Israel’s Embassy in Canberra on Tuesday criticized a draft of the National Platform of Australia’s ruling Labor Party, calling it one-sided and saying it risked “placing responsibility for the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict on one party.”
The National Platform draft, first released to party delegates in early July but whose contents were only publicly reported this week, reaffirms Labor’s recognition of a Palestinian state, demands an end to “illegal settlement activity and the occupation” and supports the International Criminal Court, which in 2024 issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
It also expresses opposition to any Israeli annexation in what it terms “Palestinian territory” and urges Australia’s leadership to block support to settlement activity and “extremist settler violence,” calling for sanctions if necessary.
The draft was released ahead of the Labor Party’s 50th national conference, to be held at Adelaide Convention Centre, July 23-25.
The Israeli embassy, in an unusual move, issued a lengthy takedown of the platform, saying it placed the onus for the conflict on Israel while “giving insufficient attention” to the choices and conduct of the Palestinian leadership, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
“The root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in our neighbors’ refusal to accept the existence of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, in any borders,” the embassy said.
Israel has many times tried the “land for peace” paradigm, withdrawing from territories only to have them become bases of terror, it said, listing numerous examples.
Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza led to a Hamas takeover of the Strip and the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the embassy said. Hamas’s refusal to disarm and its continued commitment to violence demonstrate that territorial concessions without fundamental Palestinian reform and credible security guarantees will not deliver peace, it continued.
“Those seeking peace would be better served to focus its scrutiny on the terrorism experienced by both Jewish and Arab Israelis at the hands of terrorist groups such as Hamas,” the embassy added.
The embassy underscored Jewish historical rights to the Land of Israel. Describing the Jewish people as “indigenous,” it said that “the Bible is a testimony to this, archaeological findings prove this, and many works of literature uphold this fact.”
Addressing the Labor Party’s fixation on “settler violence,” the embassy said the matter is a “marginal phenomenon,” which Israel condemns but which is blown out of proportion by the United Nations and others who rely on phony statistics. “For instance, Palestinians killed or injured while carrying out attacks against Israelis are counted as victims of ‘settler violence,’” it said.
In contrast, the number of Palestinian attacks on Israelis is far higher and not condemned by the Palestinian Authority.
Even as Israel continues to be attacked, countries such as Australia choose to recognize a “State of Palestine,” the embassy said, adding that such unilateral actions only push the sides further apart. “Recognition in the absence of genuine reform strengthens the radicals, is perceived as a reward for terrorism, and sends a message that terrorism and intransigence pay off,” the embassy argued.
In response to the platform’s support for the ICC, the embassy pointed out that Israel isn’t a party to the Rome Statute, which established the court, and isn’t under its jurisdiction. It called the arrest warrants “legally unfounded” and “a mockery of international criminal law.”
It also noted that the arrest warrants have been further called into question by the suspension for sexual misconduct of ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, suspected of issuing the warrants to distract from the complaints against him.
The embassy suggested lasting peace should be conditioned on the recognition of Israel’s historic rights to the land, the end of Palestinian terrorism and the dismantlement of Hamas.
It expressed its willingness to engage in open dialogue with the Labor Party and Australian government but warned that “unilateral political declarations or international pressure” directed at one side would not bring the hoped-for result.
