26^th July 2015
The res­ol­u­tion passed by the ALP at its 2015 National Con­fer­ence is a sub­stan­tially modified and more balanced res­ol­u­tion than the motion moved by Bob Carr at the NSW State ALP con­fer­ence in 2014.
The first paragraph of the res­ol­u­tion restates the current ALP policy platform without change.
The res­ol­u­tion also recog­nises for the first time that Labor is committed to the principle of ‘two States for two peoples’. The goal stated by many anti-Israel activists that Israel will even­tu­ally become another Arab state is thus ruled out.
Further, the res­ol­u­tion commits Labor expli­citly to con­tinu­ing to support for the time being a ‘nego­ti­ated set­tle­ment’. This is contrary to the current Palestini­an strategy of uni­lat­er­al­ism and refusal to negotiate.
Unlike the Carr motion, the national con­fer­ence res­ol­u­tion does not blame Israel for “the deaths of innocent civilians” in Gaza or call for an end to Israeli incur­sions into Gaza. The res­ol­u­tion expressly acknow­ledges that Israel’s actions are a “response” to Hamas rocket attacks, and are therefore defensive, and calls instead for “maximum restraint” in carrying out that response.
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 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.
Sig­ni­fic­antly, the national res­ol­u­tion rejects outright the ‘boycott, divest­ment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel’. There was nothing similar in the Carr motion.
Finally, the res­ol­u­tion commits a future ALP gov­ern­ment to ‘discuss’ taking certain steps if ‘there is no progress in the next round of the peace process’. It would always be open to a future Labor gov­ern­ment, or indeed any gov­ern­ment, to ‘discuss’ what steps to take in response to inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ments. It does not require a formal res­ol­u­tion to do so.
The worst part of the pro­ceed­ings was not the res­ol­u­tion itself but the speech by its seconder, Wendy Turner from Queens­land. Many of her comments were an insuf­fer­able marriage of self-right­eous­ness and ignorance. For example, she asserted that Australia should recognise a State of Palestine now “just in the same way that in 1947 the inter­na­tion­al community determ­ined through the UN to provide a homeland for the Jewish people. That was when Australia recog­nised Israel”. This is a glaring error. Australia’s support at the UN General Assembly in 1947 for the partition of the country into a Jewish state and an Arab state was in no way a recog­ni­tion of the State of Israel. Australia only recog­nised Israel in January 1949, that is after the State was estab­lished, had suc­cess­fully resisted a military invasion from five neigh­bour­ing countries and proved its viability. The only accurate part of her speech was the acknow­ledge­ment that the UN endorsed the estab­lish­ment of Israel as a homeland for “the Jewish people”.