Two of the bigger issues to be discussed at the Australian Labor Party’s upcoming national conference will be AUKUS (the security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Australian recognition of Palestine. I wonder how our local ACT ALP delegates will vote. I hope in support of the first, and no (or at least, not yet) to the second.
One is of crucial importance to Australia: AUKUS. The Prime Minister has gained a lot of well-deserved kudos for supporting AUKUS to the hilt so far. It would be a great shame, not to mention be very damaging for Australia, to see him rolled by naïve, anti-Western, hard left ALP members on this issue.
Another, more emotional issue is the strong support many sections of the ALP are now giving to anything anti-Israel and their desire to have Australia recognise a Palestinian state.
I can remember in 1998 representing the ACT Government at an event at Parliament House celebrating 50 years of Israel’s independence. The then-Opposition leader, Jon Stanhope, also attended, and I recall clearly a long talk Jon and I had with his old boss, the best Labor PM we never had, Kim Beazley, a firm supporter of Israel and the Western alliance. The next day in the ACT Assembly, I made a speech supporting Israel’s right to exist within secure and internationally recognised boundaries. Jon graciously supported me in his speech following mine.
The ALP has a proud history of supporting the Jewish state, still the only real democracy in the Middle East. Australia voted for partition, and Australia was one of the first countries to recognise the new state of Israel after the British left in May 1948. There has been a consistent bipartisan policy by the Liberal National Party and the ALP to support Israel. The current position is to support a two-state solution, but recognition of Palestine is conditional on the Palestinian Authority entering into direct negotiation with Israel, and recognising Israel’s right to exist. This has not yet occurred.
As a democracy, Israel is the only state in the Middle East to fully support women’s rights and the rights of gay, lesbian, and non-binary people. It has Pride marches. Its neighbours have harsh laws – including the death penalty for practicing gay people. Recently, a young gay Arab man, given asylum in Israel, was kidnapped by Arab terrorists and beheaded. One wonders how the left wing of the ALP can ignore these facts, yet condemn the only truly free society in the Middle East. How can they recognise, at this stage, a non-existent “state” that still wants to destroy Israel?
Over the last few years, there has been a rise of anti-Semitism in the West. I hear stories of anti-Semitism on our university campuses. Anti-Semitism is the oldest, most historically prevalent, vile form of racist / anti-religious behaviour in the world. In recent memory, Hitler’s Nazi Germany tried to exterminate the whole Jewish population.
I hope our local ALP delegates think very carefully and bear this in mind before supporting a Palestinian state at this time.
