http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/palestine-the-unending-conflict-part-2-writes-george-peters/36059

If this is the policy of the Labour Party I call on Michael Danby to resign from the Party and stand as an independent.

Successive Israeli Governments, Labour and Likud, have consistently maintained that the Fourth Geneva convention does not apply to the disputed territories as these lands form part of the original Palestine Mandate to which the Jewish National Home provision still applies. Until now, the Australian Government have maintained neutrality towards this stance, but now it appears Bob Carr has guided Australia towards officially adopting a false Palestinian narrative.

The Australian Jewish community must challenge Mr Carr quote the Article in International Law that prohibits Israel of settling in the so called “West Bank”. The 1946 Fourth Geneva Convention states “The present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.” The conditions of “armed conflict” between “two or more of the High Contracting Parties”, as set forth in the article, are fulfilled in that there was a war between two signatories, Israel and Jordan. However, the so called West Bank was never part of Jordan, and Jordan was never was a High Contracting Party. So, what is this territory at all? The so called West Bank is a residual part of the Mandate for Palestine intended to be part of the Jewish State, as reaffirmed by Article 80 of the UN Charter.

Declaring that Israeli settlements in the so called West Bank are illegal under International law, by citing the Geneva convention is a complete bastardisation of history and a blight on our foreign ministry.