Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
“This weekend the ALP [Australian Labor Party, led by
Bill Shorten] will hold its 47th National Conference in Melbourne. As the
highest decision-making forum of the ALP, the conference will set the content
and tone for a raft of key Labor policies for the next three years. One of the most hotly contested issues to be
addressed is whether to recognise the state of Palestine…. Last year the
British Labour Party – along with the rest of the British parliament – voted to
recognise Palestinian statehood. It is time for the Australian Labor Party to
follow suit.”
So ran, inter alia, an op-ed last week on
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC’s) Religion and Ethics site by postgraduate
(“graduate student” in American terminology) Paul Duffill of the University of
Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. (http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/07/23/4279347.htm)
Voilà! Swift to lend his support to Duffill’s
article was the Centre’s director, Associate Professor Jake Lynch, who added a
nasty little augmentation:
“Another form of necessary pressure can be exerted from
outside governments and governing parties such as Labor, by joining the growing
worldwide campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Hence CPACS' [the
Centre’s] response to the call for the academic boycott, by withdrawing
cooperation from institutional links with Israeli universities. That, too, is
not an alternative to dialogue as often misleadingly claimed, but conceived in
order to bring about propitious conditions for it.”
Sounds like
gun-to-the-head enforcement to me. But I
digress.
The ALP conference
meets every three years and decides on party policy, at least nominally. The ALP is dominated by factions – a
byzantine and complicated situation –
and the resolution that was due for debate on
Sunday, 26 July, spearheaded by New
South Wales right-wing powerbroker Tony Burke in consultation with the party’s
shadow foreign affairs minister (since 2013) Tanya Plibersek – a Left faction
member who in 2002 infamously said “I can think of a rogue state which
consistently ignores UN resolutions whose ruler is a war criminal: it is called
Israel and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon. Needless to say, the US does not
mention the UN resolutions that Israel has ignored for 30 years; it just
continues sending the money”) – was supported by both the left and right
factions of the party in New South Wales.
But it was staunchly opposed by the party’s right faction in Victoria, a
faction which includes such prominent pro-Israel Jews as Michael Danby and
shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.
Reported the ABC’s
political editor Chris Uhlmann last week (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-23/alp-conference-matters-more-than-most-chris-uhlmann/6642366):
‘In
2014, NSW Labor [on Burke’s initiative] adopted a resolution on recognising a
Palestinian state.
It said that if "there is no progress to
a two-state solution, and Israel continues to build and expand settlements, a
future Labor government will consult like-minded nations towards recognition of
the Palestinian state". It might
seem like a small step, but it is a big deal for some and is furiously opposed
by the diminishing band of ardently pro-Israel Labor MPs and senators. Expect a similar resolution to be debated,
and probably passed, at the conference.
What is intriguing about this fight is that it is not a Left-Right
divide. It is a NSW resolution, supported by both factions in that state. It will be vigorously opposed by the
Victorian Right, which happens to be Mr Shorten's power base. One side-effect of Labor's growing embrace of
a Palestinian state is that it is losing donations and support from the Jewish
lobby, a group that once staunchly backed Labor.’
In fact, there was, at
the conference on 26 July, a somewhat watered down version of what was
expected. As summarised by Sky News:
‘A future federal Labor government would
consider recognising a Palestinian state if there was no progress in the next
round of the Middle East peace process.
Labor factions reached a deal at the ALP national conference on Sunday
on the wording of a resolution on the issue, but ditched making a formal change
to its policy platform…
.
The motion was carried with applause.
It recognises that any resolution of the
situation should be based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, a timeframe
to end Israeli occupation, demilitarisation of Palestinian territory, agreement
on a solution to Palestinian refugee issues and resolution of the issue of
Jerusalem's final status.
It also recognises settlement building by
Israel in the Occupied Territories may undermine a two-state solution and calls
for Israel to stop all such settlement expansion to support renewed
negotiations toward peace.
The conference rejected the boycotts,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Ultimately, the motion was a compromise in the
wake of the Left and Right factions putting up separate resolutions.’
Proposed by Tony
Burke, and seconded by Queensland delegate Wendy Turner, the resolution goes as
follows:
“The
Australian Labor Party Conference:
Affirms
Labor’s support for an enduring and just two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the right of Israel to live in peace
within secure borders internationally recognised and agreed by the parties, and
reflecting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to also live in
peace and security within their own state.
