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Why recognising Palestine is a 'hollow gesture' · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From the Australian Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: Australia is recognizing Palestinian statehood, a dramatic announcement from Prime
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Minister Anthony Albanezi and Penny Wall, who say this is
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  Speaker 1: the only way to isolate Hermas and end the suffering
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  Speaker 1: of ordinary Palestinians.
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  Speaker 2: A two state solution is humanity's best hope to break
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  Speaker 2: the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to
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  Speaker 2: bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: The Prime Minister says the recognition is conditional on significant
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  Speaker 1: moves by the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank
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  Speaker 1: but not the Gaza Strip, to remove Harmas from power,
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  Speaker 1: demilitarize any future Palestinian state, allow international forces to participate
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  Speaker 1: in security, and to hold elections. The announcement comes after
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  Speaker 1: a furious denunciation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nettania, who
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  Speaker 1: who has effectively accused Australia of hypocrisy.
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  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, those are saying that Israel has
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  Speaker 3: a right to defend itself are also saying, but don't
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  Speaker 3: exercise outright when we do what any country we do
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  Speaker 3: faced with US ten, a stitle terrorist organization that has
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  Speaker 3: performed the worst attack on Jill since the Holocaust. I
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  Speaker 3: think we're actually applying forced judiciously and they know it.
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  Speaker 1: LETNYA, who is forging ahead with a plan approved by
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  Speaker 1: Israel's security cabinet to dismantle Hamas in Gaza's refugee camps
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  Speaker 1: and Gaza City. You can read all our analysis and
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  Speaker 1: reporting right now at the Australian dot com. Today foreign
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  Speaker 1: editor Greg Sheridan walks us through the news. Greg Sheridan
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  Speaker 1: is The Australian's Foreign editor. Greg. We saw this announcement
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  Speaker 1: with a lot of emotion from Anthony Albanezi and Penny.
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  Speaker 4: Want across the world.
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  Speaker 1: Nations have agreed that we cannot keep doing the same
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  Speaker 1: thing and hoping for a different outcome.
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  Speaker 3: We can't keep waiting for the end.
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  Speaker 1: Of a peace process that has ground to a halt.
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  Speaker 1: What does it actually mean, Well.
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  Speaker 4: Claire, it means almost nothing. What it reflects is growing
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  Speaker 4: isolation of Israel internationally.
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  Speaker 3: And while like most.
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  Speaker 4: Commentators, I thought Israel is completely justified in retaliating after
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  Speaker 4: October seven, I don't think the new escalation of the
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  Speaker 4: campaign makes sense at all. It's just going to result
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  Speaker 4: in a lot of innocent dead Garzans and a lot
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  Speaker 4: of innocent dead Israeli soldiers, and it's not likely to
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  Speaker 4: make any difference in six months time. But in the meantime, Nedegnahu,
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  Speaker 4: apart from those human costs, is costing Israel enormous support
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  Speaker 4: politically internationally. Now, what should be a completely unrelated question
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  Speaker 4: about early recognition of a Palestinian state has been conflated
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  Speaker 4: with this unpopularity of Israel. But the recognition of a
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  Speaker 4: Palestinian state by countries like France and Australia will make
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  Speaker 4: no difference at all in reality to the realities on
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  Speaker 4: the ground, and it won't hasten the coming about of
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  Speaker 4: an independent Palestinian state.
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  Speaker 2: I've said it publicly, and I've said it directly to
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  Speaker 2: Prime Minister Netanyahu. The situation in Gaza has gone beyond
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  Speaker 2: the world's worst fears. Far too many innocent lives have
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  Speaker 2: been lost. The Israeli government continues to defy international law
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  Speaker 2: and deny sufficient aid, food and water to desperate people,
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  Speaker 2: including children. This vital aid must be allowed to get
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  Speaker 2: to the people who need it most. This is about
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  Speaker 2: much more than drawing a line on a map. This
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  Speaker 2: is about delivering a lifeline to the people of Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: Is your view that Benjamin Etna, who has effectively created
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  Speaker 1: this situation by overplaying his hand.
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  Speaker 4: Yes to some extent. Yes, there was a move for
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  Speaker 4: early recognition of a Palestinian state amongst the global left. Anyway,
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  Speaker 4: it's been formal ALP policy for seven or eight years now.
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  Speaker 4: The ALP leaders knew that policy was complete nonsense, and
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  Speaker 4: their strategy always was how to contain enough ambiguity in
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  Speaker 4: the policy that would allow them simply to put it
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  Speaker 4: off forever. So the policy would say something like at
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  Speaker 4: a time which is appropriate, or when both sides are ready,
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  Speaker 4: or when certain preconditions are met. But if I can
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  Speaker 4: explain just why the whole policy is nutty, it's just
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  Speaker 4: completely nutty. It's just your politics of the global left.
