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Joel Burnie, executive manager of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the premier public affairs organization for Australia’s Jewish community, spoke to a May 31 Middle East Forum Podcast (video) about the Australian Labor Party’s departure from its historically strong support for Israel. The following summarizes his remarks:

Elected in 2022, Labor’s “incremental changes, a slow burn” in changing its policy towards Israel have eroded significantly Australia’s formerly strong bipartisan support. The party has sought to placate the progressive left, calculating that a pro-Palestinian position would increase its chances to retain power. Resulting Labor policies and its post-October 7, 2023, statements have further emboldened pro-Palestinian protesters and increased antisemitism against the Jewish community. This is a marked change from Labor’s previous role as Israel’s ally.

Historically, Australia’s positive attitude toward Israel was a notable element of its foreign policy. Doc Evatt, Australia’s foreign minister, headed the U.N. committee that recommended the partition plan in 1947. Through the 1970s and 80s, Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke advocated on behalf of Soviet Jewry, and in the early 90s he was “pivotal in rescinding the U.N. resolution, Zionism is Racism.”

Labor’s Julia Gillard, Australia’s prime minister from 2010 through 2013 and a friend of Israel, voted alongside the U.S. in the U.N. to counter its “one-sided resolutions against Israel.” But “the beginning of the fragility of the positions inside Labor vis-à-vis Israel” emerged in 2012, when the U.N. General Assembly was voting on unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood. Bob Carr, the party’s foreign minister, swayed the party to shift from Gillard’s “no” vote to an abstention, a marked departure from Australia’s former position.

The Jewish community publicized its concern over the shift against Israel. In 2022, the Labor government ignored those concerns and reversed the center-right Liberal Party’s 2018 decision to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, stating that “their foreign policy would not be shaped by the domestic issue that was facing Australia.” Still, the prime minister endorsed the IHRA working definition of antisemitism before the election, claiming there would be “no major departures in that longstanding bipartisan position on Israel. And that, unfortunately, has not turned out to be true.”

Prior to last October 7, Labor also “decided to alter the lexicon as to how it would refer to the West Bank and Gaza.” Essentially, Labor pre-empted the foreign status agreement by “claiming that all territory conquered in June 1967, including East Jerusalem,” was to be referred to as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Although the Labor government declared in the immediate aftermath of October 7 that Israel has a right to self-defense and that “Hamas has no role in the future governance of Gaza,” it has failed to sustain that level of support. When the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor pursued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Labor said it would await the ICC’s final ruling before determining its official reaction. Nor has it supported Israel’s Rafah operation against Hamas in Gaza, choosing instead to hector Israel about humanitarian law while ignoring Israel’s efforts to reduce civilian casualties in dangerous urban warfare.

As in the progressive left in the U.S. Democratic party, there are “rogue senior MPs inside the [Labor] party that are not towing the party line” who equivocate when asked if Israel is guilty of genocide and apartheid. Unfortunately, Burnie believes “this government will maintain its current trajectory” with a “probability, more so than a possibility, that this government will unilaterally recognize Palestine before the next election.”

Currently, the Labor government, with a slim two-seat majority, “is not in a winnable position.” It is courting the pro-Palestinian independent parties “vis-à-vis Gaza post-October 7” that represent districts with sizable Muslim populations such as Western Sydney. If Labor succeeds in gaining those independents, “they will potentially have a higher probability of retaining government at the next election.”

Given Australia’s geographical isolation, foreign affairs fail to seize the public’s attention. The younger generation in Australia skews towards the left, much as in the U.S., but Burnie maintains there is a silent majority of Australians who oppose the spike in antisemitism and the pro-Palestinian movement, even though things are clearly getting worse for the country’s Jewish community. Jewish Labor members at a recent conference in Victoria were heckled by pro-Palestinian supporters and even by some fellow delegates.

Antisemitism was a problem in Australia before October 7, but October 8 saw Muslim preachers praising the massacre to crowds of celebrating locals in the heavily Muslim area of Western Sydney. On October 9, a viral video of mobs at the Sydney Opera House chanting “Kill the Jews!” exposed Australia’s problem of “pure Jew-hatred.” Further intensifying the community’s anxiety, incidences of intimidation against Jews have been met with “a lack of response by the police.”

Polls confirm there is more support for Israel in Australia than for Hamas, and also more support for Israel than for “the Palestinians, more broadly.” The silent majority Burnie believes are sympathetic towards the Jewish community recognizes that if Hamas’s October 7 massacre was perpetrated against Australians, they would react as has Israel, “if not be more aggressive than the Israelis have been.”

Although the government has been discussing antisemitism for the past seven months, it pairs the discussion with “Islamophobia” even though Muslims have been arrested for crimes against Jews since October 7, while there have been no Jews arrested for Islamophobic acts against Muslims. The government has not backed up its rhetoric about antisemitism with appropriate and much-needed actions. Before the next election, the government should act on behalf of Australia’s Jewish community “out of good conscience, as opposed to trying to win seats or trying to placate the progressive left of the party in terms of its pro-Palestinian position.”

Marilyn Stern is communications coordinator at the Middle East Forum.