Greens leader Adam Bandt faces a full-court press about his refusal yesterday to endorse a “two-state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians on ABC chat show Insiders. From Labor (“Anyone who is serious about peace knows that requires a two-state solution — a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel.”) From right-wing media (“disturbing”). From extremist Jewish groups (“friend of terrorists and the foe of democracy“). Even The Guardian described Bandt as having “dodged” questions about a two-state solution.
But while Bandt was caught out when pressed to give details of his claim that Australia is exporting weapons to Israel, his unwillingness to endorse a two-state solution represents a rare example of politicians refusing to engage in the standard double-think on Israel and having the guts to challenge what is a facile media assumption by editors and journalists.
If the likes of David Speers, The Australian and Labor have a problem with people who don’t back a two-state solution, here’s a good place to start. As Crikey pointed out when Benjamin Netanyahu visited Australia in 2017, the Israeli prime minister doesn’t believe in one. When asked about a two-state solution, the alleged war criminal and corruption defendant replied that he’d prefer “not to deal with labels but with substance … if Israel is not there to ensure security, then that state very quickly will become another bastion of radical Islam … we have to ensure that Israel has the overriding security control of all the territories, all the territories.”
And of course we know that Netanyahu has worked assiduously to prevent a two-state solution during his lengthy time as PM, using a vast expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian land to create “facts on the ground” that will prevent any meaningful Palestinian state. Indeed, his efforts to support Hamas to undermine a two-state solution were a key factor in that depraved terror group’s capacity to launch such an horrific attack on Israel on October 7. Netanyahu’s relentless opposition to a two-state solution is widely and uncontroversially acknowledged in more grown-up countries than Australia.
Netanyahu has been enormously successful in this endeavour, to the general disinterest of the Australian media and mainstream political class, even when Israeli settlers engaged in a savage campaign of terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two years.
Continuing to assume that a two-state solution is the default reasonable position on Palestine-Israel reflects both ignorance and an unthinking complicity with Netanyahu’s agenda: let the West endlessly talk about a two-state solution while Israel slowly but surely reaches a point where a meaningful Palestinian state can’t exist, given the extensive infiltration of Israeli colonists across Palestinian lands, the infrastructure of apartheid that “protects” them, and their relentless attacks, backed by the Israel Defence Forces, on Palestinians.
Bandt declining to back this glib, thoughtless endorsement of a narrative of ever-growing occupation shows intelligence and guts, in contrast to his media and political critics.
And note Bandt’s words about a two-state solution. “It’s up to Palestinians and Israelis to equally enjoy those rights. And if that’s what they choose to self-determine, then that’s what they choose to self-determine.” Bandt wants the Israeli occupation of Palestine to end, with “support for Israelis as well as Palestinians … both having their rights to self-determination under international law”.
Rights to self-determination under international law. That anyone finds this “disturbing”, or the basis for a hysterical claim that the Greens are friends of terrorists, says much more about them than Bandt — especially on a day when News Corp defamed Chris Bowen by claiming he wanted to “protect” Hamas. Perhaps journalists like Speers should do some research on what Netanyahu has been inflicting on Palestinians for two decades before getting stuck into anyone refusing to toe the “two-state solution” line.
Note: Bernard Keane travelled to Israel and Palestine in 2016 as a guest of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.
