Unseen Link – Australia’s Hand in Gaza Conflict

In another life, I used to help run adventure tours in Egypt, Israel and Turkey. It was towards the end of the 1980s that I lived in the Middle East for a few years and heard first hand the challenges people faced. I feel as strongly today as I did then about the part our governments have played in creating and perpetuating the crisis in Israel.

Here are my thoughts:

We keep hearing it: the war in Gaza is “a tragedy, but nothing to do with us.”

That is wrong.

The fate of the Palestinian people is tied to decisions made by the very Western democracies we count as allies, and by the international system Australia helped to build. Australia did not stand on the sidelines.

In 1947, we voted in favour of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine — and our then–External Affairs Minister, H.V. Evatt, chaired the UN committee that shaped the plan.

How It Began

For centuries, the area we now call Israel and Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was governed through provinces such as the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem and parts of “Southern Syria.” While there was no single Ottoman province named “Palestine,” the name was widely used by both locals and foreigners. After the Ottoman collapse in World War I, Britain took control under the League of Nations Mandate for “Palestine.”

That Mandate carried a built-in contradiction: it directed Britain to prepare the land for self-government by its existing inhabitants while also implementing the 1917 Balfour Declaration — promising “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

Demographic Change and Unequal State-Building

The Balfour Declaration and Mandate policies helped trigger mass Jewish immigration, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. While Jews had always lived in the land in small numbers, these waves — supported by the Zionist movement and foreign backers — altered the demographic balance. By the mid-1940s, Jews were about 32–33% of the population.

During the Mandate, the Jewish community (Yishuv) was allowed to develop self-governing institutions such as the Jewish Agency, trade unions like the Histadrut, and defence forces like the Haganah.

Palestinians, while forming political bodies such as the Arab Higher Committee—which represented both Muslim and Christian Arabs—faced repeated suppression by British authorities. Following the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, a large-scale uprising against British rule and Jewish immigration, British crackdowns dismantled armed forces, disbanded political institutions, and exiled leaders, leaving Palestinians without effective military, administrative, or diplomatic infrastructure to establish a state.

Partition Before the UN

Britain floated the idea of partition as early as 1937 with the Peel Commission — offering a large share of the land to the Jewish state. Palestinians overwhelmingly rejected it, unwilling to cede much of their homeland to a settler movement backed by foreign powers. The UN’s 1947 Partition Plan entrenched the idea for about 56% of the land to be allocated to a Jewish state, despite Jews being just one-third of the population.

Our Century-Long Involvement

For non-Jewish residents — Muslim, Christian, Druze, and others — uncertainty over political rights began not in 1948 but in 1917. For more than a century, decisions about their sovereignty have been made in foreign capitals, often by powers claiming to act in their interests.

Australia’s vote for partition was not neutral — it was part of an international order that delayed and diminished Palestinian self-determination.

The Present Reality

Today, some of Israel’s most senior leaders openly oppose a Palestinian state. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said:

“There will be no Palestinian state here. We will make sure of that.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in 2015:

“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory is giving territory away to radical Islamist attacks… I will not establish a Palestinian state.”

These are not fringe views. They come from the heart of Israel’s government. If a Palestinian state is blocked, there is no land to hand back and no rights to concede.

Our Responsibility

Australia cannot pretend this is “nothing to do with us.”

We helped create the framework that made one side far stronger than the other. We still benefit from the same international order that enabled Palestinian sovereignty to be deferred for generations.

Our responsibility is clear: to back, in practice, the creation of a Palestinian state — and to support Palestinians in building governance, economic independence, and security, with the ultimate goal of handing them full control.

It is heartening to see the Australian Government signal its intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly. I hope Australians take the time to understand the significance of this decision—and why it matters to us all.

To deny this history is not only to evade our share of responsibility — it is to guarantee that history repeats.

Christine Bayley is a Tasmanian community advocate and spokesperson with People Before Major Parties – Tasmania and Save Rosny Parks. She is dedicated to empowering locals and raising community voices.

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