Opinion
Recognising Palestine won’t stop the killing, on either side
Lynda Ben-Menashe
Jewish advocateA long time ago in a galaxy that now feels far, far away, I led study tours to Israel and Palestine to examine co-existence. Endorsed by both the Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors to Australia, they were designed to illuminate the greyscale of nuance and complexity there.
Let’s give the faces of both Palestinian and Israeli children something to turn to with hope in their eyes.
On a tour in 2019 our group visited the southern Israeli city of Sderot, near the Gazan border. In the middle of a traffic circle we noticed a beautiful sculpture of wings made from recycled pieces of Palestinian rockets. I remember thinking, “Look how Israelis can turn death into life and beauty!”
The next day we visited a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank. In a small artisan jewellery store we saw necklaces and earrings made from recycled pieces of Israeli tear gas canisters. I had just walked through a black mirror into an alternate reality: “Look how Palestinians can turn death into life and beauty!”
When the announcement came this week that Australia would be recognising a Palestinian state, my mind went to the deeply traumatised people who made that art. People whose lived experience contrasts so profoundly with those of the politicians posturing in far-off lands.
In her part of the announcement Foreign Minister Penny Wong mentioned “the faces of children we cannot forget”.
I cannot forget the faces of the 9-month and 4-year-old Israeli brothers abducted on October 7 and later strangled with bare hands; or the other 38 massacred, including a wheelchair-bound 16-year-old; or the 39 abducted and later released into lives of unending trauma.
I cannot forget the faces of the Palestinian children wandering through rubble and languishing in hospital beds; or the 12 Druze children killed by Hezbollah rockets on a soccer field in northern Israel.
Or the face of the 10-year-old Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq in 2014, found and liberated from slavery in Gaza by IDF soldiers last year. Her story was retold at the Yazidi Genocide commemoration in NSW last week. Tone-deaf to the trauma of his audience, a well-meaning Anglo speaker tried to draw parallels between their experience and that of Gazans.
His lazy polemic was symbolic of the intellectual and moral morass Australian politicians have fallen into. Anthony Albanese’s talk about wanting “an end to the killing and the conflict on our streets” is just smoke.
Reality is reflected in the mirror of the response issued by the Palestine Action Group, who organised last weekend’s Sydney Harbour Bridge march and the Sydney Opera House hate fest in October 2023: “We must be clear: recognition of a Palestinian state has never been a demand of this movement ... we will take to the streets again … until the Australian government takes real, decisive action to end its complicity.” Hamas has “applauded” the announcement. Both of these should give the government pause.
Australia’s white-saviour act at the UN next month won’t stop the killing or the associated conflict on our streets. It won’t release from hell the Israeli, Thai and Nepalese hostages starved and tortured by Hamas for almost two years now. No pronouncement by any foreign leader will have the slightest impact on peace, security or co-existence for Israelis or Palestinians.
Israelis are screaming and IDF generals threatening to resign because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest plan for Gaza will prolong both the horror of war for all, and the longevity of his coalition.
West Bank Palestinians despise the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has no ability to implement any of the “commitments” it has made to the international community. I remember a Palestinian academic sneering to our 2023 tour group that the only thing PA leader Mahmoud Abbas could organise was a parade for himself.
Hamas still has a stranglehold on Gaza’s population, whom it’s terrorised for 18 years, using civilians as human shields, stealing food from them, beating and murdering dissenters.
Let Palestine be recognised as a state, and held accountable as a state actor, finally. Let the corrupt and complicit UNRWA be shut down because Palestinians won’t be refugees any more; they’ll have a state to return to. Let there be elections where the PA losers don’t get thrown to their deaths off roofs by the Hamas winners, as in 2007. Let them reconcile their contradictory commitments to “statehood” (the PA) and a global caliphate (Hamas Charter). May our government’s great faith not be misplaced.
I wish Wong and Albanese had been on the tour I led this May, meeting Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and Palestinian women who graciously shared with us their intertwined lived experiences. One was the very first non-Jewish person to reach out to me after October 7: a Palestinian friend who lives in East Jerusalem.
The sisterhood, mutual empathy and pragmatism of these women in the middle of a war zone stood in stark contrast with the performative sloganeering that fills our social media feeds and shamefully, our Hansards, too.
The women we met in May were focused on the future. They look into the faces of their children every day.
After WWII, the defeated Germany needed to rebuild its economy and deprogram its people after years of antisemitic indoctrination and warmongering had crippled them. The international community helped them with both, and the result was a spectacular success. Why don’t we offer a similar, strength-based approach to Palestine?
Let’s put people ahead of political posturing and give the faces of both Palestinian and Israeli children something to turn to with hope in their eyes.
Lynda Ben-Menashe is president of the National Council of Jewish Women Australia.