The following article was published in The Aus­trali­an on 13^th March, 2018. The original article can be accessed here.

Labor voters reject party’s push for Palestinian state

Simson Benson
The Aus­trali­an
March 13, 2018
Federal Labor is at risk of ali­en­at­ing its support base over the party’s pursuit of Palestini­an statehood ahead of its national con­fer­ence, with a majority of its own voters rejecting the move without the Palestini­an Authority striking a peace deal with Israel.
With several state Labor branch­es last year adopting a platform of recog­nising a Palestini­an state as a means of pursuing a two-state solution after 60 years of conflict, the policy is now likely to be adopted at the national con­fer­ence in July, which would then become binding on a federal Labor gov­ern­ment.
However, a poll conducted by research firm YouGov Galaxy has found that a majority of Labor voters in Australia support recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state only if a peace agreement can be reached.
Almost as many Labor voters also support a position of never ­recog­nising a Palestini­an state as those who favour immediate recog­ni­tion with or without peace.
The Labor position on Palestini­an recog­ni­tion appears further at odds with the wider elect­or­ate, with 52 per cent of all voters backing the view that either some or all of the criticism of Israel is motivated by antisemitism.
The poll, com­mis­sioned by the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, revealed that only 13 per cent of Aus­trali­ans across all voting pref­er­ences believed Australia should recognise a Palestini­an state imme­di­ately with or without a peace deal.
The same number, however, either didn’t believe a Palestini­an state should ever be given rec­ognition or could be recog­nised only when Palestini­an groups, most of which do not recognise ­Israel’s right to exist, renounced violence.
The largest number, 25 per cent, agreed that recog­ni­tion could come only if and when Palestini­ans reached a peace agreement with Israel.
The poll, however, revealed that the question was a fringe issue for a greater per­cent­age of both Labor and Coalition sup­port­ers, with more than a third not express­ing an opinion on the issue.

Although the results support the campaign by the Jewish lobby against Palestini­an recog­ni­tion, YouGov Galaxy, a sub­si­di­ary of UK pollsters YouGov, is widely respected in testing public opinion and is often engaged by the left for campaign polling.
Sur­pris­ingly, the poll of 1205 voters across all demo­graph­ics showed that a majority of Labor voters also backed the US-supported position of moving Israel’s capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — which Palestini­ans also lay claim to as their capital.
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, said: “The per­cent­age of Aus­trali­ans who supported immediate recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state is very small and is cancelled out by an equal per­cent­age of those who ­believe a Palestini­an state should ‘never be recog­nised’.
“In between these two extremes you have a large per­cent­age of Aus­trali­ans who adhere to the common-sense view that recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state must be part of an overall peace agreement with ­Israel and mark an end to the violence by all Palestini­an groups.
“It is sig­ni­fic­ant that 80 per cent of respond­ents who expressed an opinion think recog­ni­tion should be subject to these con­di­tions or should never occur. There was remark­ably little variation in this pattern between Coalition and Labor voters, and across different demo­graph­ic groups.”
Only 7 per cent of voters believed the greatest obstacle to peace was Israeli set­tle­ments, with three times as many claiming it was Palestini­an rejection of ­Israel’s right to exist.
However, 44 per cent of voters expressed no opinion.