Australia’s “closest ally and principal strategic partner”, the United States, is an active partner in the genocide in Gaza and yet the Australian Government has not been asked how Australia can continue to partner with the United States. Period.
Australia’s closest ally has enabled, supported and been complicit in Israel’s innumerable violations of international law. Not only Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, racial discrimination, apartheid, but also its illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and its murderous illegal forays into neighbouring countries.
Every year the US provides Israel with billions of dollars, vast quantities of military equipment, weapons and ammunition (‘at least $US22.76 billion and counting’) and surveillance and intelligence information.
It then uses its veto on the UN Security Council to block demands for united UN intervention, or even for a ceasefire in Gaza, it supports Israel in the UN and in the International Court of Justice, and it sanctions the UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, and the International Criminal Court members who issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes.
Our closest ally’s provision of diplomatic cover for and continuous flow of money and arms to Israel has permitted Israel to act with impunity for its untrammelled barbarity.
Those actions ensure that our ally is not just complicit but actively participating in egregious criminal conduct including the indiscriminate slaughter, maiming and starvation of countless women and children. Now it has even resorted to suspending visas for Palestinian passport holders, including for Palestinian officials set to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York this month.
When the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, was asked about President Trump’s plans to “take over Gaza” he said he would not be offering a “running commentary” on President Trump’s remarks.
Yet documents obtained exclusively under Freedom of Information laws by Declassified Australia reveal that a confidential “running commentary” was indeed being provided to the Prime Minister internally from within the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT).
Before and after President Trump’s inauguration, cables were being sent between Washington and Canberra in relation to the Trump Administration’s position on Gaza and the ‘routine information only’ reads exactly like a ‘running commentary’.
The running commentary about the intended fate of Gaza included:
- the incoming US National Security Agency (NSA) chief Mike Waltz talking about Israeli achievements in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran;
- President Trump talking about “cleaning out” Gaza and urging Jordan and Egypt to “take on” about “a million and a half” refugees from the territory;
- Trump inviting the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House, the first foreign leader to visit since the inauguration and likely the only one the subject of an international arrest warrant;
- the President refusing to rule out deploying US troops to remove the Palestinians;
- Trump publicly stating “we’re gonna take over that piece [Gaza] and we’re gonna develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs…I envision world people living there [Gaza]; the world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place … the Riviera of the Middle East”;
- President Trump doubling down on his proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip, claiming Israel would hand the Strip over to the United States at the culmination of fighting, without the need for American troops to be involved;
- Saying that Gaza would “be given to us [the United States] by Israel”;
- Trump further elaborating his Gaza plan to clarify that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza after being relocated elsewhere.
The running commentary extended to President Trump’s threats to cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinians from Gaza. Trump said on 10 February he would consider withholding aid to Jordan and Egypt if they did not agree to the United States “taking over” Gaza and the forced displacement of Palestinians under his plan, and posted to Truth Social an apparently AI-generated video that offers his vision for transforming the Gaza Strip into a resort enclave.
The commentary extended to Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, billionaire real estate tycoon, announcing a summit would soon be held with real estate developers and planners from the region to discuss Trump’s plan for Gaza saying:
“We’re going to conduct a summit pretty soon with probably the biggest developers in the Middle East region, many of the Arab developers — lots of master planners, I think when people see some of the ideas that come from this, they’re going to be amazed”.
And it extended to reports that Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stated the US-Israeli plan to funnel humanitarian aid into parts of Gaza would initially only feed about 60 per cent of the enclave’s population and that the proposal was a Trump “initiative”.
As for starvation being used as a weapon of war, the ‘routine information only’ DFAT cables confirm that Israel stopped all humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza as the first phase of its ceasefire with Hamas expired.
Prime Minister Albanese would have noted from DFAT briefings that Prime Minister Netanyahu said the step was taken “in full coordination with President Trump and his people”.
REACTION MUTE
How did our politicians react to these statements of obviously criminal intent by our closest ally?
