Bob Carr targets Israel again
Former NSW Premier and former Minister for Foreign Affairs Bob Carr has sent an email to “to all supporters of Palestine in the Australian Labor Party”.
Bob Carr addresses pro-Palestinian supporters at last year’s Labor NSW conference
The email was sent on the 28th of April and was picked up The Daily Telegraph.
The email reads:
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.
In friendlier days. Peter Wertheim ECAJ, Danny Lamm ECAJ, Bob Carr, Colin Rubenstein AIJAC, Philip Chester ZFA, Jeremy Jones AIJAC in 2012
NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel deputy chair and State Labor Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord told J-Wire: “I wholeheartedly support a two-State solution, but I vehemently oppose any moves towards boycotting Israel.
The NSW ALP platform should concentrate on education, health, housing, COVID, reconciliation, the economy, workers and jobs.”
Bob Carr presents The Sydney Prize to Hanan Ashrawi in 2005 Photo: Henry Benjamin
Finally, it is a matter of public record that I was Director of Communications for Mr Carr when he was premier from 1995 to 2005 – but we have different views on foreign policy.”
Arsen Ostrovsky is an international human rights lawyer and Israel Affairs Director for the Zionist Council of New South Wales.
He said: “Bob Carr seems to have a rather unhealthy obsession with Israel, dominated by his irrational hatred of the Jewish state and willingness to be a pawn of the Palestinian propaganda machine.
Israel is a vibrant democracy and an important ally of Australia. 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.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies President Lesli Berger commented: “Calling for a boycott contradicts the Labor Party’s longstanding policy of rejecting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel as antisemitic. Party leader Anthony Albanese has described boycotting Israel as `beyond the pale’ and `counter-productive self-indulgence’. 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.
But perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of this latest push is that it will do nothing to advance a state of Palestine – to which Israel has been committed for three decades. The call for BDS is completely unwarranted, and for good reason is not and should not become part of ALP policy.”
Michael Danby is a former Labor MP who was denied the opportunity to talk at the NSW Labor conference. He told J-Wire: “This is Corbyn style Labor. Add the twist of Beijing’s most odious advocate in Australia attempting to divert attention from China’s concentration camps in Xinjiang & its aggression against Hong Kong & Taiwan.”
Michael Danby added: “Ironic that Carr whinges about the Palestinians not having a vote on the very day PA boss Abbas cancels the Palestinian elections.”
The Corbynisation of the Australian Labor Party is obvious: the same lies, the same Stalinist style, the same satanic hatred.
July 27/2020, Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif Qanou sent the following message to Western donors:”Hamas remains committed to the project of resistance and is preparing itself for the liberation of all Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. We will not make any concession and we will not give up one inch of the land of Palestine, not even in return for billions of dollars or all the treasures of the world.”
The Palestinian “Right to return” is really about destroying Israel! But you, Mr. Bob Carr would know that or wouldn’t you?
You don’t speak Hebrew nor Arabic, have never lived in Israel yet you pass judgement without understanding any of the REAL issues or the actual people. Your narrative is rehashed propaganda and lies and your foregone conclusions are reached without a shred of evidence or facts on the ground.
If your concern about the internal politics of Israel comes from the ‘goodness of your bleeding heart’
What is your stance about REAL ISSUES such as the mass murder of Christians in muslim countries, such as Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen….?
What are your actions concerning the Uighurs in NWChina? What declaration do you suggest in regards to infringements and casualties on say the Indian/Pakistan border? Will you make any declaration about the Yassidis and their plights at the hand of Turkey? Do you have planed suggestions about eventual two state or three state solutions for those regions..?
Israel is 0.01% of the worlds surface, less then Tasmania! with a population of 9 MILLION ( Including 3 MILLION NON JEWS>> So NOT Apartheid at all!!)
There are 56 Muslim countries, yet that tiny Jewish country located some 23 flight hours away is the recipient of your compulsive very Ill-informed obsession.
Why is that, we may ask.. But here it is Mr Carr, we know !We know the signs, we know the language and have learned to smell people like you throughout the generations… SHAME ON YOU!
Bob Carr is exposing himself big time with this nasty list of recommendations. (He has never been ‘friendly’ with the Australian Jewish organisations or people, as caption beneath the picture maintains – always two-faced in his dealings.) He would have the Jewish State dismantled and all supporters of Israel ignored or silenced. It is indeed an unhealthy obsession he exhibits.
Carr has nothing better to do with his time now that he holds no position in government and like other Labor politicians who support the Palestinians with unbridled energy, he will continue to be a troublemaker, unreasonable and unfair in his demands.
The rhetoric spouted automatically about the two-state solution and a State of Palestine to be recognised is a default position taken by many, almost automatically, in order to push for the kind of extreme motions Carr urges Labor members to submit by July 14. It’s tired rhetoric that is no longer relevant to the reality of the situation.
Carr must be called out over this. And I urge our Jewish leaders to go on the attack.