Israel and Australia: A conversation with Minister Turnbull

The Australian Jewish News described my conversation with Australian Communication Minister Malcolm Turnbull as “a vibrant, robust conversation”.  It was a conversation in front of a friendly crowd at the Zionist Federation of Australia’s 2015 plenary. Friendly to me – they invited me to be their guest at the conference. Friendly to Turnbull – a familiar face in Australia (thought by many to have a shot at being a future Prime Minister) and a politician known for his close relations with Australia’s Jewish community. Luckily, the J-Wire was also smart enough to make a recording of the hour-long conversation and kind enough to send me the recording (thank you Henry Benjamin).

Since this was a Zionist Federation event, our conversation focused on Australia-Israel relations, on events in the Middle East, the Iran deal, terrorism and such topics. It started with Turnbull – who was charming but also evasive when questions he did not like were forced on him – complaining about me coming in a suit and tie (on a Sunday) while he thought he could come in casual dress (he will use this tie wearing against me later in the conversation). The following transcript is almost a full transcript, but we edited out some repetitions, lengthy answers and paragraphs that are less comprehensible to the reader. For some of the nuances, and many of the laughs, you just needed to be there.

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Rosner: Let’s begin with a softball question – is there any reason for anyone in this room to be concerned about the prospect of keeping Israel a bipartisan issue in Australia?

Turnbull: Yes, I think there is reason to be concerned. I think it’s very important that support for Israel is bipartisan, and I’ve always resisted the temptation to rev up a partisan approach. If I were purely thinking about my political interest, I would take a different approach; but I’m thinking very much in Israel’s interest and the national interest – our national interest.

Look, I think there is (and we saw this in the Labor conference) a weakening commitment to Israel. Having said that – you know very well, Shmuel – the views that were expressed at the Labor party conference are not inconsistent with the views many Israelis have expressed too, about the two state solution, about settlements and so forth.  

Rosner: But the context is different.

Turnbull: Yeah, the context is different.

Look, our approach is – and Julie Bishop spoke very well about this at the North Shore Habad conference – we see ourselves as having shared values with Israel. We see Israel as being in the first trench, on the first line in the battle against extremist tyranny, terrorism and so forth. So we’re definitely on the same side. We are determined to provide all the support we can to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish state within secure borders. As to providing micro-managed armchair opinions regarding what the government of Israel should do on this matter or that matter… we tend to defer to the Israeli government when it comes to making those decisions. After all, they are a lot closer to it than we are.

Rosner: But I wonder about the undercurrents – and Israel has a similar problem in other countries – while we once saw strong bipartisan support for the country, some of this bipartisan support is now going through a certain level of erosion, and I wonder about the undercurrents driving this erosion. Why would anyone in Australia decide to, maybe, question previous policies towards Israel?

Turnbull: Well, maybe you might be a better judge of that than I am – my party has not changed its approach. You really need to talk to people in the Labor party. Bob Carr, a very prominent Labor politician, has clearly changed his view, and it would be best to ask him about it. I think that it’s important to hold Labor to account on this, to ask them ‘what is the message you’re really trying to send?’

This is my perspective – just as you see with the BDS campaign, there is a clear campaign to delegitimize Israel. It’s insidious, and it is very important to call it out for what it is and stand up to that. You cannot seriously or credibly ask Israel to do things that put its existence in peril. Salus populi suprema lex – The first duty of the state is the safety of the people. And so Israel’s government and its people have got to be secure. And so, when people make all sorts of suggestions and proposals, they sometimes may be well intentioned. But we can’t be imposing, or proposing, measures to Israel that are going to put its security at risk. You can’t do that to any country. It’s also pointless – Israel is not going to take any note of that, nor should it.  

Rosner: So, still speaking about the security of Israel – the one issue that is almost overwhelming in its presence when it comes to Israel, and in the global arena today, is that of the agreement with Iran. I did not find very strong references made by the Australian government to the agreement, and I’m not sure what your position on this agreement might be.

Turnbull: Well, our position – and bear in mind that I’m the Communications Minister, not the Foreign Minister –

Rosner: And you disagree with the Foreign Minister?

