By Deborah Snow
Visiting Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki has urged the Abbott government to restore "balance" to its voting positions on Israel and Palestine at the United Nations and asked Julie Bishop to include the Palestinian Authority on her next official trip to the Middle East.
Meeting Ms Bishop in Sydney on Thursday morning, Dr Malki said he'd noted her travels to "other countries" in the Middle East and that "Palestine is missing from that list . . . I think it's very important for her to make such a visit because most of the foreign ministers, the first thing they do after they take office is to come to visit Israel and Palestine."
Alarmed by a perceived tilt towards Israel by Australia: Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki in Sydney on his first visit to Australia.Credit: Peter Rae
Dr Malki's visit is the first here by a Palestinian Authority foreign minister.
The Palestinian Authority is alarmed by the Abbott government's perceived tilt towards Israel on several key votes at the UN, including no longer supporting a cessation order on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
In December, Australia opposed a UN Security Council proposal that Israel end the occupation of Palestinian territories within two years.
And Canberra has withdrawn support for the contention that Israel as an " occupying power" should be forced to comply with the 1949 Geneva Conventions in relation to the occupied territories.
By contrast, federal Labor is making backroom moves that could bring the party's federal conference in July closer to unilaterally recognising a Palestinian state – moves Dr Malki says his government is watching closely.
"I am happy about this," he told Fairfax Media in Sydney. "I believe that they [the ALP] are reaching an important decision. I think it reflects political maturity among the rank and file of the party and reflects what Australian public opinion wants . . . Australian cannot exclude itself from the same phenomena that is sweeping the rest of the world, especially in Europe."
The moves inside federal Labor mirror recent steps taken at the NSW, Queensland and South Australian state Labor conferences. They come as state Labor leader Luke Foley warned MPs this week that they should spend as much time in the West Bank "and/or Gaza" as in Israel, if they accepted "assisted travel" to Israel.
But president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, said on Thursday he had rung federal Labor leader Bill Shorten's office and been told that any moves to change the ALP's national position did not carry Mr Shorten's imprimatur.
He also denied that Canberra had become unbalanced in favour of Israel, saying that Tony Abbott was restoring positions taken by the Howard government.
Dr Malki said he'd discussed with Ms Bishop the recent statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there would never be a Palestinian state while Mr Netanyahu was leader.
Nevertheless, Dr Malki said, his government would "extend our hand to whoever will be [the government] in Israel to jump-start negotiations".
He said a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would assist the fight against the so-called Islamic State because "by doing so we will take away [that excuse] from most of these [extremist] groups".
He also met Labor's shadow minister for foreign affairs, Tanya Plibersek, on Thursday before flying to New Zealand.
New Zealand has said it wants to use its role on the UN Security Council to "inject new momentum into negotiations on the Middle East peace process".