ALP Israel resolution slammed

THE Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been condemned by communal leaders for passing a one-sided resolution that singles out Israeli settlement building as a “roadblock to peace” and states that if the next round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians fail it will discuss recognition of a Palestinian state.

Israel’s ambassador to Australia Shmuel Ben-Shmuel said the motion incentivises further Palestinian obstructionism rather than encouraging the sort of bilateral talks that the party purports to support.

“The ALP’s adopted resolution, while endorsing the two-state solution undermines this mechanism by suggesting that should the next round of bilateral negotiations be unsuccessful Palestinians could achieve Australian recognition regardless,” Ben-Shmuel, who attended the conference, said.

He welcomed the ALP’s rejection of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign but questioned the lack of balance in the resolution in respect of Hamas.

“Debate remained largely silent on Hamas’s profound disruption of peace efforts as well as their fanatical dedication to destroying Israel,” he said.

The resolution states that all “settlements are illegal”, that East Jerusalem is “occupied territory”, and singled out comments by Benjamin Netanyahu for condemnation while remaining silent on incitement to violence and terrorism from Palestinian leaders.

Ben-Shmuel was joined in his criticism of the ALP by Zionist Federation of Australia president Danny Lamm, who said “obsessives” and “cranks” have hijacked Labor’s Middle East policy.

Describing the resolution as “reckless, poorly thought-out and frankly foolish,” he said, “Among the most pernicious facets of this misbegotten Labor resolution is the moral equivalence that pollutes it to the core. Both explicitly and implicitly this declaration places the jihadi theo-fascists of Hamas on the same plane as progressive democrats of Israel.

“But it gets worse. The resolution contains a blatantly one-sided laundry list of complaints against Israel whilst simultaneously endorsing the ‘special circumstances of the Palestinian people, their desire for respect’.”

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council noted “on the positive side are the calls for direct negotiations between the parties towards a two-state outcome, for the end of rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel from Gaza, rejection of the BDS strategy, and calls for demilitarisation of any Palestinian entity.”

But the organisation slammed Labor for stating that it would discuss recognising a Palestinian state if there is no progress during direct negotiations.

“There are few international diplomatic moves more likely to discourage a Palestinian return to serious and sustained negotiations than a promise that if negotiations fail, they will be given unilateral recognition anyway,” AIJAC said.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) agreed that the resolution is more balanced than the motion moved by Bob Carr at the NSW State ALP Conference last year, welcoming its support for two states for two peoples, a negotiated settlement and the fact it does not blame Israel for the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza.

ECAJ added, “The re-statement of positions which the ALP adopted while in government on the question of borders, land swaps, the illegality of settlements, refugees and Jerusalem is nothing new.”

The organisation also noted: “The criticism of statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in the run-up to the Israeli elections earlier this year is new, but does not come as a surprise.”

Australian’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, however, was less forgiving, condemning Labor for walking away from a balanced approach to the Israel–Palestinian conflict.

Claiming “Labor has abandoned long-held bipartisan foreign policy principles,” Bishop told The AJN, “Labor has turned its back on Israel, a pillar of stability and democracy in the Middle East.”

Labor MP Mark Dreyfus, meanwhile, defended the resolution, telling The AJN that the party has come a long way from the resolutions passed at state conferences last year.

“Those conferences, particularly NSW, produced resolutions that were virtually a call for unilateral recognition by a future Labor Government of Palestine,” Dreyfus said.

“We have resolved not to do that and we only have a very guarded reference in the last paragraph to a recognition process which would start with discussions but then set conditions and obviously there must be a single government of a Palestinian State, not like the present situation where one government is a terrorist organisation.”

Full coverage in this week’s AJN.

JOSHUA LEVI