Has Bob Carr now descended to advocating the end of Israel?
Former NSW premier and federal Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has been billed as a dignitary on an advertisement promoting an event in Sydney commemorating the 70th anniversary of Al-Nakbah (Occupation of Palestine) and the “Palestinians’ Right Of Return to their Land”.
Invitation
Bob Carr has spoken before at anti-Israel events.
PeterWertheim, the co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said: “Endorsement of the so-called ‘right of return’ means demanding that 5 million Arabs who claim Palestinian descent, but 99% of whom have never lived in Israel, must have the right to do so. This is because a ‘right of return’ is demanded not just for the limited number of 1948 refugees who are still alive but also for all their descendants ad infinitum, who were born and have lived in other countries for their entire lives, and in many cases are even citizens of those other countries. The notion of refugee status being inherited and passed down in perpetuity to remote descendants who have never fled from their homes is without parallel in international law. It is not applied to, nor is it claimed by, any other refugee group.
Peter Wertheim
The so-called ‘right of return’ thus implicitly rejects the internationally endorsed principle of “two States for two peoples” and is at odds with the global consensus which has always recognized Israel’s right to exist specifically as the nation-State of the Jewish people legitimately created under international law and the UN Charter.
Advocates of a ‘right of return’ are ominously silent about the fate of the Jewish majority who now live in Israel (75% of them native-born) if that demand were ever to be met.
Attempts have been made to justify the favoured treatment the UN gives to descendants of refugees who happen to be Palestinian. It has been argued that if Jews have returned to their land with international endorsement after 1,800 years of dispersion, the Palestinians should have the same right after 70 years. This just does not stand up to scrutiny. Jews returning to their ancient homeland have never claimed to be exercising an individual right of return as refugees. They have never claimed to be returning to their individual homes. Rather, they have claimed a collective right of national self-determination which entitles Jews, wherever they may live, to return to their national home, the State of Israel. For the 99% of Palestinians classified by UNRWA as “refugees” who are in fact descendants of refugees, and have never fled from their homes, Israel has long accepted that they too have a collective right of national self-determination which would entitle them, wherever they may live, to return to a future State of Palestine, but not to Israel. Israel has also long accepted that they have a right to be compensated for the property they or their forebears lost in the 1948 war. The Arab states have yet to make a similar commitment to compensate the 820,000 Jews they expelled from their own countries after 1948.”
Carr put the following on Twitter:
Full text
Leon,
Bob Carr was Premier of NSW between 1995-2005, and entered federal politics thereafter, becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs 2012 – 2013. He retired after the Labor defeat in the 2013 federal election. The Labor Party cannot censure him for peddling his own boat with his own views when he’s no longer in office.
I’m not defending him, or the Labor Party, just stating the facts. I have great dislike for Bob Carr, who pretends to a fine intellect that he doesn’t have and assumes himself expert on all manner of things. Quite why he is lending himself and his energy so much to the Palestinian cause, with all the lies and rhetoric that involves, is more than an interesting question.
He lies constantly, and with sophisticated cunning:
among others:
1.the Oslo Accords make no mention of any ‘Palestinian’ state. Yitzhak Rabin vehemently opposed such an idea.
2. the Oslo Accords make no mention of any mythical “right of return.” They mention the refugees as an issue to be settled, but do not concede any mythical “right” to people and offspring of people who are sorry only that they did not kill more Jews and prevent Israel’s existence.
Leon, Bob Carr’s pro-Palestinian stance and his active involvement with events associated with that, as well as his obvious intense dislike for Israel and the ‘Jewish Lobby’ he has often referred to, reflect his own personal bias and feelings. To this extent, it is not Labor Party policy or overall attitude. Some members of the Labor Party veer in that direction, but certainly not all. Although, it is disturbing to me that a shift in that direction is discernible.
Overall, politics in Australia is not healthy. And we have bad choices from which to choose.
Liat,
To be “pro-Arab’Palestinian’should mean to be concerned about and to advance the welfare of the Arabs who are known as “Palestinians.”
The Western supporters of Hamas and/or of PLO/PA/FATAH intransigence, revanchism,irredentism, duplicity and criminality are not doing so.
Israel is doing far more for their welfare than these Western antisemites.
Liat,
If you were correct, then his party would censure him; instead, they have overwhelmingly voted at federal and state level to “recognise” a genocidal Hamas Arab ‘Palestinian’ state.
The ALP position is monstrous.
The Australian Labor Party is committed to giving diplomatic support to the recognition of an additional Arab “Palestinian” state; in practical terms, that means a Hamas state.
Hamas is a genocidal and politicidal entity; the ALP’s two-state rhetoric is clearly lip service. Its real agenda is to support the creation of a Hamas state.
That is only the beginning: when the ALP is elected to government, it is likely that it will also join the campaign to boycott Israel, and do its best to weaken Israel by any means available to it.
Does Bob Carr also support my Right of Return to the home of my father and his father in Lodz, from which they were driven 75 years ago?
PS to my previous comments: actually a de facto Hamas state already exists in the Gaza Strip. The ALP wishes to give it diplomatic recognition.
When the ALP regains government, it will no doubt invite a Hamas ambassador to Canberra.
Some non-Jewish Australian citizens will ask, as many now ask, “How is the ALP’s Hamas policy good for Australia?”