Young Labor national executive unanimously calls for permanent ceasefire in Palestine, adding to pressure from rank-and-file members.
Young Labor’s latest motion adds to growing calls among Labor’s rank-and-file members to demand a full ceasefire, which includes about 40 Labor party branches across New South Wales.
The party’s Young Labor national executive passed a motion on Monday encouraging its senior members to use diplomatic channels to support an international effort for a more permanent ceasefire between the Israeli government and Palestinian militant group, Hamas.
It also condemns any targeting of innocent civilians and instances of collective punishment and believes in the application of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution, as required by international law.
“It is the hope of Australian Young Labor that this temporary ceasefire can serve as the framework for a more permanent ceasefire, but recognises that this ceasefire cannot be one-sided,” the motion’s preamble said.
“Australian Young Labor would like to see the next steps in this process immediately.”
The party’s youth executive will now write to Albanese and the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, outlining the motion.
The motion was the result of a month of negotiations between the factions where the youth wing’s right faction – which holds about 60% of the national vote – agreed to side with one of the left factions.
It’s understood the “hard left” faction, associated with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, voted against it, saying it didn’t go far enough.
Gaza’s health ministry estimates more than 15,000 have been killed since Israel’s response to the 7 October attacks by Hamas in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 others taken hostage.
The federal government has sharpened its language as the conflict has waged on, agreeing Israel has a right to self-defence but must also abide by international rules of war.
Wong has continued to call for steps toward a sustainable ceasefire between the two as the humanitarian crisis has worsened but insisted it cannot be one-sided.
Young Labor’s assistant secretary, James Miranda, said the consensus from a typically “divided and factional space” indicated how important the issue was for young people in Australia.
“As the voice of young people in the party of government in Australia, it’s important that we reflect those views honestly,” he said.
Fatima Khalil, a member of Young Labor’s left faction who spoke in favour of the motion over the weekend, said the party’s response to the conflict had so far been disappointing.
“It’s really disheartening to think that this is the party that I was campaigning for,” she said, pointing to how international pressure helped to end earlier conflicts in the Middle East region.
“Without international pressure … these conflicts would not have ended so that’s why I think it’s really important to support a ceasefire motion.”
It comes as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, urged Israel to clarify its objectives in Gaza, warning the “total destruction of Hamas” could result in a decade of war.
“The right response against a terrorist group is not to eliminate an entire territory or to bomb the entirety of civilian capabilities,” Macron told the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai.
Standing alongside the French foreign minister, who is visiting Australia this week, Wong said the two countries were in alignment on their position toward the conflict.
Wong also described a warning from US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, that Israel would face “strategic defeat” if it did not heed international warnings about the rising number of civilian deaths in Gaza as a “notable” and “important” statement.
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