Labor’s defence of American empire, Israel and a shrinking nation

So, there it is: a nod to the mental bandwidth of what passes for the right’s understanding of the geopolitical realities of the current moment. 

Labor’s modest shift in position on the enduring Israel-Palestine conflict this week has, according to a sulphurous Peter Dutton, fractured the nation’s emphatically pro-Israel stance. Worse still, the opposition leader insists, the changes weren’t inspired by principle but a thinly veiled concession to the left flank of the party ahead of its national conference. The inevitable upshot, despaired The Australian’s Greg Sheridan, is the adoption of a partisan position that is “wrong on the international law, wrong on the morality of the situation and probably wrong on the politics”. 

Seizing on this, former shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser spoke of a deeper and darker crisis, one where the decision to return Australia to its pre-2014 diplomatic stance of referring to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied Palestinian territories” (as opposed to “disputed territories”) was neither unusual nor without risk. On the contrary, he said it was something destined to “embolden” or give way to Palestinian “jihad”; a cunning plan, it would seem, to turn us into a rogue state of de-facto terrorist sympathisers.

But the Liberal MP’s flourish did not end there. He conversely arrived at the rather heroic conclusion that Labor’s shift on Israel proved the Albanese government was beholden to a “hard left”, “Jeremy Corbyn faction” — one that flatly denies the “right of the state of Israel to exist”, he declared, never mind government statements to the contrary.  

Theirs is the language of unreality — the slippery claims of those possessed of an insular understanding of both international law and the rapidly disintegrating domestic and geopolitical landscape of Israel today.

What’s particularly extraordinary about these views, Sydney University Challis chair of international law Ben Saul told me, is the extent to which they both summon and justify an impression of Israel as unspooled from the constraints of international law. A country to which such rules and norms simply do not, and should not, apply. 

“I think the Coalition’s position is pretty disturbing and, frankly, quite shocking, and the fact that this is even news demonstrates how extreme the Morrison government was on this,” he said, in reference to the former government’s (since-reversed) decision to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as its opposition to UN resolutions condemning illegal Israeli settlements and violence.

The impunity this is liable to occasion, Saul explained, runs contrary to international law and throws into sharp relief thorny contradictions: “We certainly don’t tolerate the same in relation to, for example, Russia and its claims to have annexed Crimea and other parts of Ukraine — it’s illegal, it is occupation, it’s a crime of aggression; every state that believes in international law has condemned it.”

“I just don’t see why anybody would take a different position on Israel.”

The perception is reinforced when cast against the grim realities of domestic Israeli politics. Though tit-for-tat violence is nothing new in the occupied territories, it’s notable that the recent waves of Israeli settler rampages correspond with the expressed agenda of the Israeli government, which so happens to be the most right-wing, ultranationalist, religious and increasingly illiberal coalition in the country’s 75-year history.

With de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank in the government’s sights, it’s no coincidence much of the bloodshed and chaos that’s ensued in recent months has often shadowed government decisions to expedite many thousands of new illegal settlements in the territory.

The level of violence is such that it’s even drawn rebukes from Israeli intelligence and police chiefs, the country’s defence force and the United States, all of which have labelled it settler “terrorism”. And yet for all that, Saul pointed out, “the Coalition is still very strangely in Israel’s corner: no matter what Israel does, no matter how extreme it becomes, no matter how often it violates international law, the Coalition is wedded to blind support for Israel. It’s completely inconsistent with what it says about its support for a rules-based international order”.

That said, it’s possible to detect some lingering inconsistencies or contradictions in Labor’s new position. Contrary to the right’s hysteria on the matter, Australia nevertheless remains wholly out of step with much of the international community on Palestine. There does not, for instance, appear to be much appetite to recognise Palestinian statehood, even though some 138 nations have done so. Nor – if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s rhetoric is any guide — does it seem likely the Labor government will necessarily join future UN resolutions against Israel.

But it’s arguable such double standards on international law or human rights only loom large if it’s taken as a given that Australia is a middle power dedicated to upholding international law. A different view, and one spelled out by former army intelligence officer turned University of New South Wales academic Clinton Fernandes, is that ours is a nation better understood as a “sub-imperial power” more preoccupied with upholding the pillars of the US-led global order than international law.

The same, he says, applies to Israel in its region: “Our support for Israel is not based on our love of Israel; it’s based on its value as a US strategic ally in the Middle East that upholds the American world order.” So much, it would seem, finds reflection in US President Joe Biden’s common refrain: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one” — something he repeated as recently as last month.

It’s in this way, Fernandes explained, that the phrase “rules-based international order” is best construed as not a reference to international law per se, but as a euphemism for “empire by another name”; terminology rarely cited in polite society to describe US foreign policy.

From this vantage point, the Albanese government’s shift in position on Israel, including its recent criticism of unchecked violence, reads as a reaction to the dangers posed by the country’s slide away from democracy. As things stand, a confluence of events, beginning with the ruling coalition’s brazen attacks on the rule of law, its judicial overhaul, mass social unrest, the rise of an uncompromising religious Zionism, and a shift in unfavourable demographics, may in time give way to a dangerous theocracy.  

The regime to emerge from this, Fernandes warns, wouldn’t necessarily be one given to privileging US interests in the region above its own “messianic and religious ideas”, as so clearly sketched in Israel’s open threat this week to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age”.

So, ultimately this is all about preserving American empire. At the very least, Australia’s shift in position on Israel is as much about bringing pressure to bear on the unravelling nation as it is about quelling opposition from the left on AUKUS at next week’s national conference. Both ends, of course, serve the US-led “rules-based international order”. After all, AUKUS owes its existence entirely to a blind and uncompromising faith in the American alliance.

Far from consciously abandoning the precepts of the usual order of things, these manoeuvrings suggest Labor is trying to preserve them. The same common thread also underpins the government’s formal response to its recent inquiry into war powers reform. 

True middle powers, such as the Netherlands and Norway, insist on parliamentary authorisation of military deployment. By contrast, and notwithstanding overwhelming public sentiment in favour of a like arrangement, the government has decided not to strip the prime minister of his unilateral power to commit the country to war. Instead the endorsed recommendations largely formalise the status quo, including by fashioning procedures through which illegal wars, such as Iraq, can be authorised via the governor-general.

The overall outcome of the inquiry, former diplomat and president of Australians for War Powers Reform Dr Alison Broinowski told me, wasn’t surprising, given the government’s decision to prejudice the inquiry’s conclusions from the outset. But nonetheless, she said she felt betrayed by Labor.

“I was shocked — we trusted them and believed them when they promised a meaningful inquiry into war powers,” she said. “Instead, all we’ve seen in the past year is preparation for the next war — it’s become absolutely overwhelming. Step by step, almost every other day, there’s yet another surrendering of Australia’s sovereignty.” 

“I mean, there’s no vestige of sovereignty left,” she added, citing the expansion of the US military presence on the continent and deepening intelligence ties, among other things. 

The country has, in other words, rapidly devolved into a client state — an unedifying position for a country otherwise as advanced as ours, and one former prime minister Paul Keating sounded a warning against years ago.

In Broinowski’s view, and as strange — even repulsive — as it may sound, the only way these developments seem liable to fall to the wayside is if Donald Trump is reelected next year: “It’s probably the one silver lining, the one little sort of glimmer of hope, that a Trump presidency might say of AUKUS and the deepening alliance, ‘This is rubbish.’”

“That would get us off this dangerous path.”

Should Australia reassess its relationship with the United States and Israel? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.