Turnbull: No, I don’t. Actually, we are very good friends both politically and very old friends personally. We have very much the same mind on just about all matters…

Look, our position is that we have welcomed it cautiously. The best that you could say for the agreement, and this is really what Obama has said, is that it is better than the status quo, because it does introduce some degree of oversight. I understand all the criticisms of it, and I obviously recognize and empathize with the anxiety in Israel. But the judgment has been made by the P5+1 – they decided that continuing the sanctions indefinitely is not going to be successful. Military intervention is not going to happen, and there’s a real question mark about whether that would make things better. 

In fact,  what I’d really like to ask you, because you know much more about certain aspects of this than I do – ISIL doesn’t seem to be as big an issue on the agenda in Israel as it is in Australia, and some of my Israel friends have said ‘you know, you guys should be more worried about Iran than about ISIL’. Could you perhaps talk us all though the perspective on ISIL, on Da’ash, from Israel, on how you weigh that up with Iran? Because obviously, one of the reasons for the, I wouldn’t call it a rapprochement, but one of the reasons for the thawing, to some extent, of the relations between the US and Iran is that Iran is a principle actor in the fight against ISIL. And I know one thing we must remember about the Middle East is that the fact someone is your enemy’s enemy doesn’t mean he’s your friend, but, nevertheless, that’s a reality.

Rosner: Well, I don’t think anyone would blame Israel of being a huge fan of ISIL because it opposes Iran.

Turnbull: I hope it isn’t. Because then we would have some serious differences…

Rosner: No, of course not. On this matter Israel, like every other country, has to look at its priorities, to set its priorities straight. Iran is a serious threat to Israel, and other factions in the Middle East do not, at least currently, pose as serious a threat as Iran. So for Israel, putting Iran as the top priority is based on a strategic assessment of the current situation.

Turnbull: Yes, I totally understand, but could you just describe to us how the Islamic State is seen from Israel, whether and to what extent it’s a threat, and what its prospects are… Some Israeli friends have said to me ‘it will burn out in five years’, ‘it hasn’t got legs’; and on the other hands there are much more apocalyptic interpretations. What do you think?

Rosner: Well, although I think Israelis are generally very wise, I would warn you against always listening to Israeli predictions. Israeli’s Defense minister predicted four years ago that the Assad regime will collapse within three or four months, and it hasn’t happened yet… So whether ISIL will burn out or not I cannot really say, but it is true that within the Israeli establishment the view is that this organization cannot be very threatening, or at least does not have a very threatening position when it comes to Israel – it is not strong enough to be a threat to Israel, it’s not strong enough to win victories over the IDF… So Israel feels that it can secure itself against this movement (it’s not even an organization, it’s more of a movement). Obviously, what Israel is worried about, greatly worried about – and I think there should be more worries about this around the world – is the chaos that we are now seeing all through the Middle East. The fact that the Middle East now – looking at Libya and Iraq and Yemen, and Syria of course (and other places as well) – the fact that regimes that can be accountable for something, even if you don’t agree with them on everything, are now being replaced by anarchy and chaos is an issue of concern for Israel. Of course, you do not want to find yourself in the middle of a region in which no one is accountable for anything.

Turnbull: … So are you saying that secular dictators aren’t looking so bad now? Is that what you’re saying?

Rosner: It is a pretty cynical view, and I would not express my support for secular autocrats, in the Middle East of elsewhere. But obviously, if you look at things from the viewpoint of the Israeli government – and I’m not speaking for the Israeli government (I’m a journalist) – even if you take a small territory like Gaza, what are the options for Israel when it comes to a place like that? Obviously, the best choice would be for Gaza to be controlled by a moderate, democratic Palestinian Authority. That didn’t happen. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and was not replaced by a democratically elected moderate Palestinian Authority, it was basically replaced with a radical government led by Hamas. So now Israel needs to answer another question – is Hamas rule over Gaza better, or do we prefer chaos in Gaza? And at least on this matter I would argue, and I think most Israeli government officials would probably agree, that it is better having some form of government in Gaza rather than having chaos in Gaza.

