From the Times of
Israel - https://tinyurl.com/y2lp5zes
A group called
Indigenous Friends of Israel was established by indigenous Australians in what
organizers said was a bid to counter growing support in the country’s Labor
party for recognition of a Palestinian state and to boost bipartisan support
for Israel.
Spokesperson
Munganbana Norman Miller said the national organization is concerned that the
Labor Party is “going down a dangerous path” in its attempt to get individual
states and then federal Labor endorsement of a Palestinian state while
Palestinian leaders do not accept the right of Israel to exist and continue to
support terrorism.
Miller spoke
Thursday from the north Queensland city of Cairns, an area with high
concentrations of indigenous Australians.
“I support a
two-state solution and Israel has offered it in 1947, 2000, 2008 and 2014,” he
said, “but Arab leadership including Yasser Arafat and current Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas have rejected it. Also, Hamas who are in control
of Gaza have vowed to annihilate Israel and drive every Jew into the sea. It is
a terrorist organization, recognized as such by the Australian and other
governments,” he said.
“At this stage there
is no viable Palestinian state until the governments of the West Bank and Gaza
sort out their difficulties. Who will the Labor Party and possibly Labor in
government recognize?”
Miller told JTA that
unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state is likely to further discourage
the Palestinians from coming to the negotiating table, which he believes they
have been reluctant to do.
A future Palestinian
state, which could require land swaps to make it viable, “needs to recognize
Israel as a Jewish state with secure borders and call off terrorism, including
spending millions of overseas aid money on payments to the families of
terrorists and promoting hatred of Jews [among] its schoolchildren,” he said.
“It is simply untrue
to maintain that Israel is an apartheid state,” he added. “As Indigenous
people, we know what apartheid is. Israel is a beacon of democracy in the
Middle East and has Arab members of the Knesset and has Arabs living peacefully
and working in all walks of life enjoying their democratic freedoms.”
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