The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is facing mounting pressure to commit the ALP to the diplomatic recognition of Palestine, with two former foreign affairs ministers, Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, joining Bob Hawke in arguing forcefully for policy change.



Evans and Carr told Guardian Australia on Wednesday that Australia should grant diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine because Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive settlement building risks creating the conditions for an “apartheid state”.

The intervention by the two former ministers follows Hawke arguing this week it was time to recognise the state of Palestine because the humanitarian principles underpinning the Jewish state were being “trashed by the inexorable expansion of ... settlement in the West Bank”.

“The situation is clear – starkly clear,” Hawke wrote in the Australian Financial Review. “Like the Jews in the Soviet Union and the blacks in South Africa, the Palestinian has an aspiration to be fully free. But, with a majority of the Netanyahu government openly declared against a Palestine state, they understandably see little hope in the political process.”

Hawke said Australia needed to do what 137 other nations had already done – grant diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine.

A planned visit by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, next week looms as something of a flashpoint for the ALP, with one Labor figure telling Guardian Australia on Wednesday it was fortunate the visit was happening while parliament was not sitting, because some MPs might have boycotted the address.

Shorten faces substantial internal pressure to adopt a more pro-Palestine policy stance, with senior members of the NSW right faction lining up with the left in supporting diplomatic recognition.

Labor has been moving in the direction of adopting a more pro-Palestinian stance since 2012, with the ALP national conference in in July 2015 passing the strongest resolution yet seen at the national level.

The form of words adopted by the conference says if “there is no progress in the next round of the peace process, a future Labor government will discuss joining like-minded nations who have already recognised Palestine and announcing the conditions and timelines for the Australian recognition of a Palestinian state, with the objective of contributing to peace and security in the Middle East”.

While the resolution clearly references Labor being in government when it would provide recognition for Palestinian statehood, a number of current Labor parliamentarians believe the “no progress” threshold has already been reached – some assert a majority of the caucus holds this view.

The conference resolution of 2015 was resisted strenuously at the 2015 conference by senior players in the Victorian right, which is Shorten’s factional grouping.

It passed because the NSW right split with Victoria and voted with the left to get it carried.

A spokesman for Shorten said on Wednesday: “Mr Shorten supports a two-state solution and is hopeful this can be progressed through the peace process.”

A spokesman for the shadow foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said in response to Hawke’s call: “Labor has long supported, and continues to support, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We support Israel’s right to exist within secure and recognised boundaries and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. A just two-state resolution will require recognising the right of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples to live in peace and security.”

Carr told Guardian Australia more urgent action was required because of Israel’s provocative conduct. He said he fully supported Hawke’s call on diplomatic recognition because “with Israel committed to constant settlement expansion, the prospect of a Palestinian state is being submerged”.

He said if the hardliners achieved their objective, if Israel “becomes a greater Israel with a majority of Arab citizens, it will become an apartheid state, it will not be a democracy unless Arabs are given the right to vote”.

Carr pointed to the resolution passed at the last federal Labor conference that puts Labor on the pathway to diplomatic recognition if poor behaviour by Israel jeopardised the peace process. He said it was abundantly clear bad behaviour had “gone on”.

Evans mounted similar arguments. “The demographic reality is sooner or later ... Jews will be outnumbered by Palestinians and if democracy is to prevail Israel will lose its Jewish identity.

“If it is to maintain that identity ... the only alternative to recognising a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is to become an apartheid state.

“That logic is as compelling today as it was a generation ago. It is a tragedy that successive Israeli and Arab leaders ... have so far proved unable and unwilling to translate a just and sustainable settlement.”

Evans said “there is no sign whatsoever” that Netanyahu had any political will to execute a just settlement – so he was fully supportive of Hawke’s position.