The same goes for Syria: There has been a civil war raging in Syria for several years. Now was Israel a great supporter of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria? Of course not. But the Assad regime was probably preferable to the current situation.

Turnbull: Yes, well, that’s really the point. I mean, it seems to me that there’s a feeling of naivety in the West – though certainly not from our party (we conservatives, or people on the center-right, tend to be a little less naïve about human nature). The whole genius of democracy, as we understand it, is not that the majority get to run the show by choosing the government; the genius of democracy is that at the same time as it empowers the majority it constrains the majority, and that’s the rule of law. If you don’t have that, a democracy is basically a tyranny. It can be a horrific tyranny. And that inability to understand the rule of law seems to be at the heart of the failure of the Arab Spring.

I have to say that a lot of people in the west seem to imagine that you take care of a dictator and suddenly a perfect liberal democracy just springs out of the ground like magic. I mean, there’s hundreds of years of culture and tradition behind of the understanding of democracy as it operates in Israel or in Australia.

Rosner: I’d like to get back to the subject of Iran, because I still don’t feel I’m satisfied with the answer I got on Iran… You said you reacted somewhat positively, or that you were ‘cautiously positive’ about the agreement with Iran, and I have to ask you a couple of questions. The first is: do you truly think that the current agreement with Iran is likely to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state?

Turnbull: I think it is less likely that would happen given the agreement than it would be in the absence of an agreement.

Rosner: Have you ever studied the Talmud? Because that was a Talmudic kind of answer.

Turnbull: Well, I’m very flattered to hear that. But listen, you’re playing in a situation with a whole lot of bad options. Ultimately, what we in the West want, and ‘we’ includes Israel, is for Iran to have a change of political culture. It's not like there’s 80 million Iranians getting up every morning with no thought on their mind other than the elimination of Israel. Most of them want to get on with their lives, and engage with the world, make a buck, go home to their kids, Israel or not…

Rosner: Can you say that you prefer a regime change in Iran, eventually?

Turnbull: Of course! Very plainly…

Rosner: But most experts would tell you that the agreement with Iran actually strengthens the current regime…

Turnbull: Well, this is where I do disagree with you. So now we’ll have a real punch-out… Let me give you an example. You could say that the Iraq war was a classic failure of foreign policy. I think it clearly was. As I said many years ago during an election campaign, history judges wars by their outcome, and in Iraq the outcome has clearly been unsatisfactory for all parties concerned.

I think perhaps the most enduring counter-productive foreign policy in the world has been the American boycott of Cuba. It absolutely entrenched the Castros in power – because it created a siege mentality, and the regime could say ‘we’re David against Goliath’ and ‘it's us against the super power’. It really entrenched the Castros in power. The Americans maintained it while they had relations with countries that were just as bad, and in many cases much worse, than Cuba, but it was done, as we all know, for domestic-political reasons, like the influence of the Cuban ex-patriot community, particularly in places like Florida and New Jersey, and it completely entrenched that regime. So it was completely counter-productive.

So you’ve got to ask yourself whether, when you back a country up against the wall, when you impose sanctions and so forth, you’ve got to ask yourself what is the consequence of your actions. Now the bet, or the judgment, is if the lessening of sanctions in return for compliance with the nuclear protocols, allowing inspections and so forth, if that will result in greater openness and enable a more moderate regime in Iran to emerge. I know it’s a long way from Teheran to Havana, but just think about it: does anyone seriously think that had the American embargo been lifted, say, 20 or 30 years ago, does anyone think Raul Castro would’ve still been the President today? I don’t think there’s any prospect of that. I really don’t. I think the country would have opened up, there would have been so much more money come in and so forth…

Rosner: But in such case, why did you support any sanctions to begin with? You could’ve said ten years ago that sanctioning Iran is not a rational position, you could’ve just said ‘let’s just open up to Iran and engage with them.’

