Netanyahu had criticised Rudd on Wednesday for advocating that Australia recognise a Palestinian state, saying it would be a state that “calls for Israel’s destruction” and “whose territory will be used immediately for radical Islam.”
In a scathing response on Facebook, Rudd said Netanyahu had sabotaged peace talks “by changing the goalposts” at “five minutes to midnight.”
Rudd said the “boundaries, internal security, external security, public finance and governance of a Palestinian state have been elaborated in detail in multiple negotiations with the US” by various administrations and Netanyahu knows them “like the back of his hand.”
Support for the state of Israel does not mandate automatic support for all of Netanyahu’s policies, he said. “The state of Israel and Mr Netanyahu are not co-definitional. That is why I beg to differ on this and other aspects of Mr Netanyahu’s policies,” Rudd said.
He also referred to a 2010 diplomatic incident when it was revealed that four Australian passports had apparently been used by suspects in the killing of a top Hamas leader in Dubai.
Rudd’s then government had expelled an Israeli diplomat. “No apology has ever been received for that action,” he said.
To mark Netanyahu’s visit, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrote an op-ed defending Israel against the “one-sided” UN resolutions condemning settlements.
A UN Security Council resolution condemned as illegal Israel’s settlement expansion in occupied territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
