Howard guests at UIA
John Howard received standing ovations during an address punctuated by spontaneous applause as he headlined the United Israel Appeal’s Victorian gala dinner last Wednesday.
AUSTRALIA’S second longest-serving prime minister received standing ovations as he headlined the United Israel Appeal’s Victorian gala dinner.
Speaking at the Palladium at Crown last Wednesday, John Howard did not pull any punches on hot-button issues close to the heart of his capacity audience of donors.
Australia’s PM from 1996-2007 condemned the international nuclear agreement with Iran as “a shameful deal … understating what some see as potentially an existential threat to the State of Israel”.
And he described last year’s UN resolution against Israeli settlements as “shameful” and America’s abstention as “a parting shot at the State of Israel by the outgoing Obama administration”.
The former PM commented on US President Donald Trump’s social-media driven presidency, declaring, “I don’t know how many of you thought Donald Trump would win – I didn’t”, and observing that when he and his government were voted out in 2007, Twitter was in its infancy.
On Brexit, he stated: “If I’d been British, I’d have voted to leave the European Union without hesitation.”
And the ex-PM said, “we had a very close federal election outcome, which no doubt pleased some people in the audience and displeased others”.
But Howard said that in a rapidly changing world, the one constant was “the extraordinary tenacity and justified persistence” of Israel.
He said the only prerequisite for peace is that “all Israel’s neighbours must unconditionally recognise Israel’s right to exist”.
“Concessions to the Palestinians without reciprocation will never lead to peace,” he said.
Howard also recalled his friendship with Jewish Australians “was born in a very natural way, I met a number of Jewish students at university, I came to really have great affection for them as friends, as fellow Australians”.
“As someone who’d grown up in a very Anglo-Celtic suburb in Sydney, I learned a lot about your community, and I learned to admire them and to understand the enormous contribution that the Jewish community of this nation has made to every level of our life,” he said.
Reflecting on changing times, Keren Hayesod–UIA world chairman Eliezer (Moodi) Sandberg recalled an era when Iran and Turkey had close relations with Israel and Egypt was a foe. And he noted, “50 years ago today, none of us could go to the Kotel and pray.”
The world is “living in an environment that changes almost every day … that creates new threats every morning and every evening”, he reflected. “Don’t take anything for granted.”
PETER KOHN
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