman Turks led by British, Australian and New Zealand troops on 31 October 1917.
The dialogue has advanced ideas to intensify the security relationship between our two countries in the eight years since it was co-founded by ASPI. Now, in the face of growing threats, the dialogue is stressing the need for Australia and Israel to work even more closely in a range of areas, including defence. That means establishing military-to-military talks, military college exchanges, military medicine linkages and Israeli defence production in Australia. Other key areas for closer cooperation are cybersecurity, counterterrorism, critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and machine learning, and space with opportunities to develop small satellites and potentially to launch Israeli satellites from northern Australia. Israel is keen to learn from Australian approaches to natural disaster management and to share its own experience in managing mass-casualty incidents.
Read the article by Anthony Bergin in The Strategist.