(2024) Enough is Enough
Speech on Sunday 15 December 2024 to the ‘Together with Israel’ rally in Martin Place, Sydney.
(2024): A Balanced Labor View on Peace in the Middle East
Speech given at the NSW ALP Conference on 27 July 2024 on an amendment to the ‘Australia and the World’ report. Delegates. First principles. Any person ever born matters. Every life lost is a tragedy, a loss of a personal universe. Those principles certainly matter in the Middle East. For many of us, the resolution…
(2024): Shlomo Avineri (1933-2023): Labour Intellectual in the Land of Israel
Shlomo Avineri who died on 1 December 2023 was one of Israel’s most outstanding public intellectuals.
(2024) What Wong Can Bring to the Middle East
Diplomacy involves listening, learning, empathy, and articulating the national interest, underpinned by core values.
(2023) Israel and Palestine Justice
Delegates, good people can agree on the spirit of a resolution –like the one before us – even if they disagree on some details. There can be no peace without justice, but equally there can be no justice without truth. The central and tragic truth of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is that two peoples, the Jewish…
(2023) What is Going on in Israel Today?
Israel is in the midst of unprecedented political turmoil. Three alarms are sounding.
(2022) The “Jewish Vote” and the 2022 Federal Election
There is a widespread conceit that, because Australian Jewry is largely economically successful, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) can write them off as unlikely supporters of progressive candidates in elections. This is egregious nonsense — for at least four reasons.
(2022) From Bear Pit to Smear Pit
Anyone who thrived in the Bear Pit of the NSW Parliament, where the finer points of civil debating etiquette are not rigorously followed, is bound to be colourful in argumentation. Which brings me to Bob Carr’s polemical article ‘Is criticism of Israeli settlement policy anti-Semitic? Israeli nationalists insist it is’ (Pearls and Irritations, June 6).
(2022) The “Israeli Lobby” Mischaracterises the Diverse, Australian Jewish Community
A community as diverse, educated, and dynamic as Australian Jewry is bound to have a variety of opinions and outlooks.
(2021) Australian Labor and Palestine in 2021
I cannot imagine anyone in the ALP in 2021 who today does not hope for the emergence of a Palestinian state. How this outcome might occur is where differences emerge.