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September 20th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has urged Australia to abstain from voting on an independent Palestinian state. Photo: Reuters
JULIA Gillard has effectively ruled out Australian government support for recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
The Prime Minister told the Labor caucus that voting for a Palestinian state at the United Nations was not the ”path to peace”, lining Australia up alongside the United States, which is desperately fighting to convince other nations not to support the bid.
She told caucus that the government had not seen the text of the resolution, which is likely to be supported by a large majority of members of the UN’s General Assembly when the vote takes place this week or next.
Palestinian and Israelis representatives have strongly lobbied the government over the vote.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd – who is representing Australia this week at UN headquarters in New York – had written to Ms Gillard before taking medical leave for heart surgery last month, urging Australia to abstain from voting.
Sources said that while Australia would almost certainly not support Palestinian statehood, the possibility of abstaining from the vote was still open.
Accepting Palestine as a UN member would amount to international recognition of sovereign statehood, a prospect Israel has opposed on the grounds that it is an empty gesture that will violate existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
The US has flagged it will veto any attempt to force the resolution through in the Security Council, raising the prospect it will move to the General Assembly where Australia has a vote.
But US, European and Israeli officials are now quietly arguing that the Security Council may prove easier for diplomats seeking a formula to get the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations, if the US can avoid using its power of veto.
The application through the Security Council will take longer because it will involve likely requests for more time to study the situation. If the resolution remained with the Security Council Australia would avoid having to vote.
Responding to a question from Labor MP Melissa Parke – one of a cross-party group of Australian parliamentarians backing the Palestinian bid – Ms Gillard said yesterday that until the wording of the resolution was seen Australia did not have a formal position.
”[But] we believe that the only durable basis for a peace in the Middle East is through direct negotiations between the two parties. Only direct negotiations can deal with complex final status issues such as borders, security and Jerusalem. A UN resolution will not change this reality,” she said.
The Coalition has demanded Australia stand with Israel and vote against resolution.
”I fear it will be a highly counterproductive exercise,” deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop said this week of the Palestinian move. Ms Bishop said Israel faced an increasingly hostile Turkey and Egypt and needed countries such as Australia to remain staunch friends.
Israel has looked increasingly isolated as Turkey has turned away from its previously strong relationship with the Jewish state, while Egypt is proving less friendly than it was under the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.
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