Managed Extinguishment: Husic, Debating Gaza and the ALP Conference

The Israeli embassy in Canberra had warned about it, and, with rattling confidence, thought it appropriate to remind the Australian Labor Party that they were going too far. The concerns – a nice dollop of political interference in the affairs of a supposedly sovereign state – came ahead of the national conference of the ALP that promised to emphasise certain unwanted themes in its draft platform.

Ahead of the July 23-25 meeting in Adelaide, the draft document reiterated the party’s support for the two-state solution “as the only path towards a future where Palestinians and Israelis can live in freedom, safety and security.” Towards that end, the Labor Government had recognised the State of Palestine in September 2025 “alongside the international community.” Opposition was also expressed against the annexation of Palestinian territory and a desire that Israel cease its “illegal settlement activity and the occupation”, urging the government to frustrate efforts to support “illegal settlement activity or extremist settler violence, and to implement further action and sanctions as necessary.”

Other unwanted mentions in the platform from embassy officials included a demand that Israel comply with its obligations as an occupying power under international law “in respect of food and medical supplies for the Palestinian civilian population.” Aid providers and NGOs should be allowed to furnish “life saving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza in full cooperation with the United Nations.” The party also condemned the legislation passed in the Knesset permitting the application of the death penalty against Palestinians “and all other discriminatory laws” targeting the group.

Violent extremism and terrorism were also condemned without reservation “including as perpetrated by Hamas and other extremists.” The much-withered vine of international law was given a draught of encouragement with Labor’s continuing support of the International Court of Justice and its advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem. The binding decisions of both the ICJ and the International Criminal Court were also acknowledged.

With false restraint, the statement from the embassy began softly, leaving room for those attending the conference to ponder. “The Embassy of Israel notes these policy motions are still in draft form, and will continue to engage constructively with the Australian Labor Party through the usual diplomatic channels.” The warning jab followed. “However, the embassy respectfully submits that several elements of the draft national platform risk placing responsibility for the conflict on one party while giving insufficient attention to the decisions, conduct and continuing obligations of the Palestinian leadership and terrorist organisations such as Hamas.” The old theme is recapitulated: Israel, far from being ethnonationalist brute and bully, is the one disadvantaged by lawless, murderous Palestinians.

The issue of West Bank settler violence was also being overdone in emphasis. The statement makes the hollow claim that the Israeli government “and the settler movement itself condemns it, and security forces work to apprehend these forms of illegal behaviour.” The rebuttal of such claims is easily made, not least by such foamy pro-settler types as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the former boasting a string of convictions relating to propaganda and racial hatred. The fact that they have been outsized cabinet ministers in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netayanhu is telling enough. But the Israeli embassy was adamant: “there is a significant amount of disinformation surrounding ‘settler violence’.” The United Nations “and others” had tended to rely on such shabby accounts. Best focus on the terrorism of Hamas and its depredations on the “both Jewish and Arab Israelis”.

Having given a sketchy account of Israel’s conduct and bleatingly insisting that the Palestinians shoulder their lot of wretched blame (such awesome power they have, such capability), the disciplinarian’s manual is thrown at the ALP. All the parties concerned should not lean on “assigning blame”. Stress, instead, the conditions that promote lasting peace, though Israel has shown since October 2023 that peace is a rare bloom. (Israel’s conduct of extermination and starvation in Gaza, and annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank would suggest a lasting peace in the absence of their foes.) Those enumerated conditions were starkly favourable to one party: recognition of Israel’s historic connection to the land and its inviolable right to exist; the cessation of terrorism by all Palestinian organisations – barely concealed code for laying down arms and surrendering any resort to force against a ruthless adversary with superior arms; dismantling and disarming such organisations – the crippling gesture; ending incitement and glorification of terrorism (we can do without those freedom slogans and sovereignty mongers, because why would Palestinians want them?); and initiate direct negotiations leading to a secure and enduring peace. The latter is the sort of peace that anyone not in a coma knows would fetter, if not terminate the prospect of a Palestinian state, leaving Israel as unquestioned overlord and landlord.

