THE ISRAEL-HAMAS CONFLICT: AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW

Senator Dave Sharma was Australia’s ambassador to Israel from 2013-2017. He previously served as head of the International Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. His appointment to the post in Israel, at the age of 37, made him one of Australia’s youngest ambassadors and the second Australian ambassador of Indian heritage. In May 2019, Dave Sharma won the seat of Wentworth for the Liberal Party but lost it at the 2022 election. He returned to the federal parliament in November 2023, when selected to replace Senator Marise Payne on her retirement. A specialist in Middle East politics, Senator Sharma addressed The Sydney Institute on Monday 19 February 2024 to argue why Australia has a particular perspective on the Israel/Gaza conflict. 

THE ISRAEL-HAMAS CONFLICT: AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW

DAVE SHARMA

Over the summer I spent some time reading Henry Kissinger’s first published work, A World Restored. Kissinger died in November last year, at the ripe age of 100, and I was feeling somewhat nostalgic for his wisdom.

A World Restored is predominantly a history of how a new order in Europe was created in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, at the Congress of Vienna and elsewhere, and the reasons this order endured and provided Europe with a high degree of stability for the next 100 years. But it also contains a few reflections that remain relevant today.

Kissinger counselled that peace was the byproduct of an international system that was willing to use force if necessary to maintain its underlying principles. But he warned that if peace alone was the primary objective of such a system, with a desire to avoid war at all costs, it would quickly fall prey to the most ruthless states. He wrote:

Whenever peace – conceived as the avoidance of war – has been the primary objective of a power or a group of powers, the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community.

Whenever the international order has acknowledged that certain principles could not be compromised even for the sake of peace, stability based on an equilibrium of forces was at least conceivable.

Kissinger was a witness to and victim of the great breakdown of peace in Europe in the interwar period, having been forced to flee Bavaria in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. He found his way to the United States and his doctoral thesis, which forms the basis of A World Restored, was written in 1954 at Harvard. His point was that the priority placed on avoiding conflict at all costs after the horrors of the First World War was, while entirely understandable, cynically exploited by the most ruthless states at the time: Italy, Japan and of course Nazi Germany.

Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Italy occupied and annexed Abyssinia, whilst Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria, both in violation of League of Nations rulings. By failing to enforce the principles of the interwar system, built in order to safeguard peace, the Western powers ensured that peace itself collapsed, ending with the conflagration of the  Second World War. We are at risk of repeating a similar mistake today.

In today’s world, there are currently two significant conflicts underway involving major powers. Both have the potential to spill beyond their current theatres and escalate into larger conflicts, with global implications for peace and security. The implications for Australia are particularly stark because like all middle powers, Australia benefits disproportionately from an international order underpinned by just and enforceable norms and principles. A world where “might is right” or “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” is not a favourable one for Australia.

The current war in the Middle East was initiated by Hamas, the terrorist group that is the de facto authority in Gaza. Its attack on Israel of 7 October was one of the most deadly – and brutal – terrorist attacks in global history. 1200 civilians were killed. Another 240 were kidnapped, many of whom have since died. In terms of the loss of Israeli civilian life, it was the equivalent of twelve “9-11” attacks in a single day. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.

It’s important to remember, and be clear, that this was a terrorist attack. Civilians were the primary target of Hamas’ operation. Women, children, infants, the elderly and many others were terrorised, slaughtered, murdered, decapitated, defiled and sexually assaulted in barbaric and inhuman fashion, in a way redolent of the worst depravities of Islamic State. This has all been well documented, most sickeningly by the Hamas terrorists themselves … whether it was the 364 young people slaughtered at the Supernova open-air music festival, or the charred bodies of victims whose hands were bound before they were burnt alive.

Beyond the sheer magnitude of the loss, however, the attack has delivered a deep and profound shock to Israel’s sense of security as a nation – much as the 9/11 attacks did in the United States. We all remember in Australia how the Bali terrorist bombings of 2002, which killed 88 Australians, shook our national soul. Imagine that this attack took place on Australian soil, and that several thousand of our citizens were killed, how much more profound that shock would have been.

Only if we reflect on and appreciate the deep national trauma this attack has inflicted on Israel can we begin to understand its response, and its insistence that such an attack can never be allowed to happen again. We also need to be clear that Hamas is not a national liberation movement, but an Islamist terrorist organisation. Hamas has no interest in the welfare of the Palestinian people it governs. Hamas’ ideological commitment and purpose is not to secure a sovereign Palestinian state. Its ideological commitment and purpose is to destroy the state of Israel and evict the Jewish people from their current and ancestral homeland in the Middle East.

