Discussion at the “The Palestinian Catastrophe” public meeting on September 5 was lively, and participants and speakers agreed that Labor needed to step up support for Palestine.
The meeting, presented by Conversation at the Crossroads in association with the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney, attracted 400 attendees in person and on line.
Bob Carr, a former Labor foreign minister and NSW premier, was joined by Sophie McNeill, former researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW) and journalist for the ABC and Rawan Arraf, a Palestinian-Australian lawyer and executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice.
Carr started by recalling when Palestinian representative Hanan Ashrawi, in the early 2000s, was banned from speaking there. The University caved under pressure from the Zionist lobby. “The Israel lobby aims to bully and intimidate pro-Palestinian voices.”
Carr spoke on the themes of occupation, settlement and Apartheid. Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is a “cruel mistreatment aimed at excluding the Palestinian people”, he said.
“Settlement of the West Bank is the creeping annexation of Palestinian land … Some 1800 Israeli military orders govern Palestinians in the West Bank. This is Apartheid.”
McNeill started by saying Israeli forces have “killed more Palestinians in the West Bank this year than ever before,” adding “this includes many children”.
Read the report by Jim McIlroy in Green Left.