Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the most chilling and telling comments I have ever heard came from the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs when he said on ABC radio shortly after Israel launched its air strikes against Lebanon, ‘Israel must do what Israel must do.’ That was his answer to the question: would Australia call for a ceasefire in Lebanon?

In effect, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said: ‘We will stand by while the air strikes continue to kill Lebanese civilians—men, women and children—at more than 10 times the rate at which Israeli men, women and children are being killed. Australia will stand by while the infrastructure of Lebanon is flattened and tonnes of oil are spilled on its beaches, and roads, airports, bridges, power generation facilities, homes, villages and apartment blocks are turned into rubble, and a million Lebanese, a quarter of the population, are made refugees in their own country—refugees who have nowhere to go; refugees who cannot travel at night or they will be bombed; refugees who have no cars, no fuel and no way to get away from more than 1,000 air sorties dropping an unknown number of bombs.’

Kofi Annan says that Israel’s shelling of Qana appears to fit a pattern of violations of international law—yet Australia said nothing. And Australia continued to stand by this week in the parliament. There was no statement from the government and no debate, and even a motion in the Senate was not agreed to by either major party. There were no speeches, until now, other than from the ALP explaining why they could not support a simple motion put forward by Senator Nettle calling for a ceasefire.

A silence has reigned not only over this massive destruction of a relatively defenceless country—one that has had more than its fair share of invasions and bombing in the past—but also over the implications for peace in the Middle East and globally. Chilling, too, has been the easy talk in the press of taking on Syria and Iran. The Lebanese were not all behind the actions of Hezbollah, but more are now than they were on 12 July. Those who oppose Israel and the efforts of the West in the Middle East must surely do so now more than ever before. Australians are, I think, aghast at the killing and the fact that there seems no end in sight.

I wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to call for a ceasefire. I put out a press statement calling for an end to the disproportionate killing of civilians. Church leaders—Anglican, Roman Catholic, Uniting and the Churches of Christ—put out a statement a week ago saying:

We find it impossible to remain silent in the face of so much pain and suffering in the Middle East, both in Lebanon and in Israel, but we have been particularly outraged by the news this morning of the deaths in the Lebanese village of Qana, no matter what its cause.

Where is the moral courage of our leaders? How can the leadership of the Australian Government and the Opposition not cry out for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire?

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We have had enough of this so-called war on terror. When will the governments of the world come to understand that peace can only be built on justice and fairness?

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We can have no peace while violence is repaid with violence. It is a recipe for eventual annihilation.

Meanwhile, Mr Downer advised that people in Lebanon should stay indoors, including those he was trying to bring back to Australia. He said:

Well, it’s unsafe but of course it could be even more unsafe out on the open road, or in a port which is being attacked by Israeli jets.

In the same interview he said Australia would not expect or even ask Israel what their plans were so that our citizens might get out safely. While the debate went on for days about getting Australian citizens out, nothing was said about the Lebanese stuck in a dangerous war zone not of their making. They were facing, as we now know, ongoing bombardment in which 1,000 people would be killed within the next two weeks. The only media release Mr Downer put out about the Middle East this month was to announce the appointment of Australia’s new Ambassador to Israel. There was no mention of the conflict.

The government sent $2 million to ‘meet the immediate humanitarian needs of thousands of civilians who have fled their homes due to the current conflict in the Middle East’: $1.5 million to Lebanon and $0.5 million to Israel, bringing our total response to $7.5 million. How far this will go with a million people displaced and facing starvation and further bombing, I do not know. Oil has almost run out and soon the hospitals that remain will not be able to function. Many places already have no water, no electricity and no food.

On 12 July Mr Downer did roundly condemn as horrific the bombings in Mumbai that killed 140 people. But there has been no condemnation of Israel or Hezbollah. He made no speech on the subject of Lebanon this month or last. He told Fran Kelly at the ABC, with breathtaking simplicity:

... what the Israelis are really focussed on is not attacking the Lebanese for the sake of attacking Lebanon or the Lebanese, but attacking Hezbollah—which is a terrorist organisation committed to destroying the state of Israel. Now, until they feel more comfortable that they’ve done the job, or the Lebanese army come in and take over the security of Southern Lebanon, I suspect this is going to continue.

The Lebanese army is by all accounts very antiquated. According to Dr Tom Clonan, a captain in the UN forces in Lebanon in 1995-96, they have 200 clapped-out 1950s Soviet tanks and a handful of American M48 tanks from World War II, and their 15,000 troops would have absolutely no hope of getting to southern Lebanon without international assistance.

Mr Downer told Kerry O’Brien:

Well, it might surprise you to hear me say this, but I’m comfortable with the fact Israel needs to defeat Hezbollah. And I would have thought the smart thing for Hezbollah and their sponsors, Iran and Syria, the smart thing for them to do, is to withdraw immediately from southern Lebanon.

This is the level of sophistication our foreign minister can offer Australians by way of a solution to the killing of 1,000 Lebanese and almost 100 Israelis so far in a war that is escalating moment by moment. And all of this over the capture of two Israeli soldiers on 12 July.

Hezbollah have not turned out to be the pushover Israel or Mr Downer expected. They have already fired 3,000 rockets and missiles into Israel. They are well trained and they know the terrain intimately. They have underground bunkers and modern antitank weapons, and their chief threatens to turn southern Lebanon into a graveyard for invading troops. Israel’s Prime Minister said it could drag on for much longer than a month. Israel has just put 10,000 troops on the ground inside Lebanon.

Israel has done what it wanted to do, but it has not worked if wiping out Hezbollah was the objective. Hezbollah has no air power and is not as effective as Israel is at killing civilians, but it is well armed and it has dug in for the fight. Israel is losing sympathy around the world for bombing small villages and schools, where Hezbollah is not, and for what appeared to be a deliberate attack, killing four UN personnel in a clearly marked surveillance post, using precision guided munitions, despite repeated requests for it to stop. And, all the while, the Lebanese government and the United Nations plead for an end to the fighting.

I urge our Prime Minister to consider the effect of standing by in those first few days—of saying that Israel must do what Israel must do. Is it just possible that strong leadership on Australia’s part might have arrested the ongoing, senseless waste of human life that now seems impossible to stop?