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  Speaker 4: When you are creating a new state, a brand new
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  Speaker 4: state like South Sudan broke away from North Sudan or
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  Speaker 4: something like that, you have to negotiate between the parties involved,
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  Speaker 4: but you can't recognize it in advance. That just does
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  Speaker 4: make any sense. These are matters of negotia for the
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  Speaker 4: parties involved. So this is really hollow performative symbolism at
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  Speaker 4: its absolute worst, just the sort of thing the international
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  Speaker 4: left delights in, and the fact that a lot of
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  Speaker 4: left wing leaders under terrible pressure from their own far
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  Speaker 4: left and their own Muslim populations. Macron in France, Starmer
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  Speaker 4: in Britain. I think it's a great idea doesn't mean
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  Speaker 4: it's a great idea. It just means it's fashionable amongst
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  Speaker 4: the failing left of center governments for the moment.
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  Speaker 2: This is an opportunity to deliver self determination for the
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  Speaker 2: people of Palestine in a way that isolates the mass,
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  Speaker 2: disarms it and drives it out of the region once
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  Speaker 2: and for all. Ha Maas is not just an enemy
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  Speaker 2: of Israelis, it's an enemy of the Palestinian people as well,
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  Speaker 2: and their actions, including during the current conflict where opposition
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  Speaker 2: to Hamas has been met with brutality, is recognized by no,
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  Speaker 2: not just by Australia, but by the international community.
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  Speaker 1: Is it possible that those governments know that this is
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  Speaker 1: a gesture, but think that this is the gesture that
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  Speaker 1: will make Benjamin Netanya who pull back.
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  Speaker 4: No, that's not remotely possible. What is possible is that
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  Speaker 4: the leaders of these governments know that this is a futile, hollow,
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  Speaker 4: meaningless gesture, but it's necessary for their domestic politics. And
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  Speaker 4: what you're witnessing here is Western domestic politics. People talk
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  Speaker 4: about their humanity being outraged by what's happening. Some half
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  Speaker 4: a million people were killed in the Syrians of a war.
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  Speaker 4: Nobody's humanity was outraged by that in the alp left.
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  Speaker 4: But there is in the West on the left an
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  Speaker 4: extreme obsession with Israel and a hatred for Israel.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 4: I think Israel is making grievous moral mistakes now and
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  Speaker 4: is legitimately subject to criticism. But the idea that you
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  Speaker 4: must make some sort of extraordinary gesture, it's all tied
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  Speaker 4: up in Western identity politics, the Western politics of the left,
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  Speaker 4: Western politics of New Muslim immigrant communities. This will have
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  Speaker 4: more effect on Marrickville and Glee than it will ever
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  Speaker 4: have on Bethlehem or Gaza City. And this is directed
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  Speaker 4: at Marrickville and Glee. The Alberanesi government may as well
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  Speaker 4: recognize Palestinian state in Kalgoli or something, at least it
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  Speaker 4: has some jurisdiction there. It has no jurisdiction in Palestine,
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  Speaker 4: and the Palestinians are not going to pay a blind
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  Speaker 4: bit of attention to anything an Australian government tells them do,
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  Speaker 4: nor will the Israelis. It has significance in the sense
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  Speaker 4: that it contributes to the further isolation of Israel, and
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  Speaker 4: it has two other levels of significance as well. So
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  Speaker 4: Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said that the
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  Speaker 4: day the French announced unilateral recognition of Palestine as a state,
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  Speaker 4: Hummas walked away from the ceasefire negotiations because Hummas sees
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  Speaker 4: this as a tremendous victory. They're delighted at the Albanese
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  Speaker 4: government's action. They can say, look, we murdered twelve hundred
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  Speaker 4: Jews and all these Weston countries recognized a Palestinian state,
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  Speaker 4: isn't that fantastic? And we took two hundred and fifty hostages,
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  Speaker 4: killed a lot of them, released some of them, and
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  Speaker 4: have kept at least twenty of them alive. And they
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  Speaker 4: are our leverage. And the Western world doesn't care about that.
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  Speaker 4: They are willing to become alienated from Israel. So what
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  Speaker 4: a fantastic win for us. And at the same time,
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  Speaker 4: those extremists who form a small minority in Israel but
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  Speaker 4: a significant minority who want to just occupy all Palestinian
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  Speaker 4: land forever. They say, well, look, the Western world hates
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  Speaker 4: us anyway, so what can we do about it. We
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  Speaker 4: just should maximize our position while we've got this moment,
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  Speaker 4: this opportunity, while our conflict is underway. So, insofar as
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  Speaker 4: this gesture has any consequence at all, it is to
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  Speaker 4: embolden the extremists on both sides, which is not to
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  Speaker 4: equate the extremists on both sides. But it emboldeness hum
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  Speaker 4: us to never have a ceasefire, never make a concession,
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  Speaker 4: as long as they can keep hold of them a
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  Speaker 4: few living Israeli hostages. And it emboldens the far right
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  Speaker 4: of Israeli politics to make their maximal position as soon
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  Speaker 4: as possible. In other words, like most things that the
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  Speaker 4: left does internationally, is completely counterproductive.
