Chapter:
34 - International Affairs
Mover:
Seconder:
 
 
Source:
Branch: Black Mountain
My Private Notes


Preamble
​For eight months, the world has watched Israel launch a devastating genocidal campaign on the Gaza strip, home to 2.3 million people. During this time, we have seen evidence of collective punishment, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, forced migration and displacement of civilians carried out against the people of Gaza. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than two-thirds of whom are women and children. According to UNICEF, Gaza is the most dangerous place on earth to be a child, and an estimated 19,000 children in Gaza are now orphans. Hundreds of medical personnel and journalists have been killed by the Israeli military. Currently, 85% of the population of Gaza is internally displaced. Over two-thirds of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed. This is one of the most devastating bombing campaigns undertaken and surpasses the percentage of destruction that the allies undertook in their bombing campaign of Germany between 1942 and 1945.

Israel is now conducting a military offensive in Rafah, a location roughly the size of Heathrow airport in the United Kingdom and currently populated by 1.4 million people who had fled from northern Gaza. Under these circumstances, it was known by the Israelis and the world that an attack on Rafah would be catastrophic for a civilian population with nowhere to go.
We mourn the loss of civilian lives on October 7 and support the immediate release of all Israeli hostages. However, this tragedy does not justify Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Violence will never bring peace and security to the people of Palestine and Israel.

General Resolution

Support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and recognition of a Palestinian state

ACT Branch Conference:

1. Calls on the Australian Government to strongly support and take all possible serious action for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. 
2. Calls on the Australian Government to take further action towards a two-state solution and support the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people by immediately recognising Palestine as a fully independent sovereign state.
3. Calls on the Australian Government to publicly express its unequivocal support for the decision of the International Court of Justice in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) on 26 January 2024, and support the Court's provisional measures to prevent genocide. 
4. Calls on the Australian Government to halt any supply of defence components, military technology and/or military cooperation to Israel whilst it is carrying out human rights abuses.  Further, we call on the Government to apply sanctions to Israel in response to human rights abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
5. Strongly condemns the Australian Government's decision to suspend humanitarian aid to UNRWA as a form of collective punishment against the people of Gaza at a time of unprecedented human suffering. We acknowledge funding has now been restored and call on the Government to urgently increase the level of humanitarian aid being provided to Gaza.
6. Reaffirm our strong condemnation of Islamophobia and Antisemitism in Australia and our opposition to war, violence and racism. 

The secretary will send this motion to the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong.