{"id":230009,"date":"2026-07-31T02:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/230009\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T02:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:57:17","slug":"israeli-pressure-fails-to-sway-labor-on-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/230009\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli pressure fails to sway Labor on Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite diplomatic lobbying from the Israeli embassy, Labor delegates rejected efforts to dilute the party’s stance on Gaza while shelving calls for stronger action against Israel. Dr Binoy Kampmark<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n

THE ISRAELI EMBASSY in Canberra had warned about it and, with rattling confidence, thought it appropriate to remind the Australian Labor Party that it was going too far.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The concerns \u2013 a nice dollop of political interference in the affairs of a supposedly sovereign state \u2013 came ahead of the ALP National Conference<\/a> that promised to emphasise certain unwanted themes in its draft platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 23-25 July meeting in Adelaide, the draft document reiterated the party\u2019s support for the two-state solution \u2018as the only path towards a future where Palestinians and Israelis can live in freedom, safety and security\u2019. Towards that end, the Labor Government had recognised the State of Palestine in September 2025 \u2018alongside the international community\u2019.<\/p>\n

Opposition was also expressed against the annexation of Palestinian territory and a desire that Israel cease its \u2018illegal settlement activity and the occupation\u2019, urging the Government to frustrate efforts to support \u2018illegal settlement activity or extremist settler violence, and to implement further action and sanctions as necessary\u2019.<\/p>\n

Other unwanted mentions in the platform from embassy officials included a demand that Israel comply with its obligations as an occupying power under international law \u2018in respect of food and medical supplies for the Palestinian civilian population\u2019. Aid providers and NGOs should be allowed to furnish \u2018life-saving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza in full cooperation with the United Nations\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Antisemitism<\/a><\/p>\n

The party also condemned the legislation passed in the Knesset<\/a> permitting the application of the death penalty against Palestinians \u2018and all other discriminatory laws\u2019 targeting the group.<\/p>\n

Violent extremism and terrorism were also condemned without reservation \u2018including as perpetrated by Hamas and other extremists\u2019. The much-withered vine of international law was given a draught of encouragement with Labor\u2019s continuing support of the International Court of Justice\u00a0(ICJ<\/a>) and its advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem<\/a>. The binding decisions of both the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC<\/a>) were also acknowledged.<\/p>\n

With false restraint, the statement<\/a> from the embassy began softly, leaving room for those attending the conference to ponder:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018The Embassy of Israel notes these policy motions are still in draft form, and will continue to engage constructively with the Australian Labor Party through the usual diplomatic channels.\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The warning jab followed:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018However, the embassy respectfully submits that several elements of the draft national platform risk placing responsibility for the conflict on one party while giving insufficient attention to the decisions, conduct and continuing obligations of the Palestinian leadership and terrorist organisations such as Hamas.\u2019 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The old theme is recapitulated: Israel, far from being an ethnonationalist brute and bully, is the one disadvantaged by lawless, murderous Palestinians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The issue of West Bank settler violence was also being overdone in emphasis. The statement makes the hollow claim that the Israeli Government \u2018and the settler movement itself condemns it, and security forces work to apprehend these forms of illegal behaviour\u2019. The rebuttal of such claims is easily made, not least by such foamy pro-settler types as Israeli Minister of National Security\u00a0Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/a> and Finance Minister\u00a0Bezalel Smotrich<\/a>, the former boasting a string of convictions relating to propaganda and racial hatred.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact that they have been outsized cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>‘s government is telling enough. But the Israeli embassy was adamant<\/a>: \u2018there is a significant amount of disinformation surrounding \u201csettler violence\u201d.\u2019 The United Nations \u2018and others\u2019 had tended to rely on such shabby accounts. Best focus on the terrorism of Hamas and its depredations on the \u2018both Jewish and Arab Israelis\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Israel,<\/a><\/p>\n

Having given a sketchy account of Israel\u2019s conduct and bleatingly insisting that the Palestinians shoulder their lot of wretched blame (such awesome power they have, such capability), the disciplinarian\u2019s manual is thrown at the ALP.\u00a0 All the parties concerned should not lean on \u201cassigning blame\u201d. Stress, instead, the conditions that promote lasting peace, though Israel has shown since October 2023 that peace is a rare bloom. (Israel\u2019s conduct of extermination and starvation in Gaza and annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank would suggest a lasting peace in the absence of their foes.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those enumerated conditions were starkly favourable to one party: recognition of Israel\u2019s historic connection to the land and its inviolable right to exist; the cessation of terrorism by all Palestinian organisations \u2013 barely concealed code for laying down arms and surrendering any resort to force against a ruthless adversary with superior arms; dismantling and disarming such organisations \u2013 the crippling gesture; ending incitement and glorification of terrorism (we can do without those freedom slogans and sovereignty mongers, because why would Palestinians want them?); and initiate direct negotiations leading to a secure and enduring peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latter is the sort of peace that anyone not in a coma knows would fetter, if not terminate, the prospect of a Palestinian state, leaving Israel as unquestioned overlord and landlord.<\/p>\n

