STATEMENT BY ANTON BLOCK, PRESIDENT, AND PETER WERTHEIM AM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Res­o­lu­tion on Israel-Pales­tin­ian con­flict passed by NSW State ALP Con­fer­ence on 30 July 2017

Clear­ly, Israel still has many friends with­in the ALP and they are to be applaud­ed for ensur­ing that Bob Carr’s orig­i­nal motion was sig­nif­i­cant­ly amend­ed before it was passed. The amend­ment express­ly recog­nis­es Israel’s right to exist with­in secure bor­ders. It is dis­turb­ing that the orig­i­nal motion moved by a for­mer For­eign Min­is­ter of Aus­tralia was so man­i­fest­ly one-sided and unfair.
Although it was a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment upon the orig­i­nal Carr motion, the final res­o­lu­tion urges the next Labor gov­ern­ment to “recog­nise Pales­tine”. If act­ed upon, this would open the door to a grave weak­en­ing of Aus­trali­a’s tra­di­tion­al bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus in favour of, and the ALP’s com­mit­ment to, a just and peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict.
No fair-mind­ed per­son would place the entire blame for the absence of a peace agree­ment on Israel. Since 2000, Israel has made at least three peace offers to the Pales­tini­ans which includ­ed the estab­lish­ment of a Pales­tin­ian State over ter­ri­to­ry equiv­a­lent in area to 100% of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has repeat­ed­ly called on the Pales­tini­ans to return to nego­ti­a­tions with­out pre­con­di­tions. The Pales­tini­ans have refused.
Labor lead­ers Bill Short­en, Pen­ny Wong, Chris Bowen and Tanya Plibersek have all con­firmed that a future Labor gov­ern­ment will not be bound by the NSW ALP Branch res­o­lu­tion, and will act inde­pen­dent­ly in the light of legal and oth­er expert advice. Nev­er­the­less, the one-sided and doc­tri­naire lan­guage and moti­va­tion behind the orig­i­nal Bob Carr motion, and sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tions passed by oth­er State branch­es, does the ALP a dis­ser­vice.
Recog­ni­tion of a state is sup­posed to be an acknowl­edge­ment of an exist­ing real­i­ty, not an act of wish­ful think­ing. No Pales­tin­ian enti­ty cur­rent­ly exists which sat­is­fies the uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed cri­te­ria for state­hood under inter­na­tion­al law. There is no pro­vi­sion­al Pales­tin­ian gov­ern­ment that con­trols both the West Bank and Gaza, and thus no Pales­tin­ian state to recog­nise.
Fur­ther, by requir­ing noth­ing of the Pales­tini­ans in return for recog­ni­tion, the ALP res­o­lu­tion seeks to pres­sure only one side, Israel, to make uni­lat­er­al con­ces­sions, with­out requir­ing the Pales­tini­ans to accept rec­i­p­ro­cal oblig­a­tions as a con­di­tion of state­hood. This can only serve to dis­cour­age both peo­ples against mak­ing the hard com­pro­mis­es that will be essen­tial for a just and last­ing peace.
Con­tact
Peter Wertheim AM | Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Phone: (02) 8353 8500
Mobile: 0408 160 904
Email: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au
www.ecaj.org.au