Labor will formally abandon almost 40 years of explicit ideological support for Israel with a resolution expected to be passed at this month’s NSW state conference, a move that would ultimately bind Bill Shorten to an unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state should he become prime minister.
A dramatic shift in language from the NSW branch is set to force the ALP national conference to adopt the same position next year, effectively ensuring federal Labor goes to the next election with a foreign policy position of unqualified recognition for a state of Palestine.
A significant hardening in the position contained in a motion endorsed by the NSW conference foreign affairs committee, obtained by The Australian, has elevated what was previously conditional support for a Palestinian state based on a negotiated peace settlement and consultation with other countries, to a policy of categorical and immediate recognition of statehood.
A senior source close to the drafting of the motion claimed it was a “historic” move by Labor to effectively drop decades of “instinctive” support for Israel, which was cemented in 1977 with the creation of the Labor Friends of Israel.
Read the article by Simon Benson in The Australian and a separate report in The Daily Telegraph.