Two issues were pertinent: How far Israeli complaints would figure in any adjustments of the ALP platform; and how much progress would be made by delegates wishing to further sharpen the focus on Israel\u2019s conduct. A central figure on the latter matter was MP\u00a0Ed Husic<\/a>, a figure looking increasingly more talented than many of his cerebrally softened and more factionally minded colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was Husic who, having previously served as Minister for Industry and Science, was given the heave-ho as part of a political bleeding within the party when Labor was returned in May 2024, instigated by that picture of incoherent wonder, Richard Marles<\/a>. Marles may be an utter bauble of a Defence Minister, the hollow man Deputy Prime Minister, but his utter lack of gravitas, conviction and purpose suggest other strengths. Political assassination may be one of them.<\/p>\n

In his effort to focus the party\u2019s attention on Gaza at the conference, Husic wished to see the ALP go further in recognising claims of genocide in the strip made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel<\/a>. The September 2025 report<\/a> found that Israeli authorities and security forces had satisfied the elements of genocide in Gaza in killing Palestinians; causing them serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting the conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births within that group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mental state was satisfied by \u2018statements made by Israeli authorities\u2019 along with the circumstantial evidence arising from a clear \u2018pattern of conduct\u2019 that could lead to the \u2018only reasonable inference\u2019 of genocidal intent.<\/p>\n

\"Gaza<\/a><\/p>\n

In June this year, the Commission further found<\/a> that Israeli Government and security forces had \u2018deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, irreparably destroying the sanctity of childhood, including family ties, identity, innocence, safety and future\u2019. There were reasonable grounds to conclude that these were \u2018part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children\u2019.<\/p>\n

Husic\u2019s proposed resolution also sought to recognise the interim decisions of the International Court of Justice holding that Palestinians had a \u201cplausible\u201d claim to be protected from genocide, suggested that trade sanctions be imposed, that dual nationals be investigated and prosecuted for serving in the Israeli Defence Forces<\/a>, that Australian trade and defence personnel in the Tel Aviv embassy exit the country while an exchange of ambassadors with the recognised Palestinian should take place.<\/p>\n

As the conference wore on, it was clear that any measure to debate the matter would be smothered before it ever left the cot. This was a Labor conference to be managed with dampening scrupulousness. Husic would come to express<\/a> his surprise \u201cat the extraordinary amount of energy that has been applied to stop this, as opposed to talking about this, being able to have discussions and better set it out\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even initial supporters of Husic\u2019s motion in the form of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA<\/a>) turned tail when it became clear to delegates<\/a> that, were it to make it to the Conference floor, \u2018pro-Israeli forces within the ALP would have derailed it and used the ensuing debate to pull progress back even further\u2019.<\/p>\n

The orchestrated strangling of Husic\u2019s efforts (the same went for other uncomfortable topics of potential debate such as the wretched AUKUS<\/a> pact) reached its apotheosis with a cringeworthy embrace between two Victorian Federal MPs: Josh Burns<\/a>, the Jewish member for Macnamara, and the member for Calwell, Basem Abdo<\/a>, a son of Palestinian refugees.<\/p>\n

Burns thought it appropriate to talk<\/a> about a vision that has been stoutly extinguished by the country he so wishes to defend:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can stand together. We can choose empathy over outrage, dialogue over division. We can uphold [H E] Evatt\u2019s vision of two states, for two peoples living side by side with equal rights, dignity and security for every single person. Because that is the only pathway to peace that the world longs for.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These are words of rich, gamey disingenuousness, given the dedicated program of dispossession and terrorising that is taking place in the West Bank and the ongoing purgatory of suffering taking place in Gaza.<\/p>\n

For his part, Abdo spoke<\/a> about those \u201cincredibly difficult few years on what is an already difficult issue. No single motion can do justice to it. What it is is a motion of the Australian Labor Party, a party of government and a party for all Australians\u201d. Trite and blandly safe.<\/p>\n

Assessments of efforts to stave off Husic\u2019s resolution have not been that enlightening. Michelle Grattan<\/a>\u00a0wrote<\/a> with silliness that the conference had \u2018been a textbook exercise of managed democracy\u2019.<\/p>\n

Democracy should never be confused with bureaucratic dictation and spineless compliance. At least the 400 elected delegates could satisfy themselves they had not entirely succumbed to the interfering jabbering of the Israeli embassy in Canberra.<\/p>\n

Dr\u00a0Binoy Kampmark<\/a>\u00a0was a Cambridge Scholar and is a lecturer at\u00a0RMIT University<\/a>. You can follow Dr Kampmark on Twitter\u00a0@BKampmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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