Netanyahu blasts UN 'hypocrisy', Australian PM opposes 'one-sided resolutions'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emphasised the need for Israel to retain "security control" over any future Palestinian state, and praised Australia as a "clear-eyed" nation "willing to puncture United Nations hypocrisy".

He made the remarks during a joint press conference, after Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull welcomed Netanyahu on Wednesday as the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit Australia.

Turnbull offered a staunch defence of Israel, criticising the United Nations and vowing never to support "one-sided resolutions" calling for an end to Israeli settlement building on occupied land, reiterating Australia's support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

"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," Turnbull wrote in an editorial in The Australian newspaper.

The UN resolution was approved in the final weeks of Barack Obama's administration, which broke with a long tradition of shielding Israel diplomatically and chose not to wield its veto power.

"Australia has been courageously willing to puncture UN hypocrisy more than once," Netanyahu said.

"The UN is capable of many absurdities and I think it's important that you have straightforward and clear-eyed countries like Australia that often bring it back to earth," he said after meeting Turnbull.

Israel has long pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory it captured in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbours including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Most countries view such activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace but Israel disagrees, citing a biblical connection to the land.