Turnbull rebukes NZ over Israel

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched a heavy rebuke against the UN over a New Zealand-led Security Council resolution accusing Israel of the ‘‘flagrant violation of international law’’ over its settlement actions.

Turnbull’s words were delivered in a stinging opinion piece published in Murdochowned publication The Australian, timed to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who begins a state visit to Australia today.

And while Netanyahu will be making the trip to be Israel’s first sitting Prime Minister to visit Australia, Prime Minister Bill English has confirmed no attempts to hold discussions with his officials while in the region have been made by New Zealand.

Turnbull’s piece featured a stinging criticism of the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in December, in which New Zealand played a dominant role.

The resolution condemned Israel’s continued settlements in occupied Palestinian territories as a ‘‘flagrant violation of international law’’, which undermined efforts to reach a two-state solution.

In his piece, Turnbull criticised countries who had ‘‘chastised Israel alone’’, for the failure of the peace process.

‘‘My government will not support one-sided resolutions criticising Israel of the kind recently adopted by the UN Security Council and we deplore the boycott campaigns designed to delegitimise the Jewish state.

‘‘At the same time, we recognise that Israel and the Palestinians need to come to a settlement and we support a directly negotiated two-state solution so that Palestinians will have their own state and the people of Israel can be secure within agreed borders,’’ Turnbull wrote.

Prime Minister Bill English confirmed Turnbull raised his displeasure, when he hosted his Australian counterpart and wife Lucy Turnbull in Queenstown last Friday.