Hoenig: ‘I won’t follow Foley directive on West Bank and Gaza’
JEWISH Labor MP Ron Hoenig will defy a call by his party leader, Luke Foley, to spend an equal amount of time in the West Bank or Gaza when he travels to Israel later this year.
The Opposition Leader announced earlier this week that any Labor MPs “receiving assisted travel to Israel would be expected to spend an equivalent time in the West Bank and/or Gaza to hear the case of the Palestinians”.
“This arrangement will mean MPs understand the Palestinian as well as the Israeli case,” Foley said.
“The MPs need to see the conditions under which Palestinian people live.”
But Hoenig pointed out that that to follow the directive could mean compromising his own safety.
“I will be visiting Israel in December and I won’t be adhering to any imposed policy that requires time to go to Gaza or the West Bank,” he told The AJN.
“I’m a Jewish MP and I’m not sure I would be able to enter Gaza, let alone get out if they let me in.”
Foley told The Australian that Arabic community leaders had spoken to him about their desire for parliamentarians travelling to Israel to get a first-hand view of the life of Palestinians while they are in the region.
“In the spirit of a two-state solution, I thought that was a perfectly reasonable argument,” he said.
He has also encouraged Premier Mike Baird to implement a similar policy.
Foley told The AJN at an ethnic media press conference earlier this year that “I’ll always be somebody who stands up for Israel’s right to exist within secure borders”.
He declined to comment when asked his view on the motion Labor’s NSW branch passed at its conference last year to “consult like-minded nations towards recognition of the Palestinian state” should there not be progress towards a two-state solution.
He is on the record as supporting a two-state solution and is a member of both the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel and the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Palestine.
Foley himself took part in a Parliamentary Friends of Israel study tour in January 2013.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff commented: “We welcome MPs making themselves fully informed on a range of issues, which is why we include trips to the West Bank on our Israel study missions. Every MP who wishes to visit Israel should be able to do so, and that includes those who may not wish to visit the Palestinian territories. We will be watching to ensure that this directive does not mean that willing MPs are now unable to travel to Israel.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
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