15^th February 2016
The “res­ol­u­tion on Israel-Palestine” passed by the NSW State Labor Con­fer­ence on February 14^th, which “encour­ages all party members visiting the region for the purpose of under­stand­ing the conflict to spend sub­stan­tial time in both Israel and Palestine”, reflects precisely what has occurred for many years when MPs and others have par­ti­cip­ated in the Jewish community’s sponsored trips to Israel.
What began as a proposal to ban these trips alto­geth­er, and was sub­sequently watered down to a proposal requiring all ALP MPs on such trips to spend “equi­val­ent time” in Israel and the ter­rit­or­ies, has ended up as a rejection of both of those proposals and an endorse­ment of the Jewish community’s long-estab­lished practice for sponsored trips of the region.
On the more sub­stant­ive issues con­cern­ing the Israel-Palestini­an conflict, the NSW ALP endorsed the 2015 Federal con­fer­ence res­ol­u­tion which, for all its flaws, was far less prob­lem­at­ic­al than the res­ol­u­tion passed by the NSW ALP con­fer­ence in 2014. Sig­ni­fic­antly all 28 of the anti-Israel motions that had been orches­trated through various branches were rejected outright.
All in all, this is a pleasing devel­op­ment. The attempt to move Labor into a more and more hostile posture towards Israel this time suffered a firm rebuff.
This was made possible by the efforts of the many friends of Israel and the Jewish community within the ALP to each of whom we are very thankful.
The Aus­trali­an Jewish community can also be proud of the role played by its community organ­isa­tions, espe­cially the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue.

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM Executive Director
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au