Albanese and Wong shame Australia

The statement issued by Australia’s Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong announcing that Australia will recognise the State of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September is riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies that need to be exposed and rebutted.

Some examples:

• “Since 1947, Australia has supported Israel’s existence. In that year, Australia’s Foreign Minister Evatt chaired the UN committee that recommended the creation of two states side by side. Then, as now, the international community understood a two-state solution was the basis of peace and security for the peoples of the region.”
  
  No acknowledgement that the international community had recognised a two-state solution in 1922 proposed in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) – which Australia voted for – calling for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in just 22% of Palestine located west of the Jordan River – whilst excluding any Jewish claims in the remaining 78% of Palestine located east of the Jordan River.
  
  Writing off the history of Palestine between 1922 and 1947 enables Albanese and Wong to ignore:
  
  
  • An Arab State in Palestine east of the Jordan River - renamed “The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” - being granted independence by Great Britain in 1946.
  • The rights vested in the Jewish People under the Mandate being preserved until today under article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter.

• “Australia was the first country to raise its hand at the United Nations in support of Resolution 181, to create the State of Israel – and a Palestinian state.”
  
  Complete falsehood by Albanese and Wong.
  
  Article A3 Part 1 of Resolution 181 actually states
  
  
  • “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than l October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, tbe Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.”
  
  Resolution 181 was proposing a second Arab State in Western Palestine located west of the Jordan River – in addition to the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan located east of the Jordan River.
  
  The Jews accepted Resolution 181 in 1947 but the Arabs rejected it. Five Arab armies invaded western Palestine on 15 May 1948 to wipe out the State of Israel declared on that date.
  
  Albanese and Wong’s attempt to substitute “Palestinian state” for “Arab state” is a blatant rewriting of history. The term “Palestinian” was not defined until 1964 in the founding Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation which also did not claim regional sovereignty “over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or “on the Gaza Strip”
  
  Arabs living in Palestine in 1922 were grouped with the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” in the Mandate.
  

• “The Netanyahu Government is extinguishing the prospect of a two-state solution by rapidly expanding illegal settlements, threatening annexation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and explicitly opposing any Palestinian state”.

The settlements are not illegal in international law - being authorised by articles 6 and 25 of the Mandate and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The “Occupied Palestinian Territories” is a term used by the United Nations to deny Jewish legal claims in “Judea and Samaria” and “Gaza” under the Mandate and UN Charter.

• “Australia’s position is predicated on the commitments we have received from the Palestinian Authority”.

The “Palestinian Authority” changed its name to “State of Palestine” on 3 January 2013.

Albanese and Wong should hold their heads in shame.

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