“This step not only reflects the position of the Labor Party and its members,but also the broader sentiment of the friendly people of Australia,who support the just and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,including the right to establish their state within 1967 borders,with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Labor’s national platform,passed in 2021,calls on the next Labor government to recognise Palestine as a state and says it expects the issue will be an important priority for the government.

The Israel-Palestine section of the party’s draft national platform to be debated in Brisbane next week is almost identical,but calls on the “Australian government” to recognise Palestine rather than the “next Labor government”.

Some 138 of the United Nations’ 193 member states recognise Palestine as a state,but the countries that do not include Australia’s closest international partners such as the US,UK,New Zealand,Japan,Germany,Canada and France.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jillian Segal and Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the government’s change in language had pre-empted negotiations on a two-state solution,criticising the move as “inaccurate,ahistorical and counterproductive”.

“Describing East Jerusalem,the West Bank and Gaza as ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ effectively denies any Jewish claim to the West Bank and Jerusalem,” they said.

“The most important Jewish holy sites of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall are in East Jerusalem,and there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years. Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to negotiate the division of the West Bank between them.”

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