MAPW has written to the Foreign Minister is the wake of US President Trump’s illegal and inhumane proposal to forcibly displace Palestinians. The issue is not just that Trump’s plan is criminal – but that our own government has refused to meaningfully respond.
We told Foreign Minister Penny Wong:
…We are compelled to write [to you] following US President Trump’s declaration that amounts to plans for ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza. Our particular reason for writing is to express our shock, and indeed outrage, that Australia would not openly protest to such a statement from our closest ally of intent to commit actions that are illegal, inhumane in the extreme, would grossly destabilise further a whole region, and give succour to a nation already plausibly accused of genocide. We hear no talk from the Australian Government of the “rules-based order” or the primacy of international law, or of the humanity of the Palestinian people, or of how a two-state solution could possibly occur when one of those states is erased.
MAPW members share the deep despair felt by Palestinian Australians and many Jewish Australians. After 16 months of urging stronger action from Australia for the protection of Palestinians, especially Palestinian children, we did not imagine that Australia would stand by, virtually silent, while plans unfold to simply push the whole population elsewhere and take their land.