Labor must cauterise the extremism in its ranks

Emerging from the ALP National Conference, Middle East-related points in chapter seven of the Platform deserve emphasis. The government is not bound by the Platform; Cabinet ultimately sets foreign policy, informed by classified material unavailable to delegates. Within that reality, the federal Labor government should be commended for reaffirming that Hamas must have no role in a Palestinian Authority (PA) government and must lay down arms in line with the ceasefire and the Peace Board’s two-state plan.

The joint Australia–Indonesia proposal to assist the PA in reforming its education system – removing antisemitic content and the glorification of terrorism – is likewise commendable, and the PA’s acceptance of this offer is significant. Multiple European Parliament reports have identified PA education reform as central to reducing incitement to violence and enabling peace.

Still, the conference revealed troubling tendencies within parts of the broader Labor movement. It was laudable that extreme propaganda on issues such as the utterly legally and factually false narrative of the genocide claim against Israel was rightly rejected. The deletion, however, of the government’s explicit policy stance on Hamas was inexcusable. Considering the extensive commentary indicating that deletion would be read as embracing Hamas, this should have been corrected.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation under Australian law and has perpetrated abhorrent crimes: the deliberate killing of civilians, sexual violence, torture and mutilation in Israel, and the killing and torture of thousands of its own people. It suppresses women, forbids free trade unions, rejects democracy and executes homosexuals. As part of Iran’s proxy network, Hamas waged a persistent war of aggression against Israel after seizing Gaza in 2007, culminating in the invasion of October 7, 2023 – an act constituting “supreme international crime” under the Rome Statute.

Its agenda, as described in its own covenant, is openly genocidal and rejects both the two-state solution and a Palestinian state, in favour of an extreme Islamist caliphate. Palestinians themselves reject Hamas, and the PA is compelling it to relinquish administrative control of Gaza. Accepting any governing role for Hamas would reward criminality, embolden terrorism, undermine international law and extinguish prospects for peace.