Turnbull: Well, that’s not the point. There comes a point in which you’ve got to reach some kind of compromise. The other thing that you’ve got to bear in mind, is that we treat the Americans as being the sole decision maker on this. You know, this is the P5+1, and it is absolutely clear that the other members of the P5 were not prepared to continue with that sanctions regime. Once they broke that unanimity, that thing fell down. One of the problems with Cuba is that the Americans are the only ones that do have an embargo (the Europeans trade freely with them and so forth). You know, I’m all against that regime (I don’t want to get into Caribbean politics), but you have to, at some point, judge policies and measures by their outcomes. You’ve got to ask yourself ‘is this policy working? Is this getting the result that we want? What do we want to achieve?’ And if the object of the policy is not being achieved, then you’ve got to review it.

Rosner: But let’s take the objective of the current policy: the first objective was to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state, but there are other things that other players in the world would like Iran to do. For example, Iran is supportive of many terrorist organizations in the Middle East…

Turnbull: So is Saudi Arabia… Do you think the Americans should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia? Saudis have supported extremist groups, as you know, throughout the region, as have some of their Sunni friends in the Gulf. You know, Tony Abbot got mobbed in the last election campaign for talking about these groups and saying that there’s no good guys and there’s only baddies and baddies. He got mobbed for talking about these groups and saying there are no good guys, but you know, it’s a fair point. 

Rosner: So you’re as concerned by the Saudis as you are by the Iranians.

Turnbull: No, I didn’t say that. You should know that I’ve been in this line of work for too long for you to put words in my mouth… That is not what I said. But the fact is that there has been sponsoring of extremist groups by all of the major players in the Arab world (the Iranians aren’t Arabs, of course) and that is a big part of the problem. In a sense, everyone in the region, I’m not suggesting Israel has, but everyone else has made a big contribution to the current mess.

Regarding our concerns in Australia – what are our priorities in the Middle East? Obviously, a restoration of stability, and that is very tied up with our concern for the safety of Israel, which is absolutely a key priority. But we’re also very concerned about the domestic implications of this type of violent Islamic extremism manifesting itself in different ways in our own country. There has been some evidence of this, and our security services have been working overtime on it.   

Rosner: And you also have an issue with people from the Middle East coming into Australia illegally…

Turnbull: We have some asylum seekers, but that’s pretty much stopped. We have stopped the boats with our policies, which are regarded as cruel by many people. But I have to say again, our policy on border protection is harsh, but it has been absolutely demonstrated that it is better than any other alternative.

… Regarding the question of Muslim extremism, it is not just about radicalizing the young Muslims; you’ve got some people who are not Muslims at all that have become attracted to this, and they pick it up, converting to Islam for the purpose of being part of these groups, as you see with the foreign fighters in Syria.

Rosner: So what kind of policies would you pursue to make these things better?

Turnbull: Well, I think the most important thing we need to do, and the question is how to do it, is to absolutely smash Da’ash (ISIL) on the battlefield. One of their big recruiting methods, one of their biggest pitches, is saying that they are on the move, that they are conquering, that they are triumphant. They say that the armies of the Caliphate will soon be sweeping across into Europe, hammering on the gates of Vienna, etc. So their defeat in the field is of enormous importance, not just in the field, but globally. Apart from that, we all, everyone in the west, need to do a better job of countering the whole pitch of violent extremism. Social media makes it very easy to propagate, and we need to be responding on that platform… I think that leaders of the Islamic community also need to step up on this, because it is a crisis within Islam.

Rosner: Well, in the West one of the things you often hear is that Israel contributes to the radicalization of the Middle East by its failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You hear this in Britain quite often and in other places as well. Do you agree with such sentiments?

Turnbull: No, I don’t. I don’t think that the Sunni and Shia are killing each other in Syria because of the settlement policy of the Israeli government. This is a civil war in which the vast majority of the victims are muslims, so you can’t take the credit for that…

Rosner: So why do we still hear such notions in so many capitals in the world?

Turnbull: Well, I don’t know. I guess the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the source of a lot of attention, controversy, news, occasionally breaking up into war, conflict. But, with great respect, it is dwarfed by what is going on elsewhere in the Middle East. I mean, they’re not killing each other in Libya because of the Jews. The massacre of the Christians and the Yazidis and ISIL’s attempt at genocide with the Curds is not about the Jews.

