Australia has not signed up to a US-led statement about Israel and the Palestinian territories, instead raising deep concerns about “human rights abuses and the lack of progress towards a just and enduring two-state solution”.
The move comes after former foreign minister Gareth Evans said the new Australian government’s decision not to join 22 countries in signing on to the statement may signal a “decent, principled” approach to the Middle East.
While the Australian government said it agreed with the US argument that the UN human rights council brings “disproportionate scrutiny to Israel”, it did not echo its ally in explicitly calling to end an ongoing inquiry set up last year.
“Australia remains deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict, loss of life and human rights abuses, and the lack of progress towards a just and enduring two-state solution,” Australia’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Amanda Gorely, said in a statement to the council on Tuesday.
Gorely said Australia did not support the proposition that Israel was the only country that was a permanent item on the human rights council’s agenda. That was the reason Australia retained “fundamental concerns” about the nature of the commission of inquiry that published its first report last week.
But the Australian government indicated it would seek to take a balanced approach.
“Australia’s guiding principle will be advancing the cause for peace,” Gorely said. “Viewing any conflict from one perspective will not achieve that goal.”
Human rights advocates said Australia’s statement was more nuanced than the US-led statement, and they saw it as significant that the Albanese government had not simply signed on to Washington’s position.
The independent inquiry’s mandate is to “investigate, in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law”, and provide annual reports.
Its initial report, published last week, said the continued occupation by Israel of Palestinian territory and discrimination against Palestinians were the key root causes of the recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in the region.
On Monday, 22 countries including the US, the UK, Canada and Germany jointly said they were “deeply concerned” about the inquiry. They said the nature of the inquiry was “further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the council and must stop”.
The US ambassador to the UN human rights council, Michèle Taylor, said on Monday the commission of inquiry had an “open-ended mandate with no sunset clause, end date, or clear limitations connected to the escalation in May 2021”.
Taylor said the 22 countries were “concerned that the commission of inquiry will further contribute to the polarisation of a situation about which so many of us are concerned”.
Evans, who served as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996 under both the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, welcomed the decision not to sign up to the US statement.
“I think it’s an excellent start for the new government to give a very clear message that it’s going to adopt a decent, principled and balanced approach to Middle East issues, which is long overdue,” Evans told Guardian Australia.
However, the decision was not expected to trigger a fundamental shift in policy.
A spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the new government had “taken the opportunity to elaborate on our approach to the Middle East peace process by issuing a national statement”.
“This approach demonstrates our concern for human rights in the Palestinian Territories while maintaining our strong concerns about the commission of inquiry’s mandate and our view that the UN human rights council brings disproportionate scrutiny to Israel,” the spokesperson said late on Tuesday.
“Australia’s statement is consistent with a long-held bipartisan position in support of a just and enduring two-state solution.”
The shadow minister for foreign affairs, Simon Birmingham, said the new government’s actions had “created unnecessary ambiguity around Australia’s position”.
“For the Labor government to say that it is concerned at ‘disproportionate scrutiny’ applied to Israel by the UN human rights council, but not join Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, UK, US and other partners in a joint statement to that effect, is at best confusing and at worst disingenuous,” Birmingham said.
“These actions will understandably escalate concerns about how much the Labor Government will change Australia’s stance in relation to Israel.”
But the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Jeremy Leibler, said he welcomed the Albanese government’s “principled stand against the idea that Israel should be a permanent agenda item at the human rights council and its refusal to participate in such discussions”.
Earlier, Sophie McNeill, an Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said she was “pleased that Australia didn’t sign the US statement because it undermines an important process to investigate serious human rights concerns”.
“Accountability mechanisms matter on Israel-Palestine, they matter on Russia-Ukraine, they matter on Xinjiang, they matter on Myanmar,” McNeill said. “We have to be consistent.”
In May 2018, Anthony Albanese asked the Morrison government to explain why Australia voted against a UN human rights council push to hold an independent investigation into the killings of Palestinian protesters in Gaza.
In August 2014, Albanese said the “collective punishment” endured by the people of Gaza was “completely unacceptable”.
The commission of inquiry - chaired by Navanethem Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for human rights – said in its initial report: “The continuing occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, the 15-year blockade of Gaza and longstanding discrimination within Israel are all intrinsically linked, and cannot be looked at in isolation.”
One of the commission’s members, the former Australian human rights commissioner Christopher Sidoti, said last week that Israel “clearly has no intention of ending the occupation”.
The report did not limit its criticism to Israel. It said the Palestinian Authority frequently used the occupation as a justification for its own human rights violations.
The report added that the de facto authorities in Gaza had shown little commitment to upholding human rights.
Israel has not cooperated with the inquiry, saying it would not receive reasonable, equitable and non-discriminatory treatment.