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  Speaker 3: They know what they would do if right next to
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  Speaker 3: Melbourne or right next to Sydney you had this soleretic ATTAXA.
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  Speaker 3: I think you would do it at least what we're doing.
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  Speaker 3: Probably maybe not as efficiently and as precisely as we're
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  Speaker 3: doing it. We've lost quite a few soldiers in that effort.
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  Speaker 1: There are effectively two governments of Palestine, which is two
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  Speaker 1: chunks of land on either side of Israel. One is
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  Speaker 1: the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, that is,
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  Speaker 1: the territory west of the Jordan River. The Palestinian Authority
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  Speaker 1: is dominated by a political party called Fatar, which was
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  Speaker 1: founded by Yaser Arafat and is now run by Makhmud Abbas.
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  Speaker 1: He was elected president in two thousand and five. On
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  Speaker 1: the other side, on the western side of his Israel,
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  Speaker 1: close to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, is the
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  Speaker 1: Gaza Strip that's run by Hamas, which won legislative elections
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and six and has refused to hold
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  Speaker 1: elections ever since. Hamas and Fatar are effectively enemies. That's
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons there haven't been elections in nearly
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  Speaker 1: two decades. The person whom Anthony Albanesi and Penny Wong
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  Speaker 1: are talking to in Palestine is Makhmud Abbas, the president
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  Speaker 1: of the Palestinian Authority, who of course only has control
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  Speaker 1: over the West Bank. One of the things that Makmudabuses
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  Speaker 1: agreed to as a condition of these is to remove
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  Speaker 1: her mass from power. Does he have any power to
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  Speaker 1: do that, of course not.
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  Speaker 4: When the Mass won an election in Gaza. They killed
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  Speaker 4: the Palestinian authority people. They found anyone who was gay
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  Speaker 4: and threw them off the top of the building, and
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  Speaker 4: they murdered Palestinian Authority officials. And indeed, in the recent
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  Speaker 4: war there were demonstrations against Hummas by Ghazan civilians who
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  Speaker 4: were subsequently murdered, harassed and beaten up and persecuted and
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  Speaker 4: so on by Hummas thugs. Marc Mondabas has very little power.
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  Speaker 4: He's in the twentieth year of a four year term.
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  Speaker 4: The Palestinian authority is very corrupt, very incompetent. Nonetheless, there's
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  Speaker 4: a sort of uneasy compromise. Life in the West Bank
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  Speaker 4: is generally speaking not too bad. You know, people have
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  Speaker 4: a standard of living there which is not bad by
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  Speaker 4: the standards of the Arab Middle East. And the Palestinian
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  Speaker 4: authority is corrupt and incompetent, but it gets lots of taxes,
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  Speaker 4: lots of money from Israel and so forth, and there's
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  Speaker 4: an uneasy calm. Not too many people get killed. The
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  Speaker 4: situation is being managed. Marc Mondabas is a very old leader.
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  Speaker 4: He has a long history of his own antisemitism. He
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  Speaker 4: read a bizarre PhD thesis on how the Jews were
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  Speaker 4: in league with the Artzis to perpetrate the Holocaust of
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  Speaker 4: the Second World War. The Fatah movement has its own
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  Speaker 4: history of terrorism and hatred of Jews and so forth,
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  Speaker 4: and all these new commitments he's made, well, a logical
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  Speaker 4: thing would be to say, well, let's see five years
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  Speaker 4: of those commitments being lived out, and then let's see
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  Speaker 4: what we can do after that. If you had five
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  Speaker 4: years of normalization, you'd have a very strong argument for
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  Speaker 4: movement towards a state. But remember, the Israelis have offered
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  Speaker 4: the Palestinians a state, but on four previous occasions, on
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  Speaker 4: pretty much the maximum terms that are allowable, and the
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  Speaker 4: Palestinians have always walked away from it because they know
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  Speaker 4: any leader who agrees to it will be killed by
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  Speaker 4: his own extremists, and they demonize Israel in a way
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  Speaker 4: which means they would never accept a Jewish state in
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  Speaker 4: the heart of the Middle East, on defensible borders and
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  Speaker 4: so forth. So for the moment, Macmodobas is smart enough
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  Speaker 4: that he'll agree to anything. At the moment, co education
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  Speaker 4: and I don't know, college sports for girls, anything you like,
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  Speaker 4: you can probably get him to agree to anything, paid
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  Speaker 4: maternity leave, whatever you like. But what record of implementation
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  Speaker 4: do we see from the Palestinian authority on any of
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  Speaker 4: these matters. And in any event, even if he commits
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  Speaker 4: to everything in the world, he is still going to
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  Speaker 4: have to negotiate a state with Israel, not with the
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  Speaker 4: Albanesi government. The Alberanzi government has no business recognizing a
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  Speaker 4: Palestinian state when no state exists. It's not morally offensive
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  Speaker 4: so much, it's just completely illogical. Let's recognize Mars as
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  Speaker 4: the state or something just has no meaning. You know,
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  Speaker 4: what is going to happen in the physical universe that
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  Speaker 4: is different because of this nothing at all. This is
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  Speaker 4: just politics's theater in the hope that it helps stave
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  Speaker 4: off the Greens in various federal seats, and it placates
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  Speaker 4: the Muslim immigrant community, and it leads to less tension
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  Speaker 4: with the left within the Labor Party, and it leads
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  Speaker 4: to a bit of grandstanding internationally.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Coming up, how does settler violence in the West Bank
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: play into this complex story? How does settler violence in
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the West Bank fit into this picture? Greg This is
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: where Israeli communities that have established themselves in the West
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  Speaker 1: Bank on the west Bank of the Jordan River engaged
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  Speaker 1: in conflict with Palestinian locals.
