State Conference motions – Apartheid, Settlement Expansion, Human Rights
To all supporters of Palestine in the Australian Labor Party:
- Motions to State Conference are due at head office by 4pm July 14.
- The attached articles provide material that might be relevant in forwarding motions from branches and unions to the conference that deal with Palestine and a two state solution.
- This is an opportunity to welcome the decision of the National ALP Conference to include in the party platform support for recognition of Palestine, the second party conference to make this commitment.
- It’s an opportunity also to highlight continued settlement expansion. The Sydney Morning Herald article attached confirms Israeli authorities approved or advanced construction of more than 12,000 settlement homes in 2020. Prime Minister Netanyahu approved the construction of 800 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank just before President Biden’s January inauguration.
- Human Rights Watch says there is an overarching Israeli government policy to maintain domination by Jewish Israelis and “grave abuses” against Palestinian living in the occupied territories. (See articles).
- Australia should support the work of the International Criminal Court in investigating human rights abuses by the Israeli government directed against the occupied Palestinian population.
- We should note that Human Rights Watch for the first time has used the word Apartheid to describe Israeli persecution of Palestinians with a report saying the country had crossed a vital threshold in this respect.
- Human Rights Watch has argued that Israeli behaviour fits the legal definition of the term under the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute.
- There is a strong case for the next Labor government being urged to work with like-minded countries to discourage further expansion of Israeli settlements by banning trade and financial dealings with settlements and seeing that all settlement products are marked as products of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and not marked as produce of Israel.
- Carried last night at Kogarah SEC to go to September ALP conference: Noting the continued spread of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land including 12000 settlement homes in 2020, as a deliberate strategy of the Netanyahu government, Conference calls on the next Labor government to work with the European Union and the like-minded governments to apply bans to products produced in Israeli settlements, any investment or finance associated with settlements, given that all settlements are illegal at law and a barrier to a two State solution.
