‘Appalling’ speaker
THE appearance of a prominent Israel boycott activist at the NSW Labor conference this weekend has been labelled "appalling".
THE appearance of a prominent Israel boycott activist at the NSW Labor conference this weekend has been labelled “appalling”.
Dr Peter Manning will address a conference fringe event on Saturday, June 30, hosted by the Labor Friends of Palestine.
Manning is a former convenor of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine. He supported Marrickville Council’s ill-fated attempt to adopt the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign as policy in 2011, chairing a forum that featured fellow anti-Israel activists Jake Lynch, Samah Sabawi, Joseph Wakim and Peter Slezak.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff called Manning’s slot at the conference “an unequivocal repudiation of the sensible voices within Labor who support a two-state solution”.
“How appalling that an active proponent of BDS who has accused Israel of colonialism and ethnic cleansing is to be accorded a platform at the state Labor conference, albeit at one of its fringe events,” he said, adding, “More importantly, how will this policy discussion help Australians? Australia needs access to vital Israeli technology and cyber security, and BDS is a retrograde policy which flies directly in the face of that.”
Michael Danby, Labor Member for Melbourne Ports, told The AJN, “Peter Manning has been on the hard left for some decades … He was a strident critic of Israel even before Bob Carr joined the chorus.”
NSW Labor frontbencher Walt Secord, who is patron of the Labor Israel Action Committee (LIAC), a group set up to promote a peaceful two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, said, “I predict the attendance at next Monday’s [LIAC hosted] lecture by Israeli Opposition leader Isaac Herzog will be exponentially greater than the handful of anti-Israel activists who will listen to commentator Peter Manning on a Saturday afternoon for 50 minutes.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
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