Witness how it has promised to repeat the 7 October terrorist attacks again and again, not until such time as a Palestinian state is created, but until such time as Israel is eliminated. Witness how it has put its own military infrastructure under civilian facilities, whether hospitals or schools or apartment blocks, and actively puts civilians in harm’s way. Witness how it has diverted massive amounts of international aid to build an underground tunnel and bunker network that has kept its fighters safe whilst its civilians have nowhere to hide. Witness how it has dug up Gaza’s own plumbing and sewerage network to repurpose the piping into rockets and shells. In fact, Hamas seeks to exploit – and sometimes to magnify – the suffering of the Gazan civilian population in order to gain international diplomatic leverage and delegitimise Israel and its current military operation.

There is no doubt the current war has seen a tragic loss of Palestinian civilian life in Gaza, and an immense amount of suffering. But the moral responsibility for this lies not with Israel, but with Hamas. We would all like to see this war, and this suffering, end as quickly as possible. But how it ends is critically important to the prospects for future peace.

If the war ends with Hamas in place, then it would be disastrous for the region, and almost certainly guarantee more bloodshed and suffering in the years to come. Hamas would re-equip and re-build, and launch further terrorist attacks, and provoke further wars, with Israel. Hamas has initiated four wars with Israel since it ousted the Palestinian Authority and seized power in Gaza in 2007, with each conflict more bloody than the last. Future conflict is almost certain: Hamas has promised as much.

Hamas would also frustrate any future efforts at the advancement of a two-state solution or broader moves towards regional peace. Just as it scuttled the last major Israeli-Palestinian negotiating effort in 2014, when it abducted and killed three Israeli teenagers. Just as with the October 7 attacks it aimed to scuttle the growing momentum towards an Israeli-Saudi normalisation agreement, which would have set the stage for a broader regional peace. And if Hamas is left in control of Gaza, then Hamas will be seen to have secured a victory against Israel.

Such a victory will marginalise moderate political actors in the region, give fuel to extremists, and empower Iran and its proxies. This will threaten not only the survival of Israel, the only democracy in the region, but it will destabilise the entire Middle East, and encourage more Iranian adventurism.

Finally, if Hamas is left in power in Gaza, the people who will suffer the most are the civilian population of Gaza. They will continue to be deprived of opportunity, held hostage to Hamas’ militaristic and irredentist aims, and bear the brunt of future conflict.

By contrast, if the war ends with the defeat of Hamas and its removal from power, the future of the region looks considerably brighter. The lives of those in Gaza would more closely resemble their West Bank Palestinian cousins, who enjoy considerably greater freedom, security and prosperity. There could be a single Palestinian political entity – hopefully a reformed Palestinian Authority – that governs the Palestinian population, that is committed to co-existence with Israel, and that can serve as a negotiating partner for a two-state solution. This could in turn allow Israeli-Saudi normalisation, and efforts towards a broader Israeli-Arab peace, to resume.

It might lead not just to the end of this war, but the end of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict, which has run now for 75 years. The defeat of Hamas would be a setback for Iran and its proxies, discourage their destabilising activities, and strengthen moderate political forces and actors in the region. This is why I said how this war ends is critically important to the prospects for future peace.

Not all ceasefires are equal. Will a ceasefire be enduring and sustainable, or will it just stoke future conflict and misery? People who are calling for a ceasefire, without prescribing what sort of ceasefire, have lost sight of this important distinction. Many of these people seem to forget that there was a ceasefire on 6 October. Hamas broke that ceasefire on 7 October. Few seem to acknowledge that the surest and quickest way of ending this war would be for Hamas to unconditionally release its hostages, and surrender its military leadership.

None of this is to deny that Israel has an obligation to adhere to international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict. That it needs to seek to minimise civilian casualties and suffering whilst pursuing its military objectives. But I would say that Gaza is an incredibly challenging operational environment, one that any western military would struggle with, and that the Israeli Defence Forces take their commitment to international humanitarian law seriously, because they realise it has strategic repercussions for state legitimacy.

The sad truth is that war entails terrible suffering, even when the laws of armed conflict are being observed. This is why Hamas is so culpable and so irresponsible for starting this war.  And when we are discussing international humanitarian law, we should also recall that the intentional murder of civilians and the holding of hostages, both of which Hamas has engaged in, are clear war crimes, and there is only one party here – Hamas – which has stated and demonstrated a clear genocidal intent.

This war is already having regional implications, with Iran having activated its proxies to put pressure on Israel and the western countries supporting it. Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terrorist group which controls much of Lebanon, has stepped up its attacks against northern Israel. Houthi rebels in Yemen, another group that has been trained, armed and financed by Iran, have succeeded in largely closing the Red Sea and so the Suez Canal to commercial shipping, with piracy and the use of armed drones and missiles. Iranian-supported Shia militias in Iraq and Syria have mounted frequent attacks against US facilities and personnel in the region, notably killing three in the northeastern corner of Jordan a few weeks ago.

