Right call sees Israel on the outer - Sydney Morning Herald

Illustration: John Shakespeare

Israel decisively lost the support of the Australian Labor Party last week when the party effectively overruled its leader, Julia Gillard, to stop her casting Australia's vote in support of Israel in the UN.

And the men who led Labor away from Israel on this were the same men who led Labor towards Israel a generation ago - Bob Hawke and Bob Carr.

In 1977, Carr hired Trades Hall in Sydney to launch the group Labor Friends of Israel, and invited Hawke as the guest speaker. He'd been inspired by Hawke's pamphlet ''The Case for Israel''.

Carr can still recite Hawke's three-part reasoning: Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East; it had been created by the international community through a UN resolution; and while there were 21 Arab countries in the world, there was only one home for Jews.

Hawke was inebriated when he stepped up to speak, but that did not overshadow the history of the moment - Labor's dominant Right faction was abandoning the party's traditional sympathy for the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. The Right, and hence Labor, has been rock-solid for Israel ever since.

But now the same pair has led a spontaneous upswell of Labor frustration, impatience and anger against Israel. Hawke's former foreign affairs minister, Gareth Evans, had a central role. He made a speech, wrote an essay, held a caucus briefing, all arguing the case for supporting Palestine's aspirations to be recognised as a state. And Evans enlisted Hawke in lobbying the caucus. Hawke's stance assured younger Labor MPs that it was OK for pro-Israel politicians to defy its wishes on this matter.

These grand old men of Labor are not anti-Israel. They argue that they are trying to save Israel from itself.

How so? The biggest single source of Labor frustration with Israel under its current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is its policy of continuously expanding Jewish settlements on territory claimed by the Palestinians. Hawke, Carr, and the bulk of the Labor caucus believe that Netanyahu is unreasoningly belligerent. They argue that he is sabotaging any prospect of peace.

They see Netanyahu pandering to extremists and the ultra-Orthodox, creeping towards the de facto creation of a Greater Israel that swallows up the Palestinians and their land. The ultimate effect? A permanent annexing of Palestine.

This would create two classes of citizens, and the Palestinians, voteless, would be the second class. The world would respond with accusations of ''apartheid'' and boycott Israel. It would be a pariah, a version of South Africa under apartheid. And this, they argue, is the fate from which they are trying to save Israel.

Gillard, knowing that she was heading for a full conflagration with her foreign minister at the cabinet meeting scheduled for Monday evening last week, tried to damp down the flames and contain the argument by agreeing to a pre-cabinet meeting with a small group of ministers.

She and Carr were there, with their seconds and sidekicks - including, on Gillard's side of the argument, the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, and a parliamentary secretary, Mark Dreyfus, and on Carr's side the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, and the Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese.

But the meeting, far from settling the argument, only inflamed it. Passionate argument broke out between Burke and Conroy. This was a notable moment because these ministers are both members of Gillard's praetorian guard, and both members of the Right faction, with Burke a member of the NSW Right and Conroy from the Victorian Right.

The character of last week's argument over Israel was, in part, a civil war between these two biggest blocs of the Right faction.

The NSW group was moving away from uncritical support for Israel, while the Victorian Right remained the last bastion of unconditional pro-Israel sentiment.

The argument then moved into the cabinet room. Once more, the debate was a sign of the times.

Instead of a traditional Left versus Right clash, it was chiefly an argument between the Victorian Right versus the rest of the party.

Ten ministers representing both Labor factions spoke against the Prime Minister's stated position in a long cabinet debate: Tony Burke, Chris Bowen, Bob Carr, Simon Crean, Craig Emerson, Martin Ferguson and Peter Garrett from the Right and Anthony Albanese, Mark Butler and Greg Combet from the Left.

Only two spoke in support of Gillard's position; Stephen Conroy and Bill Shorten, both from the Victorian Right.

Overriding the clear preponderance of cabinet sentiment, Gillard closed the meeting by saying that she would exercise her prerogative as leader - Australia would vote against upgrading UN recognition of Palestine from observer to ''non-member observer.''

That would have been the end of the matter except that there was a motion on the caucus agenda for the meeting set for the following day, Tuesday, in the name of the Left's Andrew Leigh. The motion called for a vote in support of Palestine. Facing a loss by a vote of the Caucus, Gillard finally capitulated. Australia would abstain, together with 40 other countries including Britain and Germany.

The Palestinians won the UN vote with the support of 138 countries, and declared that it was the ''birth certificate'' of the Palestinian state. Only nine opposed - Israel, the US, Canada, Czech Republic, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Panama.

The uprising that Julia Gillard faced was remarkable for three reasons. First was its composition - across both factions, and both leadership camps, pro-Gillard and anti-Gillard.

Second was its sheer force. The Labor caucus was prepared to humiliate its prime minister, if necessary, on the issue. Third was its political combativeness. Labor's decision broke Australia's bipartisan tradition on Israel.

As Labor ended its unconditional support for Israel, Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop reaffirmed that of the Liberal Party.

The day after the UN vote, Israel angered and upset its friends and enemies alike in the ALP by announcing that it was approving more settlements, the construction of 3000 new homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This settlement would divide the Palestinians' centres of Ramallah and Bethlehem from East Jerusalem. If enacted, this would frustrate the Palestinians' effort to create a viable, contiguous state. The two-state solution would be, for all practical purposes, dead.

One Gillard cabinet minister said that he read the news feeling very disappointed and slightly sick. Another said that Netanyahu's announcement vindicated the Australian decision to step back from its policy of Israel right or wrong. Because on this, Israel was surely wrong.

Peter Hartcher is the international editor.