Labor’s tortured history on the Israeli/Arab conflict was bound to get to this point.
The internal divisions and electoral exigencies in western Sydney have been driving the post-Hawke era down this path for the best part of the last two decades.
Penny Wong has now accelerated what was probably inevitable, considering the dominance of the Labor left at a leadership level federally, and the anti-Israel influence at a state-branch level.
It therefore should come as no shock that a postmodern Labor government would eventually hint at breaking with the allies and seek to recognise Palestinian statehood before a durable peace could be achieved for a two-state solution.
The naivety of Wong’s statement is not unfairly being interpreted through a lens of domestic politics, as much it is a shift in foreign policy doctrine, and the divisions that remain within the Labor Party on this issue.
Anthony Albanese’s pre-election commitment to a ‘no shift in policy on the Middle East’ is being incrementally dismantled as Muslim politics joins forces with the woke world and the far left against a common enemy in Israel.
Albanese clearly doesn’t want that enemy to also become the ALP.
Labor has a vexed history on this issue.
In 1975, Bob Hawke as ALP President, raised the fundamental question which remains 50 years on.
In an address at the Sydney Opera House to mark the 27th anniversary of Israel’s Independence, Hawke said: “Essentially Israel is asking this question – is the world going to insist on the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign independent state or will the world increasingly succumb to an array of economic pressures, unremitting propaganda and attempts to weaken the American commitment which in combination, will leave Israel friendless and expendable?”.
Hawke’s support for Israel was unshakeable until his later years. But as union leader and prime minister it was never in doubt.
This was driven by two principles: a kinship among the union movements in Australia and Israel at the time and the defining feature of Israel’s existence – that it was the only democratic nation in the Middle East, surrounded by countries committed to its destruction.
Hawke butted heads with Gough Whitlam on this issue when Labor sought to first soften its support for Israel by announcing its “even handed approach” to the middle east in response to the oil crisis that erupted following the Yom Kippur War.
In 1977, he was instrumental in securing a reversal of a UN resolution that sought to identify Zionism as racist.
For Hawke, the commitment to Israel remained an article of faith for the Labor movement.
And this heritage remained throughout his prime ministership.
That was before the tilt. This was most pronounced in NSW in the early 2000s, although the anti-Israeli element of the branch membership and at a state Labor branch level was already becoming an almost universal position.
Bob Carr, who was ironically a former president of Labor Friends of Israel, began the quiet dismantling of Labor’s long held position, having been captured by pro-Palestinian movement and the shifting electoral politics of western Sydney.
The ideological disintegration of the once powerful and sensible NSW Right facilitated the shift from supporter of Israel to vicious enemy.
When Julia Gillard facilitated his election to the Senate and made him Foreign Minister, Carr was able to continue the ideological shift at a federal level.
Kevin Rudd was hot and cold on Israel. The Jewish lobby didn’t trust him.
But Gillard was a staunch support of Israel. In June 2012 she became the first Australian politician to sign a petition to demand a minute’s silence at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics to honour the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games.
But she was ultimately undermined by Bob Carr on this issue when she was forced to reverse her opposition to the UN vote for Palestinian observer status. Carr accused Gillard of being captured by the Israeli lobby.
Anthony Albanese has a mixed history. He campaigned heavily against the Greens’ support for the boycott and sanctions movement in his own electorate and has resisted more recent attempts to change the Labor Party platform on the Israel/Palestinian issue.
While Albanese may have sought to take a pragmatist’s view and neutralise it as a political problem for Labor in government, the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack has forced the party to once again confront its ideological contradictions and divisions.
It has exposed an inherent internal weakness on an issue of foreign policy that permeates through its factional ranks and is now being expressed through crude electoral politics with the Greens seeking to wedge Labor on this issue in inner city seats.
Wong is accused, in her push for Palestinian statehood before a two-state solution, of glaring contradictions.
There is no way Israel could accept another state alongside it which is committed to its destruction.
At a domestic level, however, Wong’s remarks will be viewed as political opportunism.
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