Motions

Palestinian Conflict

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. C Bonaros:

That this council—

1. Condemns the loss of 242 Palestinian lives, including 66 children, during the recent 11-day bombardment by Israel of heavily populated Gaza;

2. Condemns the loss of 12 lives, including two children, due to Hamas rocket fire in Israel;

3. Welcomes the announcement of a ceasefire on 21 May 2021;

4. Calls for an immediate halt to illegal settler expansion in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem;

5. Recognises the right of the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty and the right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced;

6. Notes the recent Human Rights Watch report entitled ‘A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution’;

7. Calls upon the federal government to assist with the immediate delivery of critical humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, particularly those living in Gaza; and

8. Calls upon the federal government to advocate for equal rights for Palestinian and Israeli people.

(Continued from 26 May 2021.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (18:18): I rise to speak to this motion. I understand there will be a slight amendment from the Hon. Connie Bonaros, and I note that with that amendment I can indicate that Labor will be supporting the honourable member's motion. I note that amendments from the government landed on our tables today, I think, which we will not be supporting. We will be supporting the motion as it will be put with the amendment from the Hon. Connie Bonaros.

This is an important motion. We see motions on this topic come up from time to time in various forms, including before the parliament. I think many political parties debate issues to do with conflict in the Middle East, and these chambers do also. I think two or three years ago the member for Light, Tony Piccolo, in the other place had a motion that was not too dissimilar to the one the Hon. Connie Bonaros is putting forward.

The loss of life in this area of the world is tragic. It is truly devastating to hear of further losses in civilian life in Palestine during a recent 11-day bombardment of the heavily populated Gaza Strip. I wish to express my deepest condolences to the 242 Palestinians who lost their lives, including 66 children, and I also wish to condemn the loss of 12 lives, including two children, as a result of Hamas rocket fire in Israel. We all recognise the tragedy of civilian loss of life, particularly those of children, and the damage that is caused by severe limitations on human rights. People all around the world, including those in Palestine, deserve to be able to chart their own course in history.

Any breach of international humanitarian law or human rights should be condemned and I am sure the vast majority of people living in Israel, in the Palestinian territories and in Australia simply want to see peace and prosperity in the region. I echo the call from the Hon. Connie Bonaros for our federal government to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, particularly those living in Gaza, and to advocate for equal rights for Palestinian and Israeli people to prevent further loss of civilian life.

The late Bob Hawke, a former Labor leader and prime minister, felt very strongly about conflict in the Middle East. While Bob Hawke once held strong pro Israeli views his position shifted over the years in support for the recognition of a Palestinian state. In 2017, Bob Hawke said:

I am well known as a long-time supporter of the right of Israel to exist as a state behind secure and recognised borders—nothing has changed in that respect. What has changed is the sentiment [in the] Israeli political leadership.

I will always remember my meeting immediately after the end of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 with its then Prime Minister Golda Meir. I listened with admiration and in total agreement as this wonderful woman, still traumatised with grief, looked into my eyes and said there could be no peace for Israel until there was an honourable settlement of the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

[She] was absolutely right and her words have a particular resonance—and invoke a special responsibility—for Australia. It was our great Foreign Minister, Dr HV Evatt who chaired the UN Special Committee on Palestine and it was the Resolution of that Committee that authorised the partition of Palestine into two states.

Bob Carr, the former NSW Premier and federal Labor foreign minister, expressed similar views. In 2017, Bob Carr said:

We must balance our just recognition of Israel with the equally just recognition of Palestine.

The World Bank and IMF say the Palestinians are ready to govern themselves. And Hawke and Rudd and Gareth Evans recommend it.

In 2017, Bob Carr led a successful campaign for NSW Labor to recognise Palestine. Similar motions have been passed on a number of occasions by the South Australian Labor Party at their state conventions.

The concept of a Palestinian state evokes different responses and sometimes, as in the case with Bob Hawke, ones that change over time but the critical and practical issue of borders between Israel and Palestine remain unresolved. In June 2020, Al Jazeera reported a quite concise history of the issues to do with borders in the Palestinian state, which I will not talk about in great detail but it is certainly a good summary of the May 1948 British mandate that triggered the first Arab-Israeli war, fighting that continued until January 1949 when an armistice agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

The 1949 Armistice Line, also known as the Green Line, was at the time the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank. The Green Line is also referred to as the pre-1967 border before Israeli occupation of the remaining Palestinian territories during the 1967 war where Israel occupied all of the historic Palestinian territories and expelled further Palestinians from their homes.

What we have seen then is the Palestinian territories further decrease as Israeli settlements are built on Palestinian land. There is estimated to be between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers living in at least 250 settlements, thought to be comprised of about 130 official and 120 unofficial in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are regarded as illegal under international law, violating the fourth Geneva Convention. In addition, since 2002 a wall has been constructed that now stretches for some 700 kilometres and there are in excess of 700 road obstacles across the West Bank, including 140 checkpoints.

The Al Jazeera report further talked about the restrictions on movement: about 70,000 Palestinians with Israeli work permits needing to cross checkpoints each day. It went on further to estimate that there are 1.5 million Palestinian refugees living in 58 official UN camps located throughout Palestine and neighbouring countries. It reported that in total there are more than five million registered Palestinian refugees, mostly living outside these camps. The plight of Palestinian refugees is perhaps the longest unresolved refugee problem in the world, the Al Jazeera report went on to say.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory publishes a range of material about the occupied territories. One update from 2017 noted that, of the approximately five million Palestinians in the occupied territories, 43 per cent were considered to be refugees, food insecurity was running at 43 per cent and unemployment was 41 per cent in the Gaza Strip and more than 20 per cent in the West Bank. These are daunting figures, all before COVID. The same UN publication refers to just 3 per cent of piped water in these territories being fit for human consumption.

I think it is helpful, too, in considering this, to consider some of the good work that is happening in South Australia. With that, I seek leave to conclude my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.