Rosner: So as far as you’re concerned, Israel can just ignore all these criticisms concerning settlement policies and its approach vis a vie the Palestinian peace process?

Turnbull: No, no.

Rosner: I’m trying to put words in your mouth…

Turnbull: You should really pick a more gullible mark for that kind of cross-examination…

In any case, I really think Israel should be very alert, I don’t know if I’d say more alert, but it certainly needs to be extremely alert to the effect of its policies on sections of Israel also. I mean, you don’t want to be like the sales director who is hauled in by the chief executive, who tells him ‘what’s going on? Our numbers are down, revenues are evaporating,’ and then replies ‘oh, it’s all the customers – they’re all idiots and don’t understand what fantastic products we’ve got!’ Ultimately, you’ve got to judge policies by their outcome, and Israel has to be aware of the outcome its policies are having in Europe. You can’t just write-off Western Europe, the UK, big parts of public opinion in the US and say ‘oh they disagree with us, therefore they’re wrong’ , you’ve got to ask yourself ‘how do I achieve my objective, how do I achieve my security and win them over to my side?’ You’ve got to do both. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s like an advocate, a barrister, who says, every time he loses a case, ‘oh, that judge is an idiot, and that judge is an idiot’… Ultimately he’ll be driving a cab. Of course, there are a lot of cab drivers who go around saying that everyone is an idiot…

Rosner: So the main problems you see with Israel’s policies are problems of PR in Europe, so to speak?

Turnbull: No, I didn’t say that!

Rosner: I’ll ask more straightforwardly: Should Israel change its policies?

Turnbull: You know, I came without a tie, and you came without nuance!

Rosner: I guess I deserved that… Ok, so should, or how should, Israel change its policies concerning the Palestinians and the Arab world in general?

Turnbull: Well, look, the answer is I don’t know, and I’m not even remotely close enough to express a considered view. I’m not saying (again, nuance is required) ‘Israel is right’ or ‘Israel is wrong’. I’m not saying that at all. But I am saying that our attitude is one: we support Israel and we are very committed to Israel remaining exactly what it was founded as – a Jewish state, operating within secure borders. We wish Israel well, and there are many things about Israel that we would like to learn from. We’d like to be as innovative as Israel. There’s a ton of things we want to learn from and collaborate more with Israel on. But as to saying a settlement should be here or there…  People could laugh at me for saying something like that. It’s like some Israeli politician expressing a view telling me how I should amend telecommunications legislation…

Rosner: Although the Israeli politician would have less hesitation telling you that…

Turnbull: Well, it’s often said about politicians that they are often wrong but never in doubt… But I think it’s not a question of being humble, it’s a question of being sensible. I think the best judge of how to protect Israel’s security is Israel. But again, it doesn’t mean ‘Israel right or wrong’, and perceptions are incredibly important. You’ve got to take that into account. That is one of the things you have to worry about.

Rosner: As I was collecting different questions before this event, asking what I should ask you about Israeli-Australian relations, most of the responses I got were ‘well, relations are great, there’s nothing to add’… But I insist: what can be done to make Israeli-Australian relations even better than they already are?

Turnbull: Well, that’s a good question. First of all, your informants were right – they are very good. I don’t think there is any country in the world that has better relations with Israel. Israel is very highly regarded. It has its critics, but Israeli policy has its critics within Israel. So what I think we should be doing – and I’m a promoter of this – is collaborating more with Israel particularly on matters of science and technology. We do that, but we should do even more of that… The more we could do with Israel, the better. You guys here [in the audience] are all fans; I’m a fan.

The one big thing we need to do as a country, though – there’s no question the neighborhood sucks. There’s no question, as you say, that Moses was a great leader but poor on navigation…

Rosner: Well, he didn’t enter the land; maybe he knew why…

Turnbull: Yes, maybe he did… But anyway, there is no question that our future, that the only way we remain a high-wage, generous social welfare-net first-world economy is if we are more innovative, more technologically sophisticated, better at science and we keep being more and more competitive. So Israel’s experience is absolutely critical for us to learn from. So when you ask what more can we do, that’s a big part of the answer.