Two issues were pertinent: How far Israeli complaints would figure in any adjustments of the ALP platform; and how much progress would be made by delegates wishing to further sharpen the focus on Israel’s conduct. A central figure on the latter matter was Ed Husic, a figure looking increasingly more talented than many of his cerebrally softened and more factionally minded colleagues. It was Husic who, having previously served as Minister for Industry and Science, was given the heave-ho as part of a political bleeding within the party when Labor was returned in May 2024, instigated by that picture of incoherent wonder, Richard Marles. Marles may be an utter bauble of a Defence Minister, the hollow man Deputy Prime Minister, but his utter lack of gravitas, conviction and purpose suggest other strengths. Political assassination may be one of them.

In his effort to focus the party’s attention on Gaza at the conference, Husic wished to see the ALP go further in recognising claims of genocide in the strip made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. The September 2025 report found that Israeli authorities and security forces had satisfied the elements of genocide in Gaza in killing Palestinians; causing them serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting the conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births within that group. The mental state was satisfied by “statements made by Israeli authorities” along with the circumstantial evidence arising from a clear “pattern of conduct” that could lead to the “only reasonable inference” of genocidal intent.

In June this year, the Commission further found that Israeli government and security forces had “deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, irreparably destroying the sanctity of childhood, including family ties, identity, innocence, safety and future.” There were reasonable grounds to conclude that these were “part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children.”

Husic’s proposed resolution also sought to recognise the interim decisions of the International Court of Justice holding that Palestinians had a “plausible” claim to be protected from genocide, suggested that trade sanctions be imposed, that dual nationals be investigated and prosecuted for serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, that Australian trade and defence personnel in the Tel Aviv embassy exit the country while an exchange of ambassadors with the recognised Palestinian should take place.

As the conference wore on, it was clear that any measure to debate the matter would be smothered before it ever left the cot. This was a Labor conference to be managed with dampening scrupulousness. Husic would come to express his surprise “at the extraordinary amount of energy that has been applied to stop this, as opposed to talking about this, being able to have discussions and better set it out.” Even initial supporters of Husic’s motion in the form of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) turned tail when it became clear to delegates that, were it to make it to the Conference floor, “pro-Israeli forces within the ALP [would] have derailed it and used the ensuing debate to pull progress back even further.”

The orchestrated strangling of Husic’s efforts (the same went for other uncomfortable topics of potential debate such as the wretched AUKUS pact) reached its apotheosis with a cringeworthy embrace between two Victorian federal MPs: Josh Burns, the Jewish member for Macnamara, and the member for Calwell, Basem Abdo, a son of Palestinian refugees.

Burns thought it appropriate to talk about a vision that has been stoutly extinguished by the country he so wishes to defend. “We can stand together. We can choose empathy over outrage, dialogue over division. We can uphold [H.E.] Evatt’s vision of two states, for two peoples living side by side with equal rights, dignity, and security for every single person. Because that is the only pathway to peace that the world longs for.” These are words of rich, gamey disingenuousness, given the dedicated program of dispossession and terrorising that is taking place in the West Bank, and the ongoing purgatory of suffering taking place in Gaza.

For his part, Abdo spoke about those “incredibly difficult few years on what is an already difficult issue. No single motion can do justice to it. What it is is a motion of the Australian Labor Party, a party of government and a party for all Australians.” Trite and blandly safe.

Assessments of efforts to stave off Husic’s resolution have not been that enlightening. Michelle Grattan, a hack of such longevity she is likely to be mummified, wrote with silliness that the conference had “been a textbook exercise of managed democracy.” Democracy should never be confused with bureaucratic dictation and spineless compliance. At least the 400 elected delegates could satisfy themselves they had not entirely succumbed to the interfering jabbering of the Israeli embassy in Canberra.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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