The open call reported in the DFAT cables for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the President of our most important ally, prompted Canberra to ask ‘posts’ – Australian embassies around the world – to report initial reactions to President Trump’s announcement that the US would ‘take over’ and redevelop Gaza, and suggestion that Gazans might be relocated to neighbouring countries.
An alliance, originally derived from the Latin verb “alligare”, meaning “to bind together”, is a formal agreement between two or more parties, typically countries or organisations, to cooperate for mutual benefit or to achieve a common goal.
The Australian Government believes that Australia and the United States have a long-standing alliance bound by a history of bipartisan co-operation and that our partnership has delivered mutual benefit for over 70 years and will continue to do so.
But nations as allies should work towards common goals by aligning their foreign policies, coordinating their stances on international issues, and presenting a united front in global forums. The shared values and interests of the alliance should be communicated to the public in each member country, fostering public support for the alliance.
Yet the United States is undermining all the international institutions that act as mechanisms for peace, transparency and justice, and which Australia claims to abide by; it acts with complete disdain for international law and for common supra-national challenges like climate change and the environment; it has no respect for national sovereignty or economic treaties or agreements, or for human rights either at home or abroad, and it has no compunction about abusing its economic or military power to act as a bully if the need arises.
The United States has significant influence over Israel, and yet we have remained silent on our most important ally’s participation in and facilitation of the genocide in Gaza.
Does Australia as a country, do our people as a nation, really want to “bind together” in an untrustworthy alliance with an ally who is an active participant in the most atrocious crimes of the 21st century, who acts oblivious to international law and common humanity, and over whom we have absolutely no sway?
AUSTRALIA’S SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS
For far too long Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and others have gotten away with lines like “we are not a participant” in the genocide in Gaza or “we are not a major player in the Middle East.”
Australia is actively contributing to and supporting Israel, first by the supply of military materiel (parts at the very least) and military intelligence; second by continuing trade and commercial relations and dealings, and third by maintaining active diplomatic relations with Israel, all contrary to our obligations under international law.
The Australian Government is no doubt cognisant of the fact that the legitimacy of the entire international legal system is at stake when States are unwilling to discharge their duty by acting both individually and collectively to bring to an end these fundamental violations of international law by Israel.
Moreover, the test is not whether or not Australia is a major player in the Middle East. Ralph Wilde, Professor of International Law at University College London rightly points out in such clarifying detail that it is important to quote his words at length:
“When these fundamental rules of international law are violated all other States are in a special position that they would not be in otherwise.
“They themselves have special legal obligations to essentially suppress, to end these violations. And that’s at the heart of the concept of the responsibility to protect.
“So they do not have the discretion to pick and choose what actions they take in this context that they would have in other circumstances. And that in this context means two things:
“Firstly, a positive obligation to take all steps within their power to end Israel’s violations, not just in relation to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, racial discrimination, apartheid, but also in the very exercise of domination over Gaza and the West Bank in and of itself, regardless of the way it is conducted.
“In order to do that, to discharge that duty to end that, necessarily they have to take actions to sever trade relations with Israel entirely.
“Moreover, of course, they have to end any of the positive support that they give to Israel.
“They have a positive duty to end any actions which give any support whatsoever regardless of the motivations for that support. It doesn’t matter that states may say we’re doing this to help Israel insofar as it’s acting lawfully, because the nature of Israel’s actions are such that it is impossible to disaggregate support that might be put to some lawful purpose and support that will be used to commit one or more of these fundamental violations of international law.
“So because of that, States are legally required to end all of the support that they give to Israel, including the support that was outlined earlier, arms, being involved in the supply chain of arms, sharing military intelligence etc.”
Our leaders saying “Australia is not a major player in the Middle East” is trying to pretend that there’s nothing we can do because the situation is out of our control.
Trying thus to ‘pull us out of the picture’ is an attempt to shirk our actual legal obligations while pretending that we support and follow international law. We don’t: in fact, our cowardly inactive complicity is an abnegation of our legal, and perhaps more fundamentally moral, responsibility in the face of the obviously immoral, inhumane and criminal conduct of both Israel and our ‘closest ally’.
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