Bob Carr Makes Amends

Normally, Foreign Minister Bob Carr is not a man lost for words, but the following is all you get in the item, Jewish community meeting, posted on his blog, Thoughtlines with Bob Carr:

"On Friday, June 1, I met with several leaders of the Australian Jewish community. The group included Dr Danny Lamm, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Mr Peter Wertheim AM, Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Dr Colin Rubenstein AM, Executive Director of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Mr Jeremy Jones, Director of International & Community Affairs of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, and Mr Philip Chester, President of the Zionist Federation of Australia." (bobcarrblog.wordpress.com, 4/6/12)

Let me guess the missing bit of his meeting with the boyZ:

My visitors were most concerned by the government's decision to donate $90m to UNRWA. I was not to be deterred, however! Drawing on my broad knowledge of history, something I take considerable pride in, I informed them that without Palestinian refugees there'd be no need for either UNRWA or donation. I then invoked UNGA resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, stressing that Israel had an obligation under international law dating back to 1948 to repatriate and compensate said refugees. To say they looked gobsmacked is putting it mildly.

And then - the coup de grace. I reminded them that when Israel was granted UN membership, it was conditional on its promise to implement resolution 194. I even quoted the relevant paragraph of resolution 273, number 5 to be precise: "Recalling its resolutions of 29/11/47 and 11/12/48, and taking note of the declaration and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions..."

Finally, I said that I thought an Australian Labor government had a particular responsibility to make amends for its hand in the destruction of Arab Palestine, bearing in mind the disgraceful part played by my predecessor, Doc Evatt, in the creation of the absolutely outrageous UN partition resolution of 1947, and that I therefore intended raising the matter of Israel's continued UN membership in the General Assembly as a matter of high priority at the first available opportunity.

At which the boyZ (as we call them when that pesky Danby's not nipping at our heels) fell in a collective swoon on the floor of my office, a most comic spectacle let me tell you. Then, after unceremoniously reviving them with a bucket of water, I resumed my chair, placed my feet on the desk, and said, as they struggled to their feet, "You do know where the door is don't you, gentlemen?"