Israel, the United States and others have been responding, with targeted strikes on Houthi bases, on Iranian-aligned weapons convoys and military facilities throughout the region, and on senior Hezbollah figures and commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. The forceful and resolute response of the United States in the early days of this crisis, sending two aircraft carrier battle groups and indicating its willingness to use force to keep regional actors at bay, has largely been successful in keeping the regional dimensions of this conflict contained, and deterring Iran. But it is a day-to-day proposition, and the risks of an accident or miscalculation leading to regional escalation remain high.

Australia cannot remove ourselves from the implications and consequences of this conflict. As a trading nation that depends for our livelihood on the maintenance of the global order, and a significant population with family and other ties to the affected regions, we have a profound national interest in the resolution of this conflict, and the terms on which it is resolved.

But the Albanese Labor government is failing us here, and on three fronts. Firstly, the government has flip-flopped when it comes to defending an important point of principle in the international system, and that is the right to self-defence. The Albanese Labor government says that it supports Israel’s right to defend itself and that Hamas’s removal from power is a necessary precondition for peace. But then we vote for a UN General Assembly resolution that would leave Hamas in place, and echo calls for an immediate ceasefire without specifying conditions that would need to be met.

Penny Wong was alone amongst foreign ministers in demanding “restraint” from Israel whilst the 7 October Hamas terrorist attack was still underway, with Israel seeking to rescue civilians besieged in their communities. Israel must abide by international humanitarian law, but its right to self-defence clearly includes using force to recover its hostages and militarily defeat Hamas. Too often from this government we hear all the emphasis on the former, and none on the latter.

Second, the Albanese Labor government is failing to maintain social cohesion here in Australia. Inevitably, conflicts like that in the Middle East that arouse strong feelings can inflame local tensions. It is the role of leaders in government to keep such tensions in check, especially in a multicultural nation such as Australia, and ensure that they are not allowed to spill over into outright animosity against fellow Australians, and undermine our cohesion as a nation.

But from the Prime Minister down, this government has been too slow and too hesitant — for whatever reason — to condemn rising antisemitism in Australia, with the result that it has now taken root and even become normalised. From the shameful crowds at the Opera House glorifying Hamas’ terrorism a mere two days after the attacks, to the failure to condemn extremist sermons from Islamic preachers, to the slow and inadequate response to the doxxing attack against Jewish Australians.

We have also had senior Labor ministers freelancing with inflammatory language and accusations, and a false conflation of a quite evident rise in antisemitism with the spectre of an Islamophobia that has not materialised.

To be clear. Australians should be entirely free to protest against the war, to criticise Israel’s policy and its government, and to lobby the government towards this end. Just as Australians should be entirely free to protest against Hamas, to call for the release of hostages, and to express solidarity with Israel’s right to defend itself. But what should not be tolerated or permitted, and what we are seeing far too frequently, is Australians harassing, vilifying, demonising and seeking to hold to account their fellow Australians for the religion they observe, the opinions they hold, or the behaviour of a foreign entity.

And this is only happening to one group of Australians: Jewish Australians. As Vic Alhadeff, a man who has devoted his professional life to building harmonious relations between different Australians, wrote last week: “… the tsunami of anti-Jewish hatred sweeping our nation is the most all-pervasive and terrifying of our lives and, in fact, our country’s history.” That we have allowed this situation to develop, by failing to check this movement in its infancy, is a profound failing of collective leadership.

Finally, the Albanese Labor government is failing us by not making a meaningful contribution to the maritime task force in the Red Sea. Twenty per cent of the world’s container trade passes through the Red Sea. Avoiding the Suez Canal and the Red Sea between Europe and Asia, and instead going via Africa, takes twice the fuel and days more at sea, doubling the price of moving a container from Rotterdam to Shanghai. These increased costs are being passed on to consumers in Australia, adding to inflation and cost-of-living pressures.

As a trading nation that depends upon freedom of navigation and commerce on the high seas for our prosperity, and that has historically contributed to such maritime security operations in the Middle East, it should be a no-brainer for Australia to make a modest contribution to this task force. This is especially true given this request came from the United States, our most important ally, and only a week after the US Congress, in an historic decision, agreed Australia could take three Virginia Class nuclear-powered submarines from US production lines.

To conclude…

In today’s world, two important international principles are on trial. And the test we face is whether we are prepared to pay the price to uphold these principles. Or whether, through a lack of resolve, we will weaken the order that has underpinned peace since the end of WW2, embolden reckless actors, and risk a much greater conflagration down the road.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is testing the principle that one sovereign state cannot use force against the territorial integrity of another or acquire territory by force.  Hamas’s terrorist attack of 7 October against Israel, and Israel’s legitimate military response, is testing the principle of the right to self-defence. Both wars are exacting a heavy human toll.