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  Speaker 4: I do think one of the significant failures of Israeli
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  Speaker 4: policy in recent decades has been a failure to police
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  Speaker 4: fully their own people in the West Bank. The last
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  Speaker 4: time the Israelis made a full fledged offer of statehood
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  Speaker 4: to the Palestinians was under Prime Minister aehod olmut In.
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  Speaker 4: I think it was two thousand and eight, and they
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  Speaker 4: offered I think ninety four or ninety five percent of
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  Speaker 4: the West Bank for a Palestinian state, and they would
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  Speaker 4: keep only the huge settlement blocks right next to Jerusalem,
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  Speaker 4: which perform a sort of a security function for making
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  Speaker 4: Jerusalem much harder to attack. And that involved then that
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  Speaker 4: they would have uprooted a number of Jewish settlements, especially
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: illegal settlements, by which I mean not illegal under international law,
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  Speaker 4: but illegal under Israeli law. Now, in recent years, the
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  Speaker 4: Israelis have not enforced their own laws adequately, so illegal
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  Speaker 4: settlements get established, and then once they're established, they get protected.
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  Speaker 4: Now they still make up a very small amount of
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  Speaker 4: West Bank territory, but in the event of a proper
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  Speaker 4: two state solution, they'd have to be removed. And I
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  Speaker 4: think the Israelis should enforce their own law and remove
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  Speaker 4: them anyway. Israel was founded as a left wing nation.
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  Speaker 4: The kibbutz were a socialist movement. In anyways, it was
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  Speaker 4: a secular nation. It was Jews taking secular control of
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  Speaker 4: their own destiny rather than just relying on ultimate religious consolation.
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  Speaker 4: And part of that was a desire to live in
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  Speaker 4: peace with their Arab neighbors and the two States solution
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  Speaker 4: was first offered to Arabs when the territory was partitioned
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  Speaker 4: in nineteen forty seven, and then it was offered twice
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  Speaker 4: as a result of the Oslo Accords, and every time
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  Speaker 4: the Palestinians got close to accepting and then ran away
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  Speaker 4: because they couldn't bear the idea that they would have
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  Speaker 4: to have an end of claims on Israel, that they'd
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  Speaker 4: have to live in peace with a Jewish state, that
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  Speaker 4: they could mount no more attacks on Israel, that they'd
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  Speaker 4: have to stop the antisemitism in their education systems, and
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  Speaker 4: so on. But that continued record of rejectionism and terrorism
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  Speaker 4: heardened Israeli politics and led to the view there never
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  Speaker 4: to be partners for peace. Therefore, and this is a
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  Speaker 4: view of a minority of Israelis, but nonetheless a significant
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  Speaker 4: minority the Palestinians will never be a partner of peace. Therefore,
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  Speaker 4: we should simply take the land that we can get
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  Speaker 4: in order to create the most secure, military, defensible territory
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  Speaker 4: for Israel. And some Israelis are definitely signed up to
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  Speaker 4: the idea that all of that land belongs to the
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  Speaker 4: Jewish state for biblical reasons. Now I think that's wrong,
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  Speaker 4: but the more the international community isolates Israel, the more
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  Speaker 4: it provokes that kind of reaction. Now, this can lead
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  Speaker 4: to all kinds of tragedies in all kinds of circumstances,
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: but emotional and hysterical actions like we're seeing from the
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Albanese government make the tragedy more likely, not less likely.
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  Speaker 1: Greck Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor. You can read
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: his analysis plus all our reporting right now at The
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au