Daphne Anson: Aussie Labor Party Conference Calls on Next Labor Government to Recognise Palestinian Statehood

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Tuesday, 18 December 2018

Aussie Labor Party Conference Calls on Next Labor Government to Recognise Palestinian Statehood

See here

Following Australian Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison's distinctly underwhelming recent pronouncement that West Jerusalem is Israel's capital but the Aussie Embassy will be remaining in Tel Aviv until a peace deal is effected between Israel and Palestine, which can then have East Jerusalem as its capital, Senator Penny Wong, the Labour opposition's Shadow Foreign Minister (who if the polls are anything to go by may fairly soon find herself the real thing in a government headed by Bill Shorten) has moved a motion on the question of Israel's capital at Labour's party conference in Adelaide.

The successful resolution:

Notes previous resolutions on Israel/Palestine carried at the 2015 ALP [Australian Labor Party] National Conference and the 2016 NSW Labor Annual Conference;

Supports the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders;

Calls on the next Labor Government to recognise Palestine as a state; and

Expects that this issue will be an important priority for the next Labor Government.

Calls the recognition of a Palestinian state as “an important priority for the next Labor government” providing Israel and Palestine recognise that they will live in peace and security.

Declared the senator:

“I want to acknowledge that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is an issue of great importance to many in our Party. It is of great importance because Labor is a friend of Israel. I am a friend of Israel.It is of great importance because Labor is a friend of the Palestinians. I am a friend of the Palestinians. It is of great importance because we, in Labor, not only deal with the world as it is, we seek to change it for the better.

And so all who have come to this debate do so in the hope of contributing to peace and to a just and lasting resolution of the conflict between these two peoples. I thank everyone for the manner in which they have engaged to propose this resolution – which I am confident reflects the collective view of this conference. This resolution makes clear the view of this conference is to continue to support the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders. And it recognises the desire of this conference to recognise Palestine as a state.

Labor has long supported, and continues to support, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We support Israel’s right to exist within secure and recognised boundaries and the creation of a Palestinian state. We recognise that a just two-state resolution will require recognising the right of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples to live in peace and security. The hallmark of Labor’s approach has been our even-handedness, and our acceptance of the legitimate claims by both parties. Labor has been consistent in its approach to working towards the resolution of conflict between Palestine and Israel. We have been consistent in our criticism of actions that undermine progress.

The resort to violence or the use of disproportionate response. The construction of new settlements in areas that will become part of a future Palestinian State and the retrospective legalisation of settlements. Labor will continue to call on both sides of the conflict to refrain from any actions that hamper peaceful outcomes for both the Israeli and Palestinian people. And we will continue to ensure that any decision we take contributes to peaceful resolution of the conflict and to progress towards a two-state solution.

It is an approach, which until recently, had been largely bipartisan. But, in a shameful act five days before the Wentworth [a constituency with a large numbr of Jewish voters] by-election, Scott Morrison put his own domestic political interest before the national interest. He made a decision to junk longstanding bipartisan foreign policy in a cynical attempt to win votes. It was a desperate political tactic. It was a decision made against the longstanding advice of agencies, without Cabinet consideration, and without properly consulting Australia’s partners and allies.

Astonishingly, it was a decision made without consulting either the Israelis or the Palestinians themselves, whose agreement must be the foundation of any lasting peace. The result of the chaos and confusion has been clear. Mr Morrison has caused offence to some of our nearest neighbours, harmed Australia’s international reputation, and our nation’s interests. Ever since, the Prime Minister has been trying to escape the problem of his own creation.

It is a clear example of what happens when domestic politics is put before national interest. Unlike Scott Morrison and his Government, Labor in Government will take a responsible approach to our foreign policy. We will seek and consider the advice of our agencies. We will work with our partners and allies. We will always put the national interest first. This motion makes clear Labor’s commitment to progressing lasting peace and a two-state solution. It makes clear that it will be an important priority for the next Labor Government. As Labor’s Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, I commend the resolution to the conference."

