Netanyahu finds friends in Australia

S P SETH

Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent Australia visit was widely commented here, with the media highlighting again and again its special significance as the first ever by an Israeli prime minister. Australia, in other words, now has a special kinship with Israel, more so with Netanyahu as its prime minister. Australia has always been supportive of Israel, following the US lead in the matter. But something radical happened when the outgoing Obama administration decided to abstain on a recent UN Security Council resolution calling on Israel to halt its illegitimate settlement of Palestinian territory. Till then, Israel had always counted on the US to veto all resolutions critical of Israel. And with US abstaining, the resolution was adopted making Israel an international pariah.

Of course, it doesn’t mean much as Israel has been used to flouting international opinion on this matter. And with the new President Donald Trump welcoming Netanyahu and giving him, more or less, carte blanche to do his own stuff in regard to Palestine, Netanyahu couldn’t have been happier. It was sweet revenge on Obama who was hated for promoting a two state solution and urging a halt to settlement activity in the interim; even though Obama was a great friend of Israel with an open-ended commitment to its security testified by the fact that Israel would receive the largest military aid package under the Obama administration over ten years.

The Obama administration’s promotion of negotiations for a two-state solution was genuinely considered necessary for Israel’s enduring security and regional stability and peace. But Netanyahu and his right wing cabal was not interested. They point out that a sovereign Palestinian state will end up being a terrorist outfit working to destroy Israel and a threat even to other Arab states from regional terrorism. In other words, by standing firm against a sovereign Palestinian state, Israel is not only working to ensure its own security but also helping to stabilize and secure the region.

And when Netanyahu arrived on a state visit to Australia, he was received with great fanfare notwithstanding the international censure over its settlement activities in Palestine, like the Security Council resolution on the subject. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was gushing in his welcome describing Israel as a “truly miraculous nation”, with its “most ancient history” but still at the cutting edge of technology. And he emphasized that: “We have so much in common: shared values, democracy, freedom, rule of law, two great democracies, one small in size one vast.” Really!

While prime minister Turnbull bent over backward to please his visiting Israeli counterpart, some leaders of the opposition Labour Party—two former prime ministers and two foreign ministers---advocated that Australia should follow the example of 130 other countries that now recognize Palestinian statehood. But like it has done with the rest of the world, the Israeli government is simply not interested in listening to any one, however well-meaning and sensible that advise is favouring a peaceful negotiated settlement on the basis of two states.

And why would Netanyahu pay any attention to Labour Party luminaries of a bygone era, when the country’s ruling conservative coalition was fawning over Netanyahu and largely supportive of his position. Indeed, prime minister Turnbull went so far as to pen an article in a national newspaper here taking aim at those who “insisted that the government take the side of those in the international community who seek to chastise– and it alone—for the continuing failure of the peace process.”

And he said emphatically that Australia would have voted against the Security Council resolution, which recently passed through the Council with one abstention by the then Obama administration. Which starkly contrasts with the position that New Zealand, Australia’s closest neighbour, took when it co-sponsored the resolution censuring Israel’s settlement policy.

No wonder then that Netanyahu said that, “There is no better friend [than Australia] for the state of Israel.” Even though Canberra continues to formally support a two state solution “so that Palestinians will have their own state and the people of Israel can be secure within agreed borders”, but the Palestinian entity envisaged by Israel is some sort of a local council under Israeli control and direction.

This is what Netanyahu have in mind. He is quoted as saying, “We have to make sure that Palestinians recognize a Jewish state [and by definition disenfranchise themselves] and we have to ensure that Israel has the overriding security control of the territories.” He added, “Other than that, I want the Palestinians to govern themselves…” with whatever will be left to govern. In other words, an ‘autonomous’ Palestinian entity under Israeli control and direction, if it were ever forced on the Palestinians, will ‘legitimize’ apartheid, probably, worse than the one once practiced in South Africa.

If Israel were ever interested in a negotiated settlement that would meet most of its requirements, the one reportedly worked out by the former US secretary of state, John Kerry, seemed promising. It would have involved Arab countries recognizing Israel with Tel Aviv undertaking to withdraw from much of the occupied Palestinian land. In other words, with Arab countries recognizing Israel it would meet the most substantive of its demand for security in a region that it considers hostile. But this is not the real problem. Israel simply doesn’t want to relinquish its territorial grab, and the rest is all a red herring.

During his recent visit here Netanyahu found a second home, as if. Indeed, Julie Bishop, Australia’s foreign minister, helpfully said that, “I do not believe that there will be a lasing peace if a Palestinian state is unilaterally forced upon Israel.” And since Israel will not relinquish occupied Palestinian land, and countries like Australia are prepared to make excuses for Israel, will that create lasting peace? Very unlikely indeed! It will simply continue to make things worse.

But that is not what Netanyahu’s Australia visit was all about. He wanted to thank Australia that in the midst of so much international censure of its illegal settlement activities, Canberra was understanding and appreciative of Israel’s position and roll out a red carpet for Netanyahu during his 4-day state visit. And the two countries agreed to foster/expand cooperation in defence and cyber-security, combating terrorism, trade expansion and in other areas. At the same time, Netanyahu seemed to be sending a message to New Zealand that a state of war (of sorts) with Auckland will continue as it was now in the enemy camp for co-sponsoring the UN Security Council resolution declaring illegal its settlement activities in occupied Palestine.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

European Union in disarray

S P SETH

The European Union is in disarray. It was probably the most successful regional organization, just short of becoming a political union of some of Europe’s bitter enemies as exemplified by WW11. It seemed that as part of the EU these countries might put all their bitter historical memories behind them to create a community of people creating a successful model of unity in diversity. All this seemed too good to be true.

