The comment by Foreign Minister Penny Wong that a “secure and prosperous future” for Israelis and Palestinians could only come with a “two-state solution” is a crass domestic political statement.
Not only does the announcement break the long-standing bipartisan position for a two-state solution in the Middle East, it fails to establish the necessary preconditions for the recognition of Palestine.
This tragic saga started with the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of 1,139 people in southern Israel. Some 240-250 innocent civilians were taken as hostages, some of which remain in captivity.
Ms. Wong’s announcement follows the Israeli determination to eliminate Hamas from Gaza, during which an aid convoy was wrongly attacked, and aid workers killed, including an Australian.
The Pincer Movement Snagging Labor Politics
It reflects two underlying domestic political factors: the influence of the Left in the Australian Labor Party; and Muslim groups’ campaigns against Labor MPs, especially in Western Sydney.
The newly established website, Muslimvotesmatter.com.au, lists 32 seats it claims are vulnerable to loss. Most of these seats are held by the Labor Party, some with small margins.
Prominent amongst them is the seat of Watson held by Workplace Minister Tony Burke with a margin of 15 percent but with a voter base that comprises 27 percent Muslim voters.
Education Minister Jason Clare in Blaxland has a margin of almost 15 percent, but 35 percent of voters are Muslim.
Similarly, Energy Minister Chris Bowen in McMahon has a margin of 9.5 percent and an almost 15 percent Muslim voter base.
All three are members of the Right faction.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 of the 151 federal electorates have 5 percent or more people of Islamic faith. Significantly, 27 of those 29 seats are held by Labor.
Of those 29, four are marginal—the Labor-held seats of Werriwa and Parramatta; Fowler, which Labor lost to independent Dai Le at the 2022 election; and the Liberal-held Banks.
The Left Factions in Ascendance
This electoral panic is reinforced by the Labor Left’s pro-Palestinian leanings. Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, are prominent members of the Left faction, which now has ascendancy.State branches of the Labor Party are mostly controlled by the Left. And prominent figures such as former NSW premier, Bob Carr, have supported Palestinian ambitions for many years.
Fearing an electoral attack from the Australian Greens, the Labor Party has caved to domestic political pressures.
Speaking in 1975 on the 27th anniversary of Israel’s Independence, then president of the Labor Party, Bob 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?”
Winning Votes or Leading the Country?
Acting in the national interest involves members of parliament standing up to vocal minorities, even in their own electorates from time to time. Otherwise, they surrender their essential role to consider the issues free from partisan pressure and local sentiment, and become more like delegates.This role was eloquently expressed more than two centuries ago by the significant Irish statesman, Edmund Burke.
Speaking to the electors of Bristol, where he had been elected as their member in 1774, Burke said: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.”
This was a clear and courageous statement. Burke proclaimed that his foremost duty was to participate and consider the debates on national issues and then to form a considered judgment, not simply to act upon the loudest voices in his electorate.
But this is exactly what the Labor government in Australia, and U.S. President Biden is doing regarding the Middle East, particularly the conflict in Gaza.
