Labor’s Middle East policy is fracturing as parliamentarians, party members and elders believe the peace process has failed because of Israeli provocation and intransigence, and it is time to recognise a Palestinian state.
Former Labor foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Bob Carr have added their support to Bob Hawke’s call for Australia to join 137 other countries and grant diplomatic recognition to Palestine. Their decision to go public places Bill Shorten in a difficult position ahead of a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Australia next week.
“I have long been totally persuaded by the argument that Israel cannot be simultaneously a Jewish state, a democratic state, and a state occupying the whole of biblical Judea and Samaria,” Mr Evans said.
“The demographic reality is that, sooner or later, however many new immigrants arrived in Israel, within those broader boundaries Jews will eventually be outnumbered by Palestinians, and if democracy is to prevail, Israel will lose its Jewish identity.
“If it is to maintain that identity — which … it should — the only alternative to recognising a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is to become an apartheid state.
“That logic is as compelling today as it was a generation ago, and it remains a tragedy that successive Israeli and Arab leaders, and those outside the region who have tried to move them, have so far proved unable or willing to translate it into a just and sustainable settlement.”
Read the full article by Troy Bramston in The Australian (subscription required).