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Shopping centre tours, live TV crosses, billion dollar pledges and babies being kissed across Australia. This must be election season.
The media might be calling it one of the more dull campaigns in recent memory, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth dwelling over. More than half of all Australians are on Facebook and Twitter and all of them seem to be talking election 2010. It might be boring, but it’s sure captured our attention.
The reasons to vote for the different parties are too numerous to mention, but they all appeal to how we see the country and the world as they are, and how we believe they should be.
The election exploits societal cleavages – the best way to use government revenue, how to tax mining super-profits, whether we want more GP super-clinics or more hospital beds – and the leaders parade and grovel to get our votes based on that.
But our votes are being courted on differing angles by the major parties except, it seems, on Israel. From the Liberal and Labor parties, a one size fits all policy applies. No matter what aspect Israel is virtually always supported.
And when it doesn’t happen, as with the passports and flotilla incidents we’re all up in arms about it. Indeed today, we cannot doubt the Israel credentials of our leaders.
Both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are graduates of the Rambam program, an AIJAC initiative that sends politicians, journalists and student leaders to Israel. Both graciously accept invitations from pro-Israel groups and address the crowd to rousing applause.
On the flip side, however, is the Greens policy concerning Israel. I’m sure most people everyone’s got the summaries going around asking you to put the Greens as your last preference. There are a number of things to consider – first, how bad is it?
Second, why should a single policy, from a minor party – one that has little impact on Australian foreign policy – determine how you should vote? What about pressing issues like climate change, immigration or multiculturalism? They should be ignored as the party’s Israel policy solely determines your decision? Surely not.
In this election we have to ask, is this almost blind support of Israel good for Israel, or indeed the Australian-Jewish community? Looking at the issue with sagacity, I tend to think not.
Our experience on campus is that 70-80 per cent of Australians in the middle – they don’t have a definite view on the topic and only care about the two sides getting along. They want both sides to have a state, they want the fighting to end, and they want it done through negotiated peace treaty.
They also recognise the primary impediments to its occurrence – Hamas hatred and extremism, Fatah ambivalence and corruption, and Israeli occupation and trigger-happiness.
Publically supporting every Israeli action and policy isn’t good for Israel; it’s not good for our community; and most of all, it can be devastating to our own overarching moral principles. Importantly, this must apply as much to our politicians as it does to us.
As a community, we need our politicians to take a more nuanced view on the conflict. Leaping to the defence of every Israeli action without question, like the Coalition did during the flotilla saga for example, is particularly detrimental. Add that proud Zionists and mainstream Australians alike were particularly shocked in the saga’s early hours, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the public.
When my peers remark that they plan on voting for whichever party shows the best support for Israel (read: mimics Israeli government policy the best), it breaks my heart. We have to be honest with ourselves – we need our politicians to be making decisions about what’s in Australia’s national interest.
Often both Israeli and Australian interests will be aligned, because of our shared democratic and liberal values. However, when they differ we should not expect our government to say otherwise.
In fact, we should cast our vote on what we think will be best for Australia and which candidate best fits our principles and our beliefs, with their policy on Israel being one consideration.
In this election, vote because of your local candidate, vote because of your preferred party, or vote because you would prefer Julia or Tony in The Lodge. What matters is that you’re thinking about how you’d like Australia to be run and the kind of country you’d like it to be in the future.
This was originally published in The Australian Jewish News.
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