Fatima Payman: Young ALP Female Senator Stands Strong For Palestinian People and Palestinian State

 Written by: Ned K. on 8 July 2024

 

ALP Senator Fatima Payman resigned from the ALP last week after courageously "crossing the floor" of the Senate to support a Greens motion that Australia recognize a state of Palestine. 

Over 100 other countries have already taken this position. The ALP leadership could not bring itself to do so. The Albanese Government was more concerned about not getting out of step with the USA and Zionist Netanyahu Israeli Government.

Senator Payman, only 29 years young, went into the Senate on an ALP ticket with the genuine belief that she could make a difference by being a member of a political party that stood for social justice, for solidarity with oppressed peoples both within Australia and internationally.

She came into the Senate supported by United Workers Union where she was an Organizer and where union members learned through their own experience that there is real strength in diversity.

She must have been bitterly disappointed when she found that the same values were not practiced by the ALP leadership when it came to the issue of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli Government backed by western powers led by the USA.

We do not know exactly what was said to her by Albanese and key Ministers to try and "persuade" her to toe the Party line.

However, they met their match in Senator Payman when she announced her resignation from the ALP, but her continuation in the Senate as an Independent Senator.

When she made this decision, it was easy for her to see who her enemies are and who are her friends. 

The ALP leaders joined the Murdoch Press with the idea that she may be ineligible to be a Senator due to dual citizenship with Afghanistan and Australia. 

Of course, the ALP never thought this when Fatima Payman was put on the ALP Senate ticket. 

At that time, the leaders probably thought it would add to their appearance as supporting diversity in representation in parliament to have a young, female, Muslim woman in ALP Seante ranks "under the wing" of Senators Wong and Farrell.

What a contrast between this barrage of hate against a Senator standing her ground and the hundreds of cheering unionists and diverse communities that greeted Senator Payman when she arrived at Perth airport from Canberra!