The ALP has for the first time recognised the state of Palestine in its national platform, despite strong opposition from sections of the party’s Right faction.
At the ALP conference on Tuesday, the party also ramped up its rhetoric against China’s oppression of Uighurs in its Xinjiang region but stopped short of branding their treatment as “genocide”, at the insistence of opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong.
Senator Wong successfully moved the amendment to the ALP’s platform on Palestine, which urged a two-state solution but also called on the next Labor government “to recognise Palestine as a state”.
The amendment calls for the Palestinian statehood to “be an important priority” for Labor if it wins the next election.
Senator Wong insisted the position replicated that of the 2018 ALP National Conference, but in 2018 party support for Palestinian statehood was not incorporated into the national platform.
Former federal MP Michael Danby, an influential pro-Israeli voice in the party, was prevented from speaking on the proposed resolution at the online conference.
He said the ALP had adopted former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for “unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state but also his Stalinist methods by suppressing debate on the foreign policy motions”.
Read the article by Ben Packham in The Australian.