Australia Must Move Beyond Symbolism in Its Support for a Sovereign Palestine

 

Australia Must Move Beyond Symbolism in Its Support for a Sovereign Palestine

Lionel Bopage

There was a time when Australia’s foreign policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict was underpinned by broad bipartisan agreement. It was the notion of a two-state solution, in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist in peace and security within internationally recognised borders. This consensus reflected both moral obligation and international norms. It was always imperfect, but it was something.

Today, however, that two-state vision is under severe threat—not least from the very man whose leadership is decisive in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear—most prominently in a December 2023 press conference—that he is “proud” he prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state. He has also publicly rejected several international proposals for Palestinian statehood, insisting that Israel must retain security control over territory west of the Jordan River. These are not arguments born of the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023; similar positions and policies predate that event by many years. The path of blockade, settlement expansion, administrative obstacles, legal restrictions, and diplomatic resistance long preceded and in many ways laid the groundwork for the current collapse of what had been modest hopes for a viable Palestinian state.

Historically, the architecture of a two-state solution was baked into early 20th-century and mid-century international decisions: the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the Mandate for Palestine; United Nations Resolutions, especially following 1947’s Partition Plan; the establishment (or attempted establishment) of Palestinian self-rule and sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza under various treaties (such as Oslo). These landmarks articulated the claim by Palestinians to statehood alongside the Jewish right to a homeland. But over time, every Israeli government—Netanyahu’s included—has been complicit to varying degrees in undermining those efforts. Whether through settlement policy, legal obstacles, securitisation, or diplomatic rebuffs, the cumulative effect has too often been to deny Palestinians sovereignty even in principle.

In this light, the recent decision of the Australian government to recognise the State of Palestine in September 2025 is overdue but significant. It represents a shift from rhetoric to deed: from merely supporting a two-state solution to affirming Palestinian sovereignty as a political reality. It is also a decision made by a democratically elected government, one with the backing (or at least broad tolerance) of Australia’s population. Polls show growing support for recognition and rising frustration with the status quo.

Of course, this recognition is not a magic wand. For many, including those who have suffered decades of dispossession and conflict, it may seem symbolic. But symbols matter—especially when official recognition helps shift the terrain of what is possible in diplomacy and law.

It is important, too, to call out those in our own polity who seem intent on reversing or undermining this recognition. The Liberal-National Party and certain individuals, such as Sussan Ley, have explicitly criticised this recognition and have promised to revoke it if they come to power. These are not abstract disagreements about diplomatic niceties; they are choices about whether Australia stands with human rights, international law, and the legitimate aspiration of a people for a homeland—or whether it aligns itself with powerful states that reject those principles.

Even more urgently, if Australia’s recognition is to mean more than applause, it must be followed by concrete actions. The government should prepare to meet resistance—both diplomatic and political—from Israel, its allies (not least the US), and domestic actors. If the recognition is to safeguard the possibility of a sovereign, free Palestine, then Australia should consider more proactive tools: trade sanctions, restrictions on diplomatic travel, excluding from entry those individuals who are directly complicit in violating international law; perhaps even legal cases in international fora. These aren’t easy tools and come with costs, but if recognition is genuine, they must be on the table.

In summary: Australia has made a commendable step—but it should not delude itself about how much more needs to be done. Allowing Palestine the dignity of a state is not concession; it's justice. The two-state solution is not dead so long as it is still fought for—by diplomacy, by policy, and by principle. Australia can help make that fight less marginal, less symbolic, and more real.

28 September 2025

2024 June 22 - Our Wishes for a Happy 75th Birthday to comrade Hendry Wickramasinghe

 

OUR WISHES FOR A HAPPY 75 TH BIRTHDAY

Dear Comrade Wickramasinghe,

Our association started towards the end of the 1970s and in that long passage of time we became comrades and friends. It is with immense pleasure that we are sending our best wishes on the occasion of your 75th birthday, three-quarters of a century of a life filled with incredible memories and experiences.

We went through a lot when we were young and survived many perilous moments. Our unforgettable political journey, started during days of communal living, spent at the JVP Head Office; located in a single small room at the Weerasinghe Sawmills in K Cyril Perera Mawatha, Colombo–13. All of us were holding on to a firm belief in progressive politics that we believed was and is essential for building a better Sri Lanka for all communities, where justice and fairness will prevail. It remains a dream yet to be achieved, even though we have no assurance whether we would be able to realise that dream during our lifetimes.

In the 1970s, you joined the movement that campaigned for the release of political prisoners led by comrade Prins Gunasekera and others. I vividly remember the days you spent at the Virakesari Newspapers working long hours and then coming to the party office to spend the rest of the day with us discussing the socio-economic and political issues that were prevailing at the time. We knew you then as Matale Chelva and you assisted in many of the media matters at the JVP’s Shakthi Printing Press in Kohilawatta, Angoda.

