Brough reflects on Israel trip
FEDERAL Liberal National MP Mal Brough described his recent visit to Israel as “illuminating and sobering” in Parliament on May 26.
Brough was one of six federal parliamentarians to take part in the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) Rambam Israel Fellowship Program last month.
During an intensive five-day program, the group met with Knesset Members Tzachi Hanegbi and Hilik Bar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev, as well as many analysts and journalists, in addition to several prominent spokesmen for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
The group also visited the Old City of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, Yad Vashem, the north of Israel and Sderot and Beersheva in the south.
Other highlights included meetings with senior Israeli negotiator Tal Becker – an Australian oleh and the commander of the Erez crossing with Gaza.
“I met with all sides – Arab Christians, Jews and Arab Muslims,” Brough said. “I travelled to Ramallah, to Gaza and up to the border with Lebanon. I got an appreciation of the challenges faced by these people and also the strength of this society and community.”
He noted that Israelis often only have 15 seconds to run into bomb shelters when rockets are fired from Gaza.
“I defy anyone to come up with a comment by an Israeli official that they wish to obliterate the Arab world, that they wish to destroy the Palestinian people … or that those people do not have a place in society,” he said.
“It is not the belief of the Jewish people. But, sadly, there are Persians and Arabs who actually believe that no Israeli, no Jew, has the right to be in the nation of Israel.
“I think it behoves those who have declined the opportunity to travel to Israel and learn about it to now do so and open their minds in relation to some attitudes which they hold dear which they may find confronting when they are confronted with other facts.
“At no stage should we ever desert the Israeli people and the Jewish people’s right to have their homeland.”
Brough was joined on the trip by Liberal Senators Sean Edwards and Dean Smith, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and Labor MP Joanne Ryan.
Members of the group also gave feedback at recent AIJAC lunches in Sydney and Melbourne.
GARETH NARUNSKY
AIJAC’s Jamie Hyams, Andrew Leigh, Dean Smith, Mal Brough, Israel’s Assistant Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi MK, Bridget McKenzie, Joanne Ryan and Sean Edwards.
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