Australia’s Labor Party’s stance on Gaza genocide under renewed scrutiny

‘Labor’s middle-way timidity on Gaza genocide sums up Australia’s indifference,’ says senior political analyst 

MELBOURNE, Australia (MNTV) – The Australian Labor Party’s approach to the Gaza conflict has come under fire as Israel’s actions escalate into genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

Despite voters backing Labor’s stance in the recent election, the party’s middle-way strategy is being tested as the humanitarian crisis deepens, says Bernard Keane, a senior political analyst.

“Labor has tried to walk a fine line on Israel’s actions in Gaza. The ramping up of genocide and ethnic cleansing has made that strategy unviable,” Keane writes for Crickey.

In November, Australia voted in the UN in support of “permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. In December, it voted in the UN to call for an end to Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”. A few days later, it voted for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza. 

In May 2024, the government also supported Palestine’s admission to the UN, while insisting it was not yet recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong also sanctioned seven individuals over colonist violence in the West Bank last July.

“Locally, however, the government mostly kept silent as Israel’s assault on Gaza deepened into genocide,” says Keane. 

“Its response to the deliberate killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her colleagues by the IDF was tokenistic. It lied about and tried to cover up the fact that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars would be flowing to an Israeli company at the heart of the genocide, Elbit Systems, which maintains a presence here in Australia. Labor ritualistically condemned pro-Palestinian protests and conflated protests with violence,” he adds. 

This might be described as a foreign-domestic strategy — more pro-Palestinian in international fora, more pro-Israel domestically, thereby earning the wrath of both sides but somehow walking a line between the two, he says. 

“But the strategy can’t hold if an Israel emboldened, funded and armed by Trump expands its plans for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” writes Keane.

“Tepid calls for the resumption of aid are one thing — criticism of deliberate starvation or ethnic cleansing, which is now plainly Israel’s plan, is apparently off the table for Australia,” he adds.

He says that if a country is engaged in genocide or ethnic cleansing, denunciation is not a matter of international politicking, but of basic morality. 

“The continued presence of companies engaged in supporting those actions would be intolerable; the continued presence of diplomatic representatives from that country the subject of serious review. And if an ally is participating in and enabling such events, as the United States is, that only strengthens a country’s obligation to make its views clear to that country: that genocide, deliberate starvation and ethnic cleansing are utterly unacceptable,” writes Keane.

Labor’s hesitant approach reflects Australia’s broader failure to take a principled stand against genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.