The Russia-Ukraine war has resulted in some 200,000 deaths, whilst the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war is close to 25,000. And in both wars there are loud voices, growing louder, insisting that the costs have grown too high, and demanding that a settlement should be found — on any terms.

It can be hard to argue with the moral claims and sentiments of peace. Who is not in favour of an end to war, and no more civilian deaths? But the settlements these proponents are arguing for will only accelerate and supercharge a greater collapse in global peace.

As Kissinger warned, a failure to defend underlying principles only advantages the most aggressive actors and stores up greater conflict down the road. If Russia is allowed to keep its territorial gains in Ukraine, and Putin’s aggression is seen to pay dividends, then all of eastern Europe and the Baltic states become vulnerable. China will be emboldened to seize Taiwan by force. North Korea will be encouraged to test South Korean resolve. If Israel is stripped of its right to self-defence, and Hamas remains in control of Gaza, then Hamas will be seen to have secured a victory against Israel. Such a victory will encourage terrorist groups throughout the region, from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen, and their patron state, Iran, that terrorism provides the means to secure political objectives.

This will threaten not only the survival of Israel, the only democracy in the region, but it will destabilise the entire Middle East, and encourage more Iranian adventurism. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan will all be vulnerable.

If we truly want peace, then we need to be defending the principles which underpin the order that deters aggressors. The Albanese Labor Government talks up its contribution to safeguarding global order. At his Lowy Institute address in December 2023, Albanese proclaimed Australia had a responsibility to uphold and defend the global framework. But at every test, at every juncture where the international system is being tested, this government goes to ground.

Whether it is meaningful military support to Ukraine, a contribution to the Red Sea maritime task force, or active diplomacy to achieve a sustainable ceasefire in the Middle East, the Albanese government is missing in action. Where events have called for decisive action and moral clarity, Labor has responded with superficial moralising and magical thinking.

How else do you explain Labor’s apparent belief that the destruction of Hamas – an objective I think all reasonable observers of this conflict would agree is a legitimate war aim – can be achieved without bloodshed, tragic though it is?  How else do you explain Labor’s apparent belief that the Houthis in Yemen can be deterred by a press release?

There is also a dangerous naivete at work here: a failure to understand that foreign policy is not transacted in isolation, with decisions taken on one side of the world having little or no bearing on the other. Rather, it is a wholistic undertaking, one guided by a commitment to principles and a clear sense of the national interest.

A desire for peace on any terms, no matter how just the fight against an enemy may be, will be interpreted in Beijing and Moscow as weakness on the part of the West, and rightly so. That weakness will embolden autocrats in our region, something that brings danger closer to our own shores.

The Liberal Party knows this. We have always known this. If the Labor government is genuine about protecting Australian interests in a more dangerous world, rather than just sitting back and letting our fate be decided for us, then there are four relatively easy steps it could take. First, Australia should become actively involved in the diplomacy to support a ceasefire deal in the Middle East that is genuinely sustainable, and that lays the groundwork for a more hopeful future for both Israel and Palestinians.

Statements issued from Canberra are not going to do this: it takes active and ongoing engagement with the major actors in the region: Egypt, Jordan, Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the European Union. If Penny Wong – who took over three months to make her first visit to the Middle East after the 7 October terrorist attacks – is not prepared to do this, then she should appoint a senior Special Envoy for the Middle East, someone who carries weight in the region, and who can argue Australia’s interests.

Second, we should make a meaningful contribution to Operation Prosperity Guardian, the multinational maritime task force seeking to deter Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and make it safe for commercial shipping. As we heard from the Royal Australian Navy last week in Senate Estimates, we have the capability and operational readiness to contribute to this mission. The decision not to do so was a political one.

Third, we should strengthen our support for Ukraine, as it fends off Russian aggression. Rather than dismantle and bury our Taipan helicopters, we should send them to Ukraine, who desperately needs them to protect the lives of its soldiers on the front lines. And we should reopen our Embassy in Kyiv, as an important show of solidarity with Ukraine. As we learnt in Senate Estimates last week, Australia continues to pay rent on the premises, and pay the salaries of our local staff … the only thing missing from our embassy is an Ambassador, who remains bizarrely stationed in Poland.

Fourth, the government needs to start taking antisemitism seriously, and begin to combat it rather than wishing it away. Normally, the lead on this sort of issue would fall to the Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister, but the hapless Andrew Giles is too busy seeking to evade responsibility for the government’s failure to prepare for and respond to the release of 149 criminals from immigration detention, endangering our community. So, he either needs to step up or step down, and a senior Minister in the Albanese government needs to take seriously the challenge of community cohesion.

As we are always being reminded, including by this government, the world is becoming less certain and more dangerous for Australia. That’s why we cannot afford the sort of complacency we are seeing.