Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Middle East conflict

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:29): I want to rise today to put on record a very serious matter, and that is the International Criminal Court’s recent statements regarding Israeli leaders. This is clearly a politically motivated statement, and it brings no credit to the International Criminal Court. It is a court that should be beyond reproach, but I do not believe that I or many people in the Victorian community and the Australian community believe that this judgement, this position of the court has been arrived at satisfactorily. I do believe that it actually weakens the court’s position.

Clearly Benjamin Netanyahu and others in Israel have every right to defend their position from the attacks that occurred both by Hamas last year, in October, but also more recently by Hezbollah and the Houthis. If states are not able to fairly and reasonably undertake the defence that is needed of their realm, there is a real, real issue. Whilst the court finds that the means used by Israel are unsatisfactory, I reject that, and I think most people do. I think that the court has gone on a frolic, the court has diminished its position and the court has injected itself in a dispute where it has not helped. I say the court should step back and not act in a partisan way.