Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood on the world stage this week and declared Australia now recognised the State of Palestine. Australia’s recognition took effect with that of Canada, Britain, Portugal and France, the latter of which helped organise the conference on a two-state solution at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The countries have joined the stance of about three-quarters of the UN’s 193 member states. After this week, of the UN Security Council permanent members – Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States – only the US will not recognise Palestine. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet US President Donald Trump this weekend.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Two-State Solution Conference in the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Addressing the New York conference, Albanese laid out why his government had taken the recognition step. Recognition was based on Hamas having no role in Palestine’s future, that it would disarm and never control Gaza again. It was also predicated on a commitment from the Palestinian Authority that Israel had a right to exist. The authority also needed to reform itself and hold democratic elections.
The sentiments of Albanese’s speech – “real hope for a place [the Palestinian people] can call home”, “working together we can build a future … a future that depends on recognition being followed by reconstruction and reform” – are laudable. But turning those words into reality is another matter. As Age foreign affairs and national security correspondent Matthew Knott reported on the conference, “hard-headed realism was in shorter supply” than hopeful speeches.
Recognition of the State of Palestine, though it can seem from the outside to lend weight to a cause, is, at base, symbolism. It is, in effect, putting the future before the present. Palestine has no internationally recognised borders. It is a quasi-state. The dreams of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are in tatters. What is being recognised is an aspiration for a people and their homeland. But recognition is the easy part.
Netanyahu, in reacting to moves to recognise Palestine, said: “It will not happen. A Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River.” Such recognition would be a “huge reward to terrorism”. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich put it more bluntly: “The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not by slogans but by deeds.”
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Israel’s retaliation after the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023 – particularly the razing of Gaza City, and its invasion by the Israel Defence Forces, and the deaths of more than 60,000 