I recollect your involvement in matters such as proof-reading Tamil articles published in the JVP’s Tamil organ, ‘Sen Shakthi’, and the Tamil translation of “A Marxist Analysis of the National Question”, which I had written while in Magazine Prison in 1973. Most of the prominent leaders of the JVP stopped by at your parent’s house in Matale and enjoyed your late mother’s hospitality.

The Black July pogrom and the proscription of the JVP in July 1983, changed everything. I had to bid farewell to the JVP due to many factors, the main one being the position the JVP adopted towards the national question in Sri Lankan since mid-1983. Afterwards, we had to fight for our own survival and to do it in our own ways. Despite this situation you continued to assist comrades of the JVP such as Ragama Some and Somawansa Amerasinghe, who sought your financial and material help. Comrades Ranjitham Gunaratnam of Kegalle and Periyakarippu Thangarajah of Matale would have survived, if they listened to your advice not to go to the farm in Piliyandala they maintained. They went there without heeding your advice and on the same day they were killed.

You risked your life in 1990, to secure the lives of the Somawansa Amerasinghe family, by making arrangements to send them to India so that they could escape certain death that awaited them in Sri Lanka. An army captain drove Somawansa to Kochchikade and then he had been taken to Subramaniya Swamy Temple in Tiruchendur, Tamil Nadu, India by boat. Meanwhile comrade Amerasinghe’s wife and son flew to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) from Katunayake and caught a local flight to Thiruvananthapuram (formerly Trivandrum), Kerala.

Meanwhile you flew Katunayake to India and brought Somawansa from Tiruchendur to Thiruvananthapuram, where you rented a house from one of your friends and made arrangements for the Amerasinghe family to stay there. Afterwards the Amerasinghe family flew from Trivandrum to London. All travel expenses were borne by a comrade called Ranasinghe from Dubai.

You personally managed many of the arrangements, even travelling to India and then arranging for them to leave India safely. This was an indicator of the strength of your commitment, your personality, your character, and your devotion to a cause to which you had been committed to. Both of us survived threats to our lives that were posed towards the end of the 1980s. You were taken into custody in October 1990 and released sometime in 1992.

In search of survival during and after those difficult days, we have moved in different pathways. Despite the difficulties you had to overcome, you served your community and the people of Sri Lanka in the best way you possibly could. I am grateful for the trust you had placed in me, when you discussed very personal aspects of your life and in choosing ways of surviving at a challenging time, when none of us were able to help.

However, since we left Sri Lanka in 1989, we made it a habit to visit each other whenever we visited Sri Lanka, or when you visited Australia. Since those days, the children of our families whom we met, have grown up to become professionals, with their own families, with several grandchildren. It is a pleasure to see them doing well. They may not have exactly followed our footsteps in life, not that we expected them to. They are endeavouring to find their own ways of adopting and surviving in this complex world. We need to be appreciative of the fact that they are contributing to building a better world in their own ways.

Our personal as well as political friendship have survived almost close to five decades and will survive for the rest of our lives. Almost always, our birthday wishes to friends have had something in common, being appreciative of the contributions they made during their lives without harming broader conceptualisations of a fair go and social justice. We have always wished them a happy, healthy, peaceful, and constructive lives. Yet, each person with whom we have associated with are different, and have their own special characteristics associated with their personalities and politics. Still, our wishes to the people we love, should not only be resonant, but also true.

In that context, we wish you good health, happiness, success, and in anything else that you wish to do. We have proven through our actions and conversations, and whatever the difficulties we confront in our lives, that we will always try to help and care for others who are in need, in our lives and society.

So, we sincerely wish you all the best in all your future endeavours and that you will achieve everything that you wished to achieve in your lifetime.

May your day be adorned with the sweet memories of seventy-five remarkable years well spent! In life, there are beautiful moments yet to arrive.

Happy 75th Birthday, dear comrade!

Lionel and Chitra Bopage

Melbourne, Australia

22 June 2024

2024 August 6 - My Thoughts on the Video Clip - Veil in between - by Mahesh Haris

 The film - “Veil in between”

The first thought that came to my mind while watching the movie clip “Veil in between” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHIPz3Z_qdM) by Mahesh Haris, was the song that I had very fondly listened to in the sixties and still fond of singing. It is the famously popular song - “Sannaliyane” (The Weaver) that Mahagama Sekara had written, and Maestro Amaradeva had sung. The theme of the song is a “saluwa” (a shawl) and had been based on a poem “Indian Weavers” written by the famous Indian poet Sarojinee Naidoo.