The very fact that all its member states cherished their national identities and were reluctant to surrender their respective sovereign status was indicative of a deep-rooted problem. More the institutional apparatus of the EU, with its headquarters in Brussels, was centralized impinging on national sovereignty, there started to grow disquiet/opposition in some member states.

But EU was an economic success story, and some of its relatively poor members gained from generous subsidies doled out to them and even more so with easy and plentiful availability of credit with, virtually no questions asked. And that was until the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and the lenders wanted their money back as they (banks and other over-extended institutions) found themselves on the brink of disaster.

But the most indebted European countries, like Greece for instance, had no way of raising all the money they owed. They were subjected to a strict regime of economic austerity or else face possible eviction from EU and economic ruin. Greece has become Europe’s basket case, but Portugal, Spain and even Italy are undergoing economic austerity because of extreme indebtedness.

While the national sensitivities of EU members stood in the way of European political integration, such an incomplete EU project, half-pregnant, if you like, made effective solutions to its economic crisis rather hard and that continues to be the case. In the absence of political union, it hasn’t been possible to rationalize and harmonize different fiscal regimes, causing serious tensions among its member states. Germany, for instance, has regarded itself as the model for other EU members when it comes to economic management and prudence.

As one commentator has pointed out, “The central problem is that Germany wants everyone to be more German, meaning thrifty, stable and willing to observe rules” basically because it has the economic wherewithal to practice it with higher economic growth and lower unemployment. And this was so, in large measure, because other EU countries enriched Germany by spending on German goods flushed with easy credit lent mostly by German banks, partly contributing to the financial crisis without acknowledging that Germany, EU’s richest economy, has been part of the problem.

As Rana Foroohar points out in the New York Review of Books, “The bottom line: economic globalization ran ahead of political globalization, with consequences that now range from Brexit, and the rise of far right parties in France, Greece, Germany and elsewhere…”

If the situation were already not complex enough, the influx of refugees from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East only reinforced the paranoia fostered by extreme right parties in Europe. The referendum in UK to leave EU has legitimized, as if, the populist movements in some members states to quit the organization. The upcoming elections in Germany, France and Holland have made leaving the EU as the rallying point for extreme right parties. With Donald Trump’s election victory and his none-too-subtle encouragement to the break up of EU, the organization has come to be seen by many as the cause of all its problems.

It is important to remember that Trump had invited Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which was at the forefront of the Brexit movement, as a political celebrity at one of his election rallies. And after Trump won the election, he urged the British government to appoint him as Britain’s ambassador to the United States. And to make matters worse, Trump has also disparaged the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, calling it ‘obsolete’. Lately, though, it has been toned down by his administration to demanding increased defense spending by NATO members; otherwise the US will moderate its commitment for collective defence.

At the same time, the perceived security threat from Russia is not seen as real, though again, at a formal level and to re-emphasize Western solidarity, the new Trump administration is taking to equivocation. Interestingly, when Trump was asked in a television interview about his advocacy of friendship with Putin who is a ‘killer’, Trump retorted that that the US was not so ‘innocent’. By thus drawing moral equation between the two countries, Trump was pilloried even by some on his own side, but such is his ‘appeal’ that nothing sticks from his outrageous comments on women to acknowledging that the US had been responsible for killing people.

While in Europe, a major new research project has found pervasive anxiety among people about the state of affairs. This major study, led by the British-based think-tank, Demos, reportedly focused on Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Spain. According to Sophie Gaston, head of international projects at Demos, “Quite a large proportion of citizens in Europe are living in a state of what we describe as acute fear.”

The crisis of fear, she said, was the product of decades of economic, social and technological change. In economic terms, whole communities had stagnated or fallen behind. She added, “Some people just don’t feel comfortable with the changes such as cultural diversity, some people feel there has been too much focus on the rights or privileges of certain groups at the expense of others.”

The resultant populism has some regional variations, but there is an overall sense of pessimism and general anxiety, with France as most concerning.  Because: “It [the French case) is the most febrile, pessimistic, fearful mood, it seems the most deep-seated and it is very difficult to see how we could transform things in France… We can’t underestimate the psychological impact of an ongoing state of emergency”, following a succession of terrorist attacks.

Even in Germany, the most successful economic case, many people are fearful of what might be in store. Ms Gaston said that German political leaders interviewed for the study seemed out of touch with the populace, describing their fears as “misplaced hysteria” when in fact citizens had very concrete, specific fears.

The study concluded that while “There is still a majority baseline support for open societies, we just need people who can actually champion them.” And: “Until we see some serious leadership from liberals it will feel as though liberalism is dead [in Europe].” Ms Gaston would rather believe that liberalism is “under siege” [and] it can be resurrected”, a faint hope I would say.

If this is the case with Europe, what might one say about the United States with Trump openly declaring his country’s cherished institutions as corrupt and needing his harsh remedies, that are too painful and dreadful to think. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au