Deplores
the tragic conflict in Gaza and supports an end to rocket attacks by Hamas and
the exercise of the maximum possible restraint by Israel in response to these
attacks.
Supports
a negotiated settlement between the parties to the conflict, based on
international frameworks, laws and norms
Recognises
in government Labor retained its commitment to two states for two peoples in
the Middle East and specifically
Did
not block enhanced Palestinian status in the General Assembly;
Restated
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is occupied territory;
Opposed
Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, recognising that a just,
peaceful and enduring resolution will involve a territorial settlement based on
1967 borders with agreed land swaps;
Held
that the settlements are illegal under international law.
Recognises
that any resolution will be based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, a
timeframe to end Israeli occupation, demilitarization of Palestinian territory,
agreement on a solution to Palestinian refugee issues, and resolution of the
issue of Jerusalem’s final status.
Recognises
that settlement building by Israel in the Occupied Territories that may
undermine a two-state solution is a roadblock to peace. Labor calls on Israel
to cease all such settlement expansion to support renewed negotiations toward
peace.
Rejects
the boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Condemns
the comments of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the recent elections
where he ruled out a Palestinian state and further condemns his appeals to race
during the campaign.
Recognises
a lasting peace will require a future State of Palestine to recognise the right
of Israel to exist and the State of Israel to recognise the right of Palestine
to exist.
Recognises
the special circumstances of the Palestinian people, their desire for respect,
and the achievement of their legitimate aspiration to live in independence in a
state of their own. This is a cause Labor is committed to.
If
however there is no progress in the next round of the peace process a future
Labor government will discuss joining like-minded nations who have already
recognised Palestine and announcing the conditions and timelines for the
Australian recognition of a Palestinian state, with the objective of
contributing to peace and security in the Middle East.”
No joy for Lynch and his
fellow BDSers, then. Still, it was
enough for The Guardian Australia in
its live coverage to bleat:
“A decision by a small bloc of the right in
Queensland to vote with the left on the recognition of Palestine undercut a
carefully calibrated deal on a platform amendment struck between the NSW right
and the Victorian right.
The end
result was the Labor conference passed its strongest ever motion on the
recognition of Palestine.”
And of course there is a
sidelight on this issue which does not reflect well on the ALP – the latest
outbursts concerning "the Israel lobby and its quite objectionable control
over Australian policy" by former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, of
the New South Wales right faction, whose speech a fortnight ago at the
Australian National University (ANU), co-hosted by the Centre for Arabic and
Islamic Studies, Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine (AJPP) and
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) – the latter two being virulently
anti-Israel – has been described and roundly condemned by, among others, an ANU
professor present who noted Carr’s “demeaning and scoffing at members of the
Jewish community” who are active on
Israel’s behalf: ‘His tone, focus and
implication was that the activity of those people meeting and lobbying the
government of the day was "disproportionate" and improper”…’ : see
AIJAC’s report at http://www.aijac.org.au/news/article/carr-s-offensive-anu-speech
By the way, I was amazed to see, on the multicultural
SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) website, “Palestine” listed as the second
item on “key issues” to be considered by the ALP conference, along with, in
numerical order, asylum seekers, climate, same sex marriage, party reform, gas
reservation, China free trade agreement, and Socialist objective. No mention of what should be one of the key
issues confronting any Australian party at the present time, especially a party
of the left like the ALP: housing affordability. For in this country’s capital cities,
particularly Sydney and Melbourne, house prices have skyrocketed to shocking
levels unimaginable even a decade ago.
This national scandal has been exacerbated by overseas buyers outbidding
locals, and has condemned countless people to perhaps an entire lifetime of
renting – this in a country in which short-term leases of six months to one
year are the norm, where renters have few rights, and where a tight,
unregulated private rental market is a landlord’s paradise. The situation is reaching tinderbox
proportions, but none of the established parties appears interested in
addressing it – presumably because politicians across the political spectrum
are property-owners themselves and are delighted to see house prices climbing
inexorably.
It is precisely this disgraceful situation
– one of immense distress to an entire generation of young people, which is
bifurcating Australia into a society of “haves” and “have nots’ as never before
– that should be high on the agenda of the ALP. Not the status of Palestine,
and certainly not awarding statehood without due negotiation with Israel to
recalcitrant Palestinians.
