Australian senators' vote condemns boycott campaign against Israel

The Senate of Australia has adopted a resolution criticizing the international anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The motion was carried by Australia’s upper house last week, with 32 senators voting in favor and 30 against a resolution text proposed by the Liberal senator for Tasmania, Eric Abetz which took aim at support for the BDS campaign by the New South Wales (NSW) branch of the Green Party. “Tonight, the Senate condemned those in the Labor Party, the Greens and unions who are supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel,” Abetz said. He criticized Green Party leader Senator Bob Brown, saying he "did not have the spine to reject the NSW Greens’ BDS policy, despite previously claiming that both he and the Greens’ national council opposed this BDS policy.”

BDS became a focal point in Australia last December when a Greens-dominated local council in Sydney supported the campaign. However, it later abandoned the policy following pressure from politicians, the media and Jewish groups. Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the BDS last week as “stupid and repugnant.” The Labor Party politician said “Israel is a democracy with whom we have a long-standing relationship” and added that "anyone who stands in the way of that is doing the wrong thing.”

Peter Wertheim, the chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told JTA that “BDS proponents argue that acting against Israel will, ipso facto, help the Palestinians achieve statehood. The argument is wrong because it assumes that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a zero-sum conflict. This is the assumption that Arab leaders have been making for more than 60 years and it has brought nothing but catastrophe upon the Palestinians.”