The song “Sannaliyane” and the film the “Veil in between” is an artistic expression and an adaptation of the general concept of life, its reality, its emptiness, and the journey through its diverse phases, using the artistic media of music and film. The song “Sannaliyane” focuses on different periods of the day, while asking the weaver for whom the shawl is stitched, the film “Veil in between” focuses on different epochs of life itself. The movie starts with a dress a young child wears, and a sewing machine used for stitching that dress, both being brand new. It denotes the charm and the joyfulness of a new life, a new day.

The film depicts life in its distinct phases passing through infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, late childhood, becoming a youth, the search for a shared life, and finally passing away. The film signifies these divergent phases skilfully and in an extremely artistic style, but in a very sophisticated way. The first veil, a brand-new dress of a child and the new sewing machine represents the beginning (birth) of life. Those items become a dress of a youngster, and a machine used over time, but represent the youthfulness and joyfulness of life.

Then appear a dress of a more matured person and a slightly worn-out machine, symbolising the end of the youthfulness of life. Before the end, the dilapidated dress with no life wearing it and a corroded and rusty machine denote the end of life and of the machine both. Finally, both end up being in a cemetery like environment. With the passing of life, the movie reminds us of the demise of life, its gloominess and distress and the sadness that remains within the minds of those living. Throughout the film, Javier Navarrete reinforces the message of the movie through his melancholic music, by providing an intense feeling of gloom, sadness, loss, and despair, very appropriate for the content the film depicts.

The song “Sannaliyane” illustrates this phenomenon by its lyrics about the smiling faces and the passion with which the weaver stitches the dress, but that does not last long. Their mood turns sour, with faces having become withered with hands trembling to find it difficult to weave the dress further. Beautiful lyrics illustrate the birth, marriage, and death of a life, though ironically by telling us about the impermanence of life. The three main characteristics of everything in universe, the coming into being, the existence and the destruction.

It is about change that is irreversible, ending up with death and destruction. Is not that the reality that we are experiencing in so many places in the world including Gaza, Ukraine, Bangladesh etc. etc. Destruction and death are unavoidable and constants in life.

In short, the film symbolically and sensitively depicts the impermanence and shortness of life, the phenomenon that everything in the universe comes to an end. Nothing lasts forever. Impermanence constantly continues over time, from the beginning into the ever-distant future. Something that we all need to be aware of and kept in our thoughts always in a world where everyone is prepared and made to compete for survival without thinking of the other, the planet and the universe.

We always knew you are such a clever and talented artist when we came to see your arts exhibition, a long time ago. We are incredibly proud to have you as a family friend. You have set an amazing example that will be difficult for any filmmaker to follow.

Congratulations on your incredible effort, skilfulness, and the artistic success!

Lionel Bopage

Community united in prayer for peace The Canberra Times – P2 - 27 Nov 1995

 

Community united in prayer for peace
The Canberra Times – 27 Nov 1995 - P.2

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130573278?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1995%2F11%2F27%2Fpage%2F14746587%2Farticle%2F130573278

 

Picture: ANDREW CAMPBELL

Lionel Bopage, left, and Joe Motha after a gathering held in Manuka yesterday to pray for peace in Sri Lanka.

Rv ANDREW KAZAR

So tense is the state of the war between Sri Lankan Government forces and the Tamil Tigers that a member of Canberra's Tamil community, Joe Motha, of Kaleen, found it difficult to talk about it.

Of Sinhalese origin, Lionel Bopage, of Farrer, said the ethnic conflict was a disaster not only for the Sinhalese and for Tamils, but for Sri Lanka as a whole.

Yesterday, the two were united when more than 100 members of Canberra's Sri Lankan community came together for a gathering of peace and racial harmony in St Paul's community hall, in Manuka. The event involved families from Canberra's Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim, and Burgher communities.

Members of the organising group were Australian residents in Canberra but of different community origins.

Mr. Motha, an organiser, said the event was a meeting of Sri Lankans and well-wishers of different faiths to come together to pray for peace. "It is part of a reconciliatory process, and there's a huge number of Sri Lankans in different countries, which is a huge untapped resource in terms of trying to bring about peace," he said.

"I think that the hearts have got to meet first before the minds can meet, and Sri Lanka is fortunate in that we have four, if not more, of all the great religions of the world: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam.

"And each of those religions, without exception, teaches tolerance, compassion, and love ... and I feel that it's a process that we have begun here today."

Mr. Bopage, another organiser, said the main aim of the event was to express the organising group's concern about the situation in Sri Lanka and the group's desire for peace.

"I see this is a moment of reflection, a time to think of what really happened, whether we have done something wrong because we are not trying to apply the basic guidelines of conflict resolution."

"What's happening in Sri Lanka is that the Sinhalese and the Tamils don't talk to each other; there is no communication, and there is a big barrier between them, a mistrust which cannot be taken away all at once.

"Maybe what we are doing may not have a very big impact on the whole scene, but if we start doing this and spread the word around, then probably this will create some influence."