Bishop, Abbott duel over aid and embassy
AUSTRALIA’S Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was quick to distance herself on Monday from views expressed by her Liberal Party colleague and former prime minister Tony Abbott.
AUSTRALIA’S Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was quick to distance herself on Monday from views expressed by her Liberal Party colleague and former prime minister Tony Abbott to cease Australia’s foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and possibly relocate Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In an article he wrote on December 30 for The Spectator magazine about his recent visit to Israel to attend the Australia-UK-Israel Leadership Dialogue, Abbott argued that Australia “should cut our $40 million a year in aid to the Palestinian Authority while it keeps paying pensions to terrorists and their families”.
While Abbott acknowledged that in discussions with Australian MPs he observed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah claim that his people accepted Israel’s right to exist behind secure borders, Abbott wrote “This is hard to credit given Palestinian TV’s consistent glorification of suicide bombers, reference to Jews as the ‘sons of monkeys and pigs’ and claims that the state of Israel is a ‘satanic project’.”
Abbott continued: “Of course, there should be a permanent settlement for a Palestinian state where Jews have the same rights as Palestinians have in Israel. The alternative is a kind of apartheid that’s at odds with Israel’s own values. But there are lots of lesser issues that could be fixed before this one is resolved.”
Abbott then suggested “another way for Australia to demonstrate its unswerving support for Israel, as the Middle East’s only liberal, pluralist democracy, might be to join any move by the [incoming] Trump administration [in the US] to move its embassy to Jerusalem”.
Bishop responded on Monday by issuing a statement confirming that the Australian government “does not have any plans to move the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem”.
On the question of provision of aid, Bishop said: “Australian aid to the Palestinian Territories is under review after the aid program for World Vision in the Palestinian Territories was suspended last year.”
She added: “The Australian aid program has a robust risk management and due diligence assessment process” and “Australia has a zero tolerance towards fraud and corruption”.
World Vision’s former Gaza head Mohammad El Halabi is due to face an Israeli court later this month over allegations that he funnelled funds from the charity to the military wing of Hamas.
SHANE DESIATNIK
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