Opposition leader Peter Dutton says Labor senator Fatima Payman should be removed from her party after she repeated a pro-Palestinian chant and broke ranks to accuse Israel of genocide.
Dutton's comments come after Labor and Opposition senators voted on Thursday , which Payman referenced on Wednesday when she became the first federal Labor parliamentarian to.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle have condemned the chant, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. They say it is divisive and not consistent with an .
But Muslim groups and one Jewish organisation have opposed the condemnation, saying it was "misconceived and based on an incorrect understanding of the phrase".
The phrase is considered by some Jewish communities as a call for the destruction of Israel, while Palestinians consider it a call for freedom.
In an interview with Melbourne's 3AW radio on Friday morning, Dutton was asked if Payman should be removed from parliament over her use of the phrase.
"It's hard to kick her out of the parliament because she's been elected," Dutton said. "But she can certainly be kicked out of the Labor Party, and why the prime minister's hesitating, I don't know."
It came on the same morning NDIS Minister Bill Shorten was asked during an interview on ABC Radio National whether Payman should be removed from a foreign affairs committee.
"She's a passionate woman; she's got her views and she's advocating that," Shorten told Radio National.
"I agree with the prime minister that 'from the river to the sea', whilst for some people it sounds innocuous ... it does mean there can't be a two-state solution, and it's a violent statement.
"Where it goes, that's a matter for the prime minister and the statement."
SBS News has contacted the Prime Minister's Office and Payman's office for comment.
Ahead of the vote on the Senate motion on Thursday, which was introduced by Opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham, Albanese said Payman's use of the phrase was inappropriate.
"What's appropriate is where both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in peace and prosperity," he told ABC radio.
"It is not in the interests of either Israelis or Palestinians to advocate there just be one state that is a forerunner of enormous conflict and grief and we are seeing enormous grief in Gaza."
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in February he would not be pressured into accepting a Palestinian state. And in January, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres accused Israel of "clear and repeated rejection" of a two-state solution.
Labor senator Fatima Payman at a pro-Palestinian rally outside Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
In a joint statement on Friday morning, peak Muslim groups including the Australian National Imams Council, as well as the Jewish Council of Australia opposed the Senate's condemnation.
They said it was "misconceived and based on an incorrect understanding of the phrase".
"It is a vision that encompasses the right of all individuals to live in peace and dignity within the lands stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea," the statement said.
"It should not be controversial that Palestinians reject their oppression or aspire to their own liberation and life in their homeland, free from Israel's racist systems and laws of control."
They described political leaders' actions as "disappointing".
"It is disconcerting and disappointing that our political leaders are seemingly more engaged with, and concerned about, the alleged distress conveyed by lobby groups rather than the actual genocide which is being committed against Palestinians in Gaza and the prevention of humanitarian aid to them," the statement said.
In January, in Gaza, a charge Israel strongly rejected. The case is ongoing.
Gaza is in a deep humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations recently saying Palestinians there face catastrophic levels of hunger.
That crisis has been sparked by Israel's bombardment of Gaza, which came after a 7 October attack on southern Israel where gunmen led by Hamas — — killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to the Israeli government.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the occupied Palestinian territory's health ministry.
