The Zionist Federation of Australia is facing dissent from some of its affiliate organisations after it attacked the Albanese government’s new language on Israel and the Palestinian territories.
On Tuesday the government announced its decision to harden Australia’s opposition to “illegal” Israeli settlements and to adopt the use of the term “Occupied Palestinian Territories”.
Guardian Australia can reveal four of the ZFA’s affiliate organisations – generally seen as from the progressive, liberal Zionist perspective – have written to the federation to complain they weren’t consulted before a critical statement was issued in response.
“Criticising the Australian government for rejoining the global consensus and turning the issue into one of factional politics highlights a broader, worrying trend towards anti-Labor partisanship from inside the Zionist Federation and the Jewish community’s leadership more broadly,” said the letter, sent on Friday.
But the ZFA rejected claims of partisanship, saying that it “values its warm and open dialogue with the Albanese government”. It also pointed to other affiliates that backed its stance.
The Australian government said it was acting in line with allies the UK, the EU and New Zealand as it reinstated the term “Occupied Palestinian Territories”.
But the move was widely seen as an attempt to head off a push from some Labor delegates to take an even stronger position at the party’s national conference in Brisbane next week – such as a deadline to recognise Palestinian statehood.
The ZFA and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry issued a joint statement on Tuesday titled: “Jewish community strongly criticises new position of Australian Government.”
The ZFA president, Jeremy Leibler, and the ECAJ president, Jillian Segal, said the government’s change in language was “inaccurate, ahistorical and counterproductive” and that it “effectively denies any Jewish claim to the West Bank and Jerusalem”.
The statement also said Palestinian terrorism against Israeli targets had “risen dramatically”. It called on the Labor leadership to “push back against factions” and “re-establish a sensible, centrist and sustainable bipartisan position”.
Four of the ZFA’s 23 affiliate organisations – Ameinu Australia, Meretz Australia, Habonim Dror Australia and Hashomer Hatzair Australia – have since written to Leibler to distance themselves from the statement.
“Presented as being on behalf of the ‘Jewish community’, without discussion with the ZFA’s progressive constituent base, [the statement] severely undermines the organisation’s claim to be representative of the full spectrum of views in the Jewish-Zionist community,” said the letter, obtained by Guardian Australia.
“Criticising the Australian government for upholding its obligations under international law is politically naive and morally wrong.”
The letter said international law was clear that the territories captured by Israel in the six-day war in 1967 were occupied – and that civilian Israeli settlements on the land were considered illegal.
But the letter said the Albanese government had clearly stated it remained a friend of Israel – and said it had “done an admirable job of separating legal claims of sovereignty by Israel from the religious, historical, national and cultural claims of the Jewish people”.
“As progressive Jews who treasure and celebrate the connection we have to ancient Jewish sites … we categorically reject any notion that those connections automatically create legal claims which override international law or the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”
The groups also said the statement “should have mentioned the dramatic rise in Jewish terrorism against Palestinian targets”, the inflammatory rhetoric of some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministers, and the detrimental effect of these trends on Israel’s own security.
The letter is a sign of serious concerns among the centre-left bloc of the ZFA constituency, albeit a minority of its membership.
Leibler said the ZFA was “an elected representative roof body of the Jewish community”.
“We have regular meetings and consult with affiliate organisations,” he said.
“While the Jewish community is diverse, on many issues there is a clear consensus position including in relation to the recent joint statement issued by the ZFA and ECAJ – the two national elected representative bodies of the Jewish community.”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, “didn’t talk about this before the election, didn’t tell people of Jewish faith in our country that he would turn his back on Israel”.
In an interview on 2GB on Friday, Dutton also claimed “there was no advice given to the ambassador, there was no advice given to the government of Israel”.
A spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the Australian government had engaged “regularly with the Israeli government” and had indicated in recent weeks it was considering its response to “alarming trends that are significantly reducing the prospects for peace”.
Cabinet made the decision on Monday and the government notified Israel before it became public, the spokesperson said.
Comment was sought from the Israeli embassy.
