Motion 1
That this branch write to Federal Parliamentary Leader Bill Shorten, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Tanya Plibersek, the National ALP Secretary and the State ALP Secretary to urge the next Labor government immediately recognise the state of Palestine.
This resolution is a response to the constant spread of Israeli settlements designed to block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Motion 2
That this branch calls on Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek to announce that Australia will join the 138 nations that recognise the state of Palestine.
That this motion be forwarded to the ALP National Secretary for consideration at next year’s National ALP Conference, and to Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek.
Motion 3
That the following motion be conveyed to Federal Parliamentary Leader Bill Shorten and Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek as well as to the National ALP and State ALP Secretaries:
That in view of the refusal of the Israeli government to agree to a two state solution as confirmed by the expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Australia should join the majority of the world’s nations in recognising the state of Palestine.
A majority of the Israeli cabinet is now opposed to a Palestinian state. There is no alternative to Australia unilaterally recognising the state of Palestine.
Motion 4
Recognising that 2.5 million Arabs on the West Bank will be indefinitely ruled by the state of Israel unless there is a Palestinian state, this branch urges Bill Shorten to state clearly that the next Labor government will recognise Palestine.
This motion to be forwarded to Bill Shorten, Tanya Plibersek and to the National ALP Secretary.
Motion 5
This branch recognises:
• a majority of the Israeli cabinet now oppose a Palestinian state;
• Israel has continually sabotaged peace talks sponsored by America by announcing more Israeli settlements;
• that Israeli settlements are designed to prevent a Palestinian state ever being established; and
• that 138 nations out of 193 already recognise Palestine as a nation state.
This branch urges the Federal Parliamentary Leader and the Foreign Policy Spokesman to speak out in support of the NSW Conference policy in favour of recognition of a Palestinian state.
Background Notes
Israeli settlements are blocking a Palestinian state:
• Rate of settler growth: Approx 5% a year.
(Tovah Lazaroff, “2012 settler population grew almost three times as fast as national rate”, September 17, 2013, The Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/National-News/2012-West-Bank-settler-population-growing-almost-three-times-as-fast-as-national-rate-326309; U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2007 http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/TheHumanitarianImpactOfIsraeliInfrastructureTheWestBank_full.pdf)
• Percentage of the West Bank occupied by Israel: Approx. 40% occupied by Israeli infrastructure.
(U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2007 http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/TheHumanitarianImpactOfIsraeliInfrastructureTheWestBank_full.pdf)
• Israel doubled West Bank settlement construction in 2013.
(Eliana Dockterman, “Israel doubled West Bank settlement construction in 2013”, March 3, 2014, Time http://time.com/11458/israel-doubled-west-bank-settlement-construction-in-2013/)
• Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel sees 50% more settlers in the West Bank by 2019: "I think that in five years there will be 550,000 or 600,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, rather than 400,000 (now),"
(Dan Williams, “Israeli minister sees 50 percent more settlers in West Bank by 2019”, May 6, 2014, Reuters http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA4F0AD20140516?irpc=932)
• John Lyons, correspondent for The Australian reported on Four Corners that in the 1970s Daniella Weiss would regularly meet Ariel Sharon, then minister for agriculture, to plan settlements so no Palestinian state could emerge.
(John Lyons, “Stone Cold Justice”, February 10, 2014, Four Corners, ABC http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/02/10/3939266.htm)
• The Economist: “If Israel continues to build settlements in the occupied territory, it will gobble up land that would belong to an independent Palestinian state, making peace harder to reach.”
(“Winning the battle, losing the war”, August 2, 2014, The Economist http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610264-all-its-military-might-israel-faces-grim-future-unless-it-can-secure-peace-winning)
Apartheid:
• “On average 700 Palestinian children appear before Israel’s Military Court a year” because 2.5 million Palestinians are subject to a different set of laws from those that apply to Israelis.
(John Lyons, Sylvie Le Clezio and Janine Cohen, “Israel acknowledges need for change following criticism of arrests of Palestinian children in West Bank”, February 8, 2014, ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-08/four-corners-israel-palestinian-children-west-bank/5246832)
• “More important is the unequal sharing between Israel and Palestine of the aquifers below the West Bank. Average per capita water use by Israeli settlers on the West Bank is some nine times higher than by Palestinians.sharing many of the same water sources.”
(UN Human Development Report 2006 http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/267/hdr06-complete.pdf)
• Ehud Barak: “If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic….If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.”
(“Ehud Barak breaks the apartheid barrier”, February 15, 2010, The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/02/israel_demography_democracy_or_apartheid; Dalia Hatuqa and Gregg Carlstrom, “Apartheid analogy common among Israel’s left”, April 29, 2014, Al Jazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/04/apartheid-analogy-common-among-israel-left-2014428154556732726.html)
• Ehud Olmert: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.
(Barak Ravid, David Landau, Aluf Benn and Shmuel Rosner, “Olmert to Haaretz: Two-state solution, or Israel is done”, November 29, 2007, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/news/olmert-to-haaretz-two-state-solution-or-israel-is-done-for-1.234201)
• John Kerry: “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan.
(Kerry’s remarks to the Trilateral Commission in Josh Rogin, “Exclusive: Kerry Warns Israel could become ‘an apartheid state”, April 27, 2014, The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/27/exclusive-kerry-warns-israel-could-become-an-apartheid-state.html)
Two state solution at risk:
• About 58% of Israeli ministers are against the two state solution
• 11 ministers against, 7 deputy ministers against; 10 ministers for, 1 deputy minister for; two ministers unknown.
• Obama says USA can't manage fallout for Israel: “If you see no peace deal, and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time -- if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous, sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited,”
(Terry Atlas, “Obama urges Netanyahu to make peace now to avert fallout”, March 3, 2014, Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-02/obama-urges-netanyahu-to-make-peace-now-to-avert-fallout.html)
• Obama says Israeli settlement building not constructive to peace: "I've been clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leadership that ... we do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace,"
(“Obama: Israel settlement building is not constructive to peace”, March 21, 2013, Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/21/us-israel-palestinians-obama-settlements-idUSBRE92K0H820130321)
What the Palestinians have offered:
• President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said earlier this year he would accept demilitarisation of a Palestinian state and the presence of a US-led NATO force on the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
(Jodi Rudoren, “Palestinian leader seeks NATO force in future state”, February 2, 2014, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/world/middleeast/palestinian-leader-seeks-nato-force-in-future-state.html?_r=0
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