Palestine

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:18): On 15 May each year, the Palestinian people around the world commemorate the Nakba, the day that 80 per cent of Palestinians living in the land occupied by Israel were forced from their homes and country and made refugees. The remaining 20 per cent became internally displaced people. The partitioning of Palestine without the consent of the Palestinian people was a disastrous decision by the UN to appease the Zionist movement and cleanse the conscience of Europe for their failure to stop the barbarism of the extreme political right across the continent.

The Palestinian people paid and continue to pay a very heavy price for the sins of Western nations to address one injustice by only creating another, in the same way First Nations Australians have paid a heavy price for the forced settlement of Australia by Europeans. There are many similarities between the plight of First Nations Australians and the Palestinian people. Both were and continue to be the victims of 19^th and 20^th century colonialism. Both were killed and displaced from their homes and homelands by the legal principle of terra nullius. While Australia has slowly come to terms with its colonial history, the West is yet to understand the impact the partitioning of Palestine has had on a nation and its people. However, the facts are well known.

From 1947 to 1949 over 530 Palestinian towns and villages were completely destroyed by Zionist militia, with many of these depopulated towns taken over by Jewish settlers and renamed. Around 15,000 Palestinians were killed during these forced takeovers of Palestinian lands, and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in Galilee. Those who attempted to return were shot and killed.

Successive Israeli governments have introduced laws and enacted policies that have made Palestinian people second-class citizens in their own country. The discrimination, hardship and indignities experienced by Palestinian people would not be tolerated in any First World or Western nation, yet we continue to turn a blind eye to the plight of the Palestinian people. Again, they share this experience with First Nations Australians.

While First Nations Australians have remained to live in Australia, the Palestinian people live scattered across the world, hoping that one day they will be able to return home, a right that all Australians expect and experience but one that is denied to the Palestinian people. Today, six million Palestinian refugees reside outside historical Palestine and continue to be denied their right to return to their homeland, while the 3.3 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank are denied the right to vote for a government that continues to control every aspect of their lives.

Some 2.2 million Palestinians live in appalling conditions caused by the ongoing seizure of their lands by Israeli forces, while 1.9 million Palestinians who continue to live within historic Palestine do have the right to vote but are subject to different laws, which diminish their inherent humanity and dignity. While many European powers have accepted the process of decolonisation across the world, Israel continues to be permitted to occupy the lands and lives of the Palestinian people.

As a middle power nation, Australia must use its diplomatic and political influence to address this injustice, as it has done on many previous occasions. Australia helped end the apartheid regime in South Africa, it campaigned for an independent Zimbabwe, albeit reluctantly, and helped end the tyranny of Indonesia over East Timor. It campaigns against injustice across many continents today, and in the Ukraine it has sent a strong message to the Russian leaders that their behaviour is totally unacceptable.

On all these occasions Australia has stood alongside the oppressed. It is now time that Australia stands alongside the Palestinian people. It should not demand that the oppressed make concessions but rather that the oppressor, the state of Israel, behave according to internationally recognised rules and norms.

What does this mean? It means Australia should demand that Israel end its occupation of internationally recognised Palestinian land and territories, that Israel allow the return of Palestinians to their own homeland, that it end the blockade of Gaza and ensure that all people living in Israel enjoy equal rights before the law, including the 1.9 million Palestinians.

It is right that we remember the Holocaust and other atrocities and acts of genocide committed during the 20^th and 21^st centuries but, in doing so, it should not be allowed to justify the aggression against the Palestinian people, nor should we allow ourselves to be distracted from what is happening in Palestine today and be blind to the hardship and oppression experienced by Palestinian people. It is time for Palestine to be free and the Palestinian people to live in peace.