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Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry pres­i­dent Daniel Aghion KC said:

“The For­eign Minister’s speech is not the way to treat a friend and ally of Aus­tralia, such as Israel.

“All rea­son­able peo­ple want to end the cycle of vio­lence and see Israelis and Pales­tini­ans liv­ing side by side in peace. How­ev­er, our Gov­ern­ment must be clear-eyed about why peace has remained elu­sive all these years and the steps nec­es­sary to final­ly achiev­ing it.

“Israel has uni­lat­er­al­ly with­drawn from ter­ri­to­ry and advanced pro­pos­als for two-state solu­tions since 1937. All Israel’s offers have been reject­ed. Israel is not the obsta­cle to peace.

“The state of war exists because of the Iran­ian-backed jihadists that rule the Pales­tini­ans in Gaza and the inep­ti­tude, cor­rup­tion and gen­er­a­tional glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of vio­lence in the West Bank. The rea­son the cur­rent Israeli gov­ern­ment is less than enthu­si­as­tic about a two-state solu­tion is because they have nev­er believed the Pales­tini­ans are seri­ous about liv­ing in peace and coex­is­tence. Octo­ber 7 proved they were right.”