Beautiful. Complex. Tiny.
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Those were the impressions which struck Zed Seselja on his recent first visit to Israel.
"I was surprised just what a beautiful place it is - you have this picture of this part of the world, it's always in the news, normally for negative reasons ... but it's a really beautiful place, quite spectacular in places," Senator Seselja said.
The first-year senator was one of six Liberal parliamentarians who spent a packed five days visiting sites from the West Bank to the edge of the Gaza, the ancient Christian and Jewish locations of Jerusalem, and peering over the border into Lebanon.
It was in Israel's north, near the Syria/Lebanon border, where the father of five visited a hospital and saw someone maimed by the Syrian civil war.
"We spoke to people that lost legs and arms and a young child who lost limbs - he appeared to have at least some sort of severe post traumatic stress disorder," the senator said.
“It's hard to describe, it’s moving but it’s also very confronting.
“We saw a few in the hospital, but we know in the Syrian conflict there are hundreds of thousands who have been seriously injured - it caused me just to contemplate the magnitude of that.”
Organised and funded by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, the Liberal delegation returned at the start of May, a month before the government announced its rejection of the term occupied East Jerusalem, with disputed now the preferred descriptor.
The council – criticised in Bob Carr's diary for its alleged (and disputed) heavy influence over the Gillard government's Middle East policy – sponsors trips to Israel for those on both sides of politics. A separate Labor delegation which included Canberra MP Gai Brodtmann visited last month.
Senator Seselja said the majority of meetings were with officials from the Israeli side, but “an unfiltered view” was provided by time with senior members of the Palestinian Authority.
The senator said he had no expertise on terminology in the long-running Middle East dispute, but backed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s statement that there was no change in position and a two-state solution was still supported. The UN and the International Court of Justice have declared East Jerusalem occupied territory, and most nations, including the United States, refuse to recognize Israel’s 1967 annexation.
Geopolitics to one side, Senator Seselja said the innovation of Israelis, particularly in their use of water, could be a lesson for Australia.
“They have these greenhouses almost in the desert where they grow all sorts of plants – they’ve found ways to use limited water resources in a dry place yet grow all the crops they need.”