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I think that statistic is very misleading.
The YouGov headline there - "More Australians are in favour than in opposition of recognising Palestine as an independent state" - is practically designed to mislead. What the poll results say is that 35% say Australia should recognise an independent Palestine, 21% say it shouldn't, and 44% don't know. "I don't know" is far and away the plurality winner. Moreover, I'd suggest that no specific proposal is given, and "recognise Palestine as an independent state" covers quite a lot of ground, so it's unlikely that all of that 35% want the same thing. Recognising Palestine as an independent state could mean a number of different types of two-state solution, it could mean totally destroying Israel, or something else. If a real proposal for an independent Palestinian state were on the table and being considered, approval for it would be likely to fall (cf. the Voice; it polled tremendously well when it was a vague proposal, but as specifics began to be mooted, support fell further and further).
Moreover, this is the current Labor platform on Palestine (p. 132):
The explicitly stated Labor position is to recognise Palestine as a state.
Why, then, did Labor vote against the Greens proposal to recognise Palestine as a state?
Well, it's what I said just above about details - the question is the way in which that recognition can or should happen. In the SBS piece I linked about the Greens bill in May, the Assistant Foreign Minister says:
It seems coherent that one could support recognising Palestinian statehood in the abstract while opposing a particular bill to do it at a particular time, if one judges that the time is not right.
On Israel in general, my sense is that a lot of this is unfortunately imported culture war from abroad. Historically, Australia really has very little connection to Israel or Palestine and no reason to care. Anti-semitism, fortunately, has never been a potent force in Australian history or culture (no doubt helped also by prominent Jewish-Australian heroes like John Monash), so it's largely just not been an issue. In the last year I've actually been particularly concerned by what seems like the importing of American-style activism over Israel/Palestine, with disturbing effects.
So most voters don't care and don't have an interest in the issue. Those who do lean pro Palestine and there are few of their voters that are actually pro Israel. No reason to cause conflict over such an issue.
Israel is a great threat to Palestine and the lack of a Palestinian state is a direct threat to the Palestinians. There is no reason except the donors to value Israel higher than Palestine.
Israel is diversifying its support from the US and investing a lot more in lobbying in Europe and other places. They don't want to be dependent on one state. Unfortunately that is having an impact in other parts of the world when more politicians are going on paid trips to Israel and more Israeli lobbying money enters politics.
Well I can think of a few, the israelis are culturally much closer to the west than the palestinians, which breeds sympathy. Frankly I don't think Palestine would enjoy any western support were it not for general ignorance of most westerners to palestinian culture and a certain knee jerk reaction among some westerners to support any underdog or group that opposes the west.
To western sensibilities the palestinians are barbarous and generally unpleasant. I personally find their combination of weakness and belligerence to be particularly repellant, demanding humane treatment that they themselves would never even consider granting their enemies were the situations reversed.
Israel's lack of cultural proximity is also the prime reason people don't like Israel. Zionists and philosemites make claims of Israel being very culturally 'western' whilst at the same time Israel is getting itself into all sorts of trouble relating to the conflict precisely because they are not acting 'western'.
The response to a muslim terror attack, as demonstrated by the many European nations that have suffered them, is not to bomb civilians into oblivion. In fact, the preferred response is to venerate the outgroup that hurt you and seek reconciliation even harder. Israel does not do this. Israel should be taking in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. Possibly millions. Israel does not do this. Instead they bomb women and children. You could not be any less western.
By the same token, many people do not know how some jews view the outside world and have no concept of how ethnocentric semites are.
I think many zionists and philosemites need to understand that the 'rooting for the underdog' mentality that drives some support for Palestine is the same one that drives tolerance for semites around the world. You can not have it both ways. Either the culturally foreign, which includes both muslims and jews, is not tolerated or they both are. Trying to have it both ways because you love yourself so much more than anyone else is not going to cut it for fair minded westerners. In fact, trying to employ classic dehumanizing rhetoric like you do in your post is not going to work precisely because of jewish anti-prejudice propaganda driven into every westerners head.
Ah, but the US is not a European country. And the US response to a muslim terror attack was to take over by force not just one but two Muslim countries -- one of them not even involved -- including lots of bombing which necessarily killed civilians. So the Israelis may be closer to the US than the Europeans, culturally.
The US response to a muslim terror attack was to follow a plan laid out by philosemitic neoconservative zionists in the American government. I see that more as a self reinforcing circle of zionist influence than anything else.
But aside from that, yeah, most Americans supported the war effort at the time. Many European nations joined in, a lot of muslims got annihilated in the name of women in the workplace, NATO, burgers and freedom. But how does the 'west' look at that effort today? Positive or negative? I'd say overwhelmingly negative.
To that end Israel might be western by an older standard that was defined a fair bit by zionism in American politics, but I would not say that this standard would cut it today.
Whether the US responded that way because The Jews made us or not, the US did indeed respond that way. Perhaps Philosemitic neoconservative zionists (whether in Israel or the US) are the real Westerners and Europe is just a shadow of itself, poisoned by postmodern European liberalism.
Maybe the Europeans. I'm pretty sure US voters are still pretty happy about taking out Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's buddies, even if both wars dragged on far too long.
I'd appreciate if you didn't restate what I wrote in a way that's infantile and inaccurate.
I refer to the west as the sum total of actions and expression made by the relevant groups that compose it, not what I can define it as being in wordplay land. When Europe got hit with terror attacks it didn't go out bombing, it didn't condemn muslims. In fact, no amount of rape and murder even put a dent in their immigration rhetoric. That's what the west is today. It may have been different in a different time, but I was pretty clear in referring to the west of today. It may change tomorrow, but that doesn't change what it is today and recently has been.
And they're pretty unhappy about the loss of life of their own. From what I can gather its 50/50 on whether or not using force in Iraq was the right choice. With how negatively the war is seen in Europe I'll stand by my words and say that the war in Iraq and war on terror in general is seen as an overwhelming negative as far as the 'west' goes.
And I'd appreciate if you didn't post such infantile and inaccurate things as suggesting that Zionism was somehow responsible for the American response to 9/11, but I think we're both going to be disapppointed.
That's what Europe is today, a shadow of their old selves. The US is part of the West as well, and is not so accommodating.
Remember Iraq didn't even do 9/11. So if this is true, 50% of Americans think using force to topple an innocent (at least of that particular crime) Islamic country was fine.
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