Anger over former premier Bob Carr’s ‘apartheid’ email to Labor members

Former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr has sent an explosive email to Labor members asking them to drum up support for Palestine.

Bob Carr may have ended his career as foreign minister eight years ago, but that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for making policy on the world stage.

The Daily Telegraph has sighted an email sent by the former NSW premier from his personal account to “all supporters of Palestine the Australian Labor Party” last Wednesday which carried the subject line “State Conference Motions” and opened with the words “APARTHEID … SETTLEMENT EXPANSION … HUMAN RIGHTS.”

In the email, which has outraged members of the Jewish community and other supporters of the state of Israel, Mr Carr called on recipients to submit motions to the upcoming state ALP conference condemning the behaviour of the Jewish state and backing the Palestinian cause.

Former NSW Premier Bob Carr has written an email backing Palestine. Picture: James Croucher

Mr Carr’s email also noted a motion passed by Labor’s Kogarah branch calling on the next federal 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.”

“Australia should support the work of the International Criminal Court in investigating human rights abuses by the Israeli government,” the email added.

The intervention comes a decade after the then-Marrickville Council’s attempt to support the BDS movement, and represents a dramatic turnaround for Mr Carr, who in 1977 co-founded Labor Friends of Israel with Bob Hawke.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff told The Daily Telegraph, “calling for a boycott contradicts the Labor Party’s longstanding policy of rejecting the (BDS) campaign against Israel as anti-Semitic.

Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr with his wife Helena with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke and his wife Blanche D'Alpuget. Mr Carr and Mr Hawke founded Labor Friends of Israel in 1977.

“Party leader Anthony Albanese has described boycotting Israel as `beyond the pale’ and `counter-productive self-indulgence’,” said Mr Alhadeff.

“And boycotting goods from the West Bank will jeopardise the livelihoods of the approximately 50,000 Palestinians who are employed in Israeli industries on the same pay and conditions as Israeli workers.”

“It’s also relevant that Human Rights Watch is not a credible organisation on Israel-Palestine matters, and its description of Israel as an apartheid state is a baseless slur which trivialises the evils of the apartheid regime and those who suffered under it.”

Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights lawyer and Israel Affairs Director for the Zionist Council of New South Wales, said, “It is high time that the Labor Party, both Federal and State, reign Carr in, or otherwise this continued visceral obsession with Israel and unjust singling out of the Jewish state for opprobrium, risks severely harming the traditional bi-partisan support of Israel in Australia and Labor Party’s standing in the Jewish community.”

New apartment buildings are pictured under construction in the Beit El settlement in the occupied West Bank. Picture: Menahem Kenaha/AFP

At its Special Platform Conference earlier this year, the federal ALP made recognition of a Palestinian state an “important priority” in its platform, despite the opposition of delegates such as former MP Michael Danby, who said he was gagged from speaking in opposition to the motion.

Mr Carr told The Daily Telegraph that his position was consistent with Australian policy, and defended his use of the term “apartheid”.

“All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. That’s the position Australia took in UN votes under the Rudd and Gillard governments,” he said.

“Millions of Palestinians live under Israeli sovereignty on the occupied West Bank yet lack the civil rights including voting rights that Jewish citizens living on the West Bank enjoy. You have apartheid by definition.”

Originally published as Anger over former premier Bob Carr’s ‘apartheid’ email to Labor members