Malcolm Turnbull Greets Netanyahu
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Malcolm Turnbull:
‘I came here to the shul with a message, a message of absolute solidarity for the state of Israel.
I came here with a message of solidarity on behalf of the Australian Government in the wake of that UN resolution [SC 2334] which was so regrettable. A resolution we would never support.
My Government will not support any more than the government of John Howard would, or the government of Tony Abbott would a resolution so one sided, attributing fault only to the state of Israel. That has no contribution to make to the peace process.
It was an unfortunate resolution. We regret it and we disassociated ourselves from it in our public statements and here, right here in this shul.
You know we’ve spoken of security a lot today, both at the lunch and of course Bibi and I have spoken about that in our meetings and it is plainly simple. The first duty, as I said out our press conference, the first duty of every government, of every prime minister, every president, is the safety of the people of the nation they lead.
And so the fundamental requirement of what we hope will be a negotiated outcome between Israel and the Palestinians, a two-state solution negotiated between the parties, but the fundamental condition, the foundation of that must be the safety, the security of the state of Israel and its people.
We do deplore the efforts that de-legitimise the state of Israel. We deplore the boycott campaigns. We stand with Israel. We are a committed and a consistent friend. We have been so, from the beginning [see here] and we will always be so.
Now, I want to say, however, as I observed in the article that was published in … The Australian today – it is easy to see Israel and its situation entirely through the prism of security.
That is inevitable, I suppose, given the existential threat that Israel faces.
And given the miraculous success of Israel brought by the determination, the enterprise, the indefatigable courage of its people, not simply to establish the state of Israel – that a miracle in itself – but to maintain it, to continue it, to enhance it for it to succeed again and again against extraordinary odds. That has been an extraordinary achievement. Wondrous, miraculous and now we see the state of Israel leading the world in the most important technologies of the twenty-first century.
As I said today at the luncheon which I know many of you have been at, which we were at earlier today in the city, I said that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery and indeed it must be that Israel should be sincerely flattered because so many countries, including our own seek to capture some of that extraordinary innovative chutzpah which enables Israelis, in a nation, until the recent discovery of gas I might add, but until then, absolutely devoid of natural resources other than the brilliance and the enterprise of its people enabled Israel to develop that culture of innovation to lead in technology, to recognise, as Bibi said today, that once a nation has achieved that middle-income status, to get from there to great success and greater heights, you need to be competitive, you need to be productive and the key to that is innovation.
That is why it is an essential part of my Government’s economic plan because I know, we all know, that is the key to our success. And it is not a theoretical thing anymore than free trade is a theoretical thing which we also strive for. All of those open markets, innovation, productivity, competitiveness – all of that enables us to deliver the greater and greater opportunities for our children and grandchildren in the years ahead.
We have so much to work on together. So much more collaboration to undertake. We stand together in the battle against terrorism. We are on the front line, each of us in our own theatres and each of us indeed in the Middle East.
We stand in the front line against terrorism, we are united by shared values, democracy, freedom, the rule of law. They tie us together and of course all of you, the extraordinary people to people links. The Jewish Australian community without who we could not imagine modern Australia. As I said
today, I salute you and I thank you. You have been remarkable. You have helped us make Australia the extraordinary nation that it is. We could never have done that without the brilliance and the enterprise of the Australian Jewish community.
So, here, in the mishpocha of Wentworth [Turnbull’s constituency], so many visitors, including we have Julian Leeser, my federal parliamentary colleague who is one of our distinguished Jewish parliamentarians.
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| Photo credit: Henry Benjamin/J-Wire |
And then coming up from mishpocha of Melbourne, we have Josh Frydenberg. We have Mark Dreyfus and of course we have Michael Danby as well. I see Richard Marles has joined us as well, also from Melbourne, so that is good. And we have our remarkable talented premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
We are all here to hear from you. Bibi, prime minister, it has been a very productive day and we have more discussions to go over the next few days. But we have a lot of work to do together.
[Zionist Federation of Australia president] Mark Leibler asked the question at the lunch about how important were people to people links in collaboration, in technology, in innovation. And the truth is that they are absolutely critical. There is no substitute for them and that is why this visit is so important. It has taken seventy years. Mark has been uncharacteristically passionate. But he may not be, he certainly won’t wait another seventy years. So we’ll have to increase the tempo of business. But we will be there in Beersheba in October, we will be there.
And Bibi has promised everybody a horse, so –’
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