Bob Carr's 'Run for Your Life' 3

Carr's learning curve on Palestine/Israel continued while he served as foreign minister in the Gillard government. You can read all about it in my posts on his 2014 Diary of a Foreign Minister.

For now, here's Carr's distillation of what he's learnt so far about the issue, in Run for Your Life (2018). The words which follow - from an insider not afraid to speak out - should be uppermost in the minds of all Australians concerned with how we go about shaping our foreign policy, particularly with regard to the Middle East:

"The hold of the Israel lobby over Australian politicians is based on two facts: first, donations to the political parties from the Jewish community leadership; second, paid trips to Israel extended to every member of parliament and journalists. From the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) over 700 trips alone. This political influence is particularly noticeable with the Victorian ALP Right and deserves some examination by journalistic sleuths, who seem reluctant to touch the subject. No other community, in my experience, treats politicians as their poodles, even when making a political case - not the Tamils or Singhalese, the Chinese, the Macedonians, the Cypriots, the Turks nor the Armenians." (p 180)

And here is Carr on that Zionist weapon of last resort, the false accusation of anti-Semitism:

"If it's anti-Semitic to believe that:
*the occupation needs to end;
*the Israelis are conning us by spreading settlements;
*all of them are illegal under international law;
*Israel is not a special state but a normal state which can be criticised;

then there will be no cringing, no apologetics, no backtracking from me... Criticism of an Israeli occupation, the settlements and the chauvinism of its politicians is not anti-Semitic. Only Zionist zealots wish it so." (p 181)

The chapter goes on to describe Carr's work inside the NSW ALP in support of the recognition of a Palestinian state, which culminated in a resolution to that effect at the 2017 ALP State Conference:

"I had carefully built support in the Labor Party for this next step - simple, straightforward, recognition for Palestine - and due to the quiet resolve of the young NSW party secretary, Kaila Murnain, was confident of it being carried at the conference. The small Israel faction within Labor was sour. One of their number put to me that, when it came time for me to move the motion, I should do so without giving a speech. And, he said, their side would do the same. This was a proposition as extraordinary as it was ratty: on a matter that had produced twenty-five motions from ALP branches, the conference should agree to progress the eventual resolution but with a solemn vow no one would speak to it. In other words, no hint of criticism of Israel might be allowed to be heard under the mock-Renaissance ceiling in the wood-panelled auditorium of Sydney Town Hall, lest it horrify the 800 delegates and the party members in the galleries. Here was the old refrain: how dare you - in this case how dare you contemplate voicing a criticism of a nation at once so precious and yet so fragile. How dare you. 

"Nothing doing, to that outrageous proposition. I was proud as a rank-and-file member of the party... to stand on the floor of the Town Hall and say: 'Delegates, as the oldest and biggest state branch, we can't be left stranded on the wrong side of history. It was once time for Whitlam's opening to China. It was once time for an independent East Timor. Time now for another historic shift in Labor Party foreign policy. If the late, great Gough Whitlam were here he would intone into this microphone, 'Men and women of Australia, It's Time... to recognise Palestine.' It was carried unanimously... " (pp 183-4)