The Labor Conference That Lost its Moral Compass
There was a time when major Australian political parties understood that terrorism was not something to be romanticized, excused, or sanitized. That line, however, vanished entirely at the Victorian Labor conference this weekend.
Delegates passed a motion demanding the release of Marwan Barghouti, a man serving five life sentences plus 40 years for his role in terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada. These were not symbolic offences or political technicalities. Innocent civilians were murdered in bombings and shootings orchestrated during a campaign of terror that left Israelis dead in cafes, streets and restaurants. Ask the family of Australian Malki Roth, who was killed when a terrorist blew up the Sbarro café in Jerusalem, whether someone responsible for such atrocities should ever be released.
And let’s stop pretending the Second Intifada was merely a protest movement that somehow spiraled out of control. It was an armed uprising marked by suicide bombings, shootings and deliberate attacks on civilians. Palestinian terrorists, male and female alike, donned suicide vests before boarding buses, entering shopping centers, restaurants and nightclubs, detonating themselves among ordinary civilians. Dozens were killed in single attacks. Survivors were often left permanently scarred, blinded, burned or missing limbs. Calling it an “intifada” does not change what it was. Words matter. Terrorism does not become morally acceptable because activists adopt language that sounds revolutionary rather than barbaric.
It is also worth noting the broader diplomatic context in which some of these concerns are viewed. When Penny Wong visited Israel after the October 7 attack and engaged with the Palestinian Authority, she reaffirmed Australia’s ongoing support for Palestinian institutions and continued funding commitments. Critics argue that such engagement often occurs without sufficient acknowledgement of longstanding concerns around governance and accountability within the Palestinian Authority, including the controversial “pay for slay” system, under which payments have historically been made to families of individuals convicted of carrying out attacks on Israelis.
What makes this even more extraordinary is that this occurred at a Victorian state Labor conference. Since when did a political conference become the forum for passing resolutions on which convicted terrorists should or should not be released from foreign prisons? Victorians are dealing with housing pressures, high crime concerns, middle eastern gang wars, infrastructure strain and a health system under pressure. Yet delegates chose to devote their time to Middle Eastern geopolitics and campaigning for the release of a convicted terrorist.
It is also difficult to separate this from the broader political climate in Victoria. This is the same state Labor government that, critics argue, did not act decisively to prevent or adequately respond to weekly pro-Palestinian protests that some Jewish community members say included antisemitic chanting, nor the university encampments that disrupted campuses, occupied lecture spaces, and led to allegations of Jewish students and staff being harassed. Supporters of those actions describe them differently, but for many in the Jewish community they have contributed to a growing sense of unease and isolation.
One only needs to listen to testimony currently being given as part of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion to grasp the depth of that concern. Much of it has been described as deeply distressing, reflecting a community that increasingly feels unsafe, marginalized, and reluctant to be visibly Jewish in public spaces.
During debate, Iranian-Australian Labor member Nos Hosseini proposed an amendment that would have explicitly condemned the Iranian regime for human rights abuses, including the repression of dissidents and the execution of political prisoners. Delegates voted the amendment down. The contrast was revealing – a conference willing to advocate for the release of a convicted terrorist, yet unwilling to pass a straightforward condemnation of one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
The moral inversion is difficult to ignore. Imagine applying the same logic consistently. If Adolf Eichmann, the mastermind of the Nazi regime’s Final Solution and responsible for the logistics of the mass deportation of Jews and others to extermination camps, had received life imprisonment instead of execution after his capture, would activists have campaigned for his release as a “political prisoner”? At what point does political grievance become so entangled with ideology that the distinction between resistance and terrorism is lost entirely?
The deeper issue is not simply the motion itself, but the culture that produced it, one in which antisemitism is too often excused when framed as “anti-Zionism”. Criticism of Israeli governments is legitimate; apologism for terrorism is not. A movement that cannot maintain that distinction has lost its moral bearings altogether.
Robert Gregory of the Australian Jewish Association captured the concern felt by many in the community when he said, “When political parties begin campaigning for convicted terrorists instead of standing unequivocally against terrorism, something has gone deeply wrong in our public culture.” His comments reflect a growing unease among Jewish Australians who feel increasingly alienated by the normalization of extremist rhetoric.
It is also worth recalling that modern terrorism has not been confined to history or distant conflicts. In 2017, an attempt to smuggle an explosive device onto an Etihad Airways flight travelling from Sydney to Abu Dhabi was disrupted before take-off following intelligence sharing involving Israeli intelligence to Australian authorities, preventing what would have been the loss of hundreds over Australian airspace.
That unease is not eased by federal figures such as Penny Wong, whose criticism of Israel is widely interpreted by many Australians as contributing to a political climate in which hostility toward the Jewish state is normalized while antisemitism is insufficiently confronted. Consequence is almost non-existent, existing laws are rarely applied to convict. For many, it was therefore jarring to see her represent Australia at the 80th anniversary commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau where approximately a million people, mostly Jews were murdered in the gas chambers, a moment that should have transcended domestic politics entirely. What an insult to the 6 million murdered during the Holocaust and an Australian leader who choses her ideology over learning from the past. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Victorian Labor should reflect carefully on the message this conference has sent. History is certainly repeating itself. A political movement that once prided itself on solidarity, democratic values and opposition to extremism now risks convincing many Australians, particularly within the Jewish community, that moral clarity has been displaced by ideological signaling.
