Rudd defied DFAT on Israel: WikiLeaks

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The Rudd government defied advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) telling it to support Israel in a 2010 United Nations vote after Israeli spies used forged Australian passports in a political assassination, leaked US embassy cables suggest.

The government last year expelled a senior Israeli diplomat from Canberra after it emerged the spies had used four faked Australian passports to enter Dubai to kill senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Just days after the story broke, Australia abstained from a UN vote demanding that Israel and Palestine investigate claims in the so-called Goldstone Report that war crimes were committed during the 2008-09 Gaza assault.

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DFAT on Tuesday said it considered all UN General Assembly resolutions on the Middle East on their merits and on a case-by-case basis.

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'Merits and on a case-by-case basis' is DFAT speak for 'we advise the government to vote whichever way will make the US happy with us.'

[shaayecanaan]

1. Im quite surprised that DFAT would give that kind of advice...

certainly in years past, senior career officers like Dick Woolcott would give advice quite to the contrary - that trying to dovetail Australia's foreign policy with the US on Israel was only going to reduce Australia's standing in the world.

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2. I thought the govt only listened to DFAT when it suits it...

It'd be interesting to see what DFAT's advice is on the upcoming General Assembly vote for Palestinian statehood.