ALP resolution: AIJAC has its say

July 26, 2015 by J-Wire News Service
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The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s chairman Mark Leibler and executive director Dr Colin Rubenstein have  issued a statement on the ALP Middle East resolution.

Mark Leibler

Mark Leibler

Their statement reads:  “While there are aspects in the Middle East resolution adopted at the ALP conference today that can be welcomed, its general tenor and threat to support unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State under a future Labor Government are disappointing. This approach is likely to undermine, rather than constructively encourage, progress toward a negotiated, durable two-state resolution that remains the bipartisan consensus in Australia.

On the positive side are the calls for direct negotiations between the parties towards a two state outcome, for the end of rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel from Gaza, rejection of the BDS strategy, and call for demilitarisation of any Palestinian entity. Also welcome was the important recognition that any genuine two-state peace must be based on the formula of ‘two states for two peoples,'” Dr. Rubenstein added.

Dr Colin Rubenstein

Dr Colin Rubenstein

Yet one-sided, problematic claims that all settlements are ‘illegal’ and Jerusalem ‘occupied’, and the false assertion that Prime Minister Netanyahu has permanently ruled out a Palestinian state when he has made clear repeatedly that he still seeks such an outcome, are very counter-productive toward achieving peace, especially at a time when the Palestinian side is declining to even negotiate directly with Israel. This is even more true of the threat that, if there is no progress in Palestinian/ Israeli negotiations, a future Labor government will discuss the timelines and conditions for the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. There are few international diplomatic moves more likely to discourage a Palestinian return to serious and sustained negotiations than a promise that if negotiations fail, they will be given unilateral recognition anyway,” Dr. Rubenstein added.

“We trust that, despite these unhelpful shortcomings in the resolution, Labor Party leader Bill Shorten and his parliamentary colleagues will be still able to pursue a genuinely constructive approach, recognising some of the real obstacles to a final lasting peace which this resolution ignored – such as continued Palestinian incitement toward violence against Israel and Jews and the continued control of half the Palestinian polity by Hamas, with its rejectionism and unchanged genocidal ambitions. Such realism – as opposed to the ideology and prejudice which shaped elements of this resolution – remains the only way that Australia can continue to try to contribute to the viable, two state-outcome that rightly remains the goal of all Australia’s major political parties,” Mark Leibler concluded.

Comments

4 Responses to “ALP resolution: AIJAC has its say”
  1. Eleonora Mostert says:

    Personally I’m sick to death of every nation interfering with Israel’s right to rule themselves. Yet the world interferes continuously and makes the situation worse.They don’t listen or read the facts. As for the Labor Party and the Greens they’re bigots, hypocrites of the worst kind. No one in their right mind would or should trust their leader.

  2. Eion Isaac Israel says:

    A land swap is agreed to even if the Conference regards the settlements as illegal.In fact the Settlements with 500,000 Jews reveal there was enough room for all the Jews of eEurope to have had refugee in British Mandated Palestine and that the Genocide of six million Jews could have been
    Prevented .A Jewish Arab confederation on Socialist Principles with Human Rights and Democracy the Socialist Confederation established iver time .But no Islam took
    a Fascistic Line of Jewish Minority in the Dhimmi Apartheid .
    Therefore the Jews deserve full compensation for their Losses Political Territorial and Economic .
    Inter nationalistic Humanism demands equal rights for all Palestinian Arabs who have the capacity to live in peace with their Jewish neighbours .
    The Jews being the Minority in the area have to have Security behind defensible borders .

  3. Otto Waldmann says:

    There is a strong – actually unbearable – whiff of ALP loyalty ahead of genuine Jewish commitments in the AIJAC analysis. It is as if a certain Ms Wendy Turner never took the floor, flooring thus a realistic, balanced stance a major Australian political party was expected to display. While the “Turner line” has not been adopted entirely, ALP is still showing strong emotional affection for the palestinian cause well ahead of what us, Zionists would have liked.
    My only consolation is that ALP’s electoral fortunes are far from being rosy, in spite of some( completely irrational ) optimistic comments, considering a rebound of its leader’s chances.

    Same comment as on AIJAC goes 100% for ECAJ.
    These guys are not even crypto-Labor men, anyway…

  4. Leon Poddebsky says:

    Among the sins of the ALP is their fraudulent misrepresentation of Yitzhak Rabin, who declared in the Knesset on 5 October 1995 that Israel will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines; that most of the territory of the British Mandate would remain part of the State of Israel and that the Palestinian Arab political entity would be “less than a state.” [sic]

    The ALP’s lust for a third Palestinian state [additional to Gaza and Jordan] is driven by their conviction that such a militarised state would, like Hamastan in Gaza, constitute yet another weapon in the Arab struggle for the phased extinction of Jewish national self-determination.

    For any ALP member to invoke Yitzhak Rabin is an affront to the latter’s memory.

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