Australia: Penny Wong, Australia’s foreign minister, has offered that Australia could acknowledge Palestinian statehood to boost the pace towards peace. However, Wong emphasised that Hamas should carry no part in the governance of the new state.
The Zionist Federation of Australia and opposition groups criticised the proposal as impulsive. According to Canberra, Palestinian recognition will only come as part of a two-state solution. Wong’s statements reflect the speech given by UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron earlier this year, where he suggested that the UK might recognise Palestinian statehood without Israel’s support.
Recently, the Australian government expressed concerns about the battle with Hamas in Gaza, especially after an Australian aid worker was killed along with six others in an Israeli air strike. The aid staffers were transiting in a convoy after collecting stockpiles when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) mistakenly recognised them as Hamas operatives and attacked.
In a recent speech, Wong voiced her belief that a two-state resolution, where Israelis and Palestinians live in different countries side-by-side, is the only way to break the ongoing cycle of brutality.
“The failures of this approach by all parties over decades – as well as the Netanyahu government’s refusal to even engage on the question of a Palestinian state – have caused widespread frustration. So the international community is now considering the question of Palestinian statehood as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution,” Wong said.
Simon Birmingham, the spokesperson for the opposition’s foreign affairs, stated that they do not endorse the move to accept Palestine as a state. He believes that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s administration is positioning decades of bipartisan Australian foreign policy at stake.
In a statement, Birmingham remarked that, “The Albanese government’s argument to pre-emptively recognise a Palestinian state puts statehood before security, and will be seen as a win by the terrorists who initiated the current horrific conflict.”
Jeremy Leibler, the President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said that recognition of Palestinian statehood is premature until Hamas is withdrawn and a new administration arises that is not corrupt, does not favour violence, and recognises Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
However, Penny Wong carries a different view and disagrees with the notion that recognising Palestine as a state would reward the enemy. She believes that Israel’s protection relies on a two-state solution and that recognising Palestine as a state would enable it to undermine and marginalise Hamas.
The US, the UK, Germany, and Australia are among the countries that do not recognise Palestinian statehood. As a current ‘observer’ state, Palestine will be considered for full membership of the United Nations this week.
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