Senator Linda Reynolds
Senator REYNOLDS (Western
Australia) (20:05): Last week, I had the great privilege of joining the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Tel Aviv as a participant in the
inaugural Beer Sheva Dialogue between ASPI and the Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies. It was my first visit to the Middle East, and it was an
extraordinary, eye-opening time to be there, during the current period of
regional upheaval and transition. You can only learn so much from books and
maps, as this visit absolutely demonstrated to me.
The Australian delegation included ASPI
staff, ably led by Anthony Bergin; the Australian Ambassador, Dave Sharma; my
parliamentary colleagues Gai Brodtmann, the member for Canberra, and the Hon.
Mark Dreyfus MP, the shadow Attorney-General. The delegation also included Mr
Allan Gyngell, Major General Gus McLachlan and Major General Jim Molan,
retired. The Israeli delegation was led by Professor Efraim Inbar, the
irrepressible director of the Begin-Sadat institute. It included esteemed
academics such as Dr Max Singer, founder of the Hudson Institute, and a wide
range of senior military and civilian representatives of the Israeli government
and the Israel Defense Forces. Most fittingly, this dialogue was named in
honour of the famous charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade. The
Australian embassy organised two wonderfully memorable commemoration ceremonies
in Beersheba at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and at the Park of the
Australian Soldier.
This most famous of battles is not widely
known today amongst many Australians, but it was a decisive turning point in
the First World War, so I would like to take a few moments to share the story
with you. Ninety eight years ago, in October 1917, the outcome of the First
World War was in no way preordained. At that time, the failure of the
Dardanelles campaign, a military catastrophe in Mesopotamia and the setbacks on
the Western Front had all combined to greatly damage the Allies' morale. The
Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire and Germany were all holding fast.
Two allied attempts to break the Turkish defensive line running from Gaza, on
the coast, to Beersheba, 43 kilometres inland, had failed and the town of
Beersheba itself remained in the hands of the Ottoman Empire. A last desperate
push was required if Beersheba and its critically important seven wells were to
be captured. It was essential to the success of the Commander of the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force, General Allenby's, campaign plan.
And so it was that, at 4.30 in the
afternoon on 31 October, the 4th and 12th light-horse regiments of the 4th
Brigade drew up behind a ridge some four miles south-east of Beersheba, and
moved off. Following close behind were supporting forces from the 11th Light
Horse Regiment and from the 5th and 7th mounted brigades. Facing sustained
enemy fire but moving fast, the mounted infantry quickly fell upon enemy lines.
They jumped the trenches, dismounted and then entered the trenches on foot,
clearing them with both rifle and bayonet. Though outnumbered, the momentum and
the sheer audacity of this surprise attack carried them through the Turkish
defences. The light-horsemen took less than an hour to overrun these trenches
and, finally, successfully enter Beersheba. The city was captured by nightfall
and the Gaza-Beersheba defensive line was finally broken. It was the success
and the desperation of the charge, late in the day and by mounted infantry, not
mounted cavalry, that has earned it an enduring place in Australian history and
also in the history of the First World War. Their success was due not only to
their courage but also to their ability to take the initiative, take risks and
be disruptive—characteristics that have continued to serve our nation well in
successive generations of service men and women and are today seen in our
innovators and our entrepreneurs.
At the Beer Sheva Dialogue, Major General
Molan reflected on a question he and many of us in this place are often asked:
why does Australia get itself involved so often in other people's wars? The
simple fact is that we get involved as it is in our national interest to do so.
Our national interests extend well beyond our sea borders. Australian military
involvement in the Middle East continues today and it is likely to continue for
the foreseeable future. Today, 1,700 ADF personnel are deployed in the Middle
East on seven separate operations.
On my visit to Beersheba, I met Defence
personnel at the Beersheba ceremonies serving in two longstanding regional
operations. Firstly, I met personnel from Operation Paladin, which supports the
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, UNTSO, which itself was
established in 1948 to supervise the truce agreed at the conclusion of the
first Arab-Israeli war. Since 1956, members of the Australian contingent have supported
UNTSO, with 25 personnel currently on deployment in Operation Paladin.
Secondly, I met personnel from Operation Mazurka, which supports the
Multinational Force and Observers, a non-UN organisation established in 1981 to
oversee longstanding regional peace agreements. We currently have 12 military
personnel deployed in the Sinai, an increasingly unstable region with the rise
of the ISIS affiliated Al Wilayat Sinai, now speculated to be responsible for
the downing of the Russian MetroJet flight.
The Beer Sheva Dialogue was highly
successful and both delegations discovered there is much to learn from one
another. Discussions ranged across counterinsurgency, urban intelligence
gathering, coalition war fighting, countering improvised explosive devices, the
use of reservists, military procurement processes, and military and civilian
resilience. Also in Israel at the commemorative ceremony, somewhat fittingly,
was Minister Roy leading an innovation delegation. For me, one of the most
significant insights from the trip was Israel's success in high-tech
innovations, patents and start-ups. Today, Israel generates more start-ups and
venture capital investment than Japan, China, the US, Canada or the UK. It was
very clear to me that key to this success was the symbiotic link between Israel
as a start-up nation and the Israeli Defence Forces ecosystem. As a result of
this visit, I am delighted to advise that the Chief Scientist of Israel, Avi
Hasson, a world expert on fostering an innovation ecosystem, has accepted an
invitation to address the parliamentary friendship groups that I co-chair with
Gai Brodtmann and Senator Dio Wang, the defence and innovation parliamentary
friendship groups, later this month.
I would like to conclude by thanking both
ASPI and the Begin-Sadat institute on the resounding success of this inaugural
dialogue. But, as we all know in this place, successful events such as these
never just happen. They are a result of extensive hard work by many people. So
I give my particular thanks to ASPI. Peter Jennings, your team did an
outstanding job. I give particular thanks to Mr Anthony Bergen, your deputy,
and also to Mr David Lang, who successfully herded cats all around Israel and
contributed to it being such a success. I also give my particular thanks to
AIJAC—Mr Colin Rubenstein and Mr Ahron Shapiro worked very hard to make it the
success that it was. I give a special acknowledgement and thankyou to Mr Zeke
Solomon for your companionship and your support.
A very special thank you and acknowledgement
go to our ambassador, Mr Dave Sharma, and to his team in Tel Aviv. They all
provided very dedicated and very professional support, which, again, greatly
contributed to the success of this visit.
Lastly, my particular thanks go to the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, and in particular to Professor Inbar,
the director of the institute, and to his large team. We hope that you realised
as much benefit from this as the Australian delegation did, and we certainly
look forward to future delegations and dialogues.
Finally, and, I think, most wonderfully, as
a result of this delegation, on this eve of Remembrance Day, it was very clear
that the legacy and spirit of our light-horsemen, who so distinguished
themselves at Beersheba, live on. Lest we forget.
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