(Read more here)

Reacting to the resolution, the leaders of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry state:

“Whilst the ALP National Conference resolution falls a long way short of the immediate and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian State which some sections of the ALP have been advocating for several years, and will not be binding on any future Labor government, the tenor of resolutions passed at recent ALP conferences has been in that direction.

Unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State can only act as a disincentive, rather than an encouragement, to Israel and the Palestinians to resume negotiations, in effect pre-empting the outcome of one of the key issues to be negotiated.

In contrast, recognising that Israel’s seat of government is located in the western part of Jerusalem, which is incontestably sovereign Israeli territory, does not in any way impact upon or pre-empt the future status of the contested eastern and other parts of the city captured by Israel in 1967. The ALP’s announcement that, in government, it would reverse Australia’s recent recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was therefore hasty and ill-advised.

The ALP National Conference resolution calling for recognition of a Palestinian State overlooks the reality that no Palestinian entity presently exists which meets even the most minimal of the legal and practical criteria for statehood – a government capable of exercising control over its people and territor, and delivering on international agreements.

To the ALP’s credit, and thanks to the leadership of ALP leader Bill Shorten, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and their colleagues Richard Marles, Mark Dreyfus, Mike Kelly and Michael Danby among others, the goal of a just and lasting two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict remains embedded in the ALP policy platform, and this continues to represent the bipartisan consensus in Australia.

Nevertheless, it is a misguided approach by advocates of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state to place the onus exclusively on Israel for the impasse in achieving a two-State resolution of the conflict, and does nothing to encourage the Palestinian leadership to remedy their obvious shortcomings and to act as a responsible government. Instead, it rewards them for their failures.

Further, Palestinian organisations have appalling records on the rights of women, LGBTIQ people and workers. The Hamas attitude towards Israel and its Jewish citizens is openly genocidal, as its notorious Charter makes all too clear.

We look forward to continuing to work constructively with Bill Shorten and his parliamentary colleagues to find ways by which Australia can contribute meaningfully to a two-State outcome, based on an honest understanding of the realities of the conflict in all their tragic complexity.

We look forward to continuing to work constructively with Bill Shorten and his parliamentary colleagues to find ways by which Australia can contribute meaningfully to a two-State outcome, based on an honest understanding of the realities of the conflict in all their tragic complexity.”

Read other communal leadership reactions here

2 comments:

Mr. Cohen20 December 2018 at 05:17
Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz said:

“Too few of Israel’s critics seem to understand the Jewish determination to avoid another Holocaust, this one in Israel.

Too few understand why Israel cannot and should not trust its survival to nations that stood idly by while millions of innocent Jews were destroyed.

Too many nations seem willing to have Israel take risks for an uncertain regional peace that they themselves are unwilling to take for a more important world peace.”

SOURCE:
Chutzpah by Alan M. Dershowitz
(chapter 7, page 248)
published in year 1991 by Little Brown & Co
ISBN: 9780316181372 ISBN: 0316181374
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Mr. Cohen20 December 2018 at 05:22
Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz said:

“…if Israel’s military power were ever to be diminished to the point that the combined armies of the Arab world could defeat it, I believe there would be another Holocaust.

No Arab dictator who could defeat Israel and forebore from doing so would survive the continuing frenzy for jihad [Islamic holy war against non-Muslims].

And an Arab military victory over Israel – unlike the Israeli victories over the Arabs – would not result in a mere occupation or even detention of Israeli Jews.

It would result in a mass slaughter, designed to rid Arab holy land of Jewish intruders. Most Jews know this, though they rarely speak of it openly."

SOURCE: Chutzpah by Alan M. Dershowitz
(chapter epilogue, page 352) published in year 1991
by Little Brown & Co ISBN: 9780316181372 ISBN: 0316181374

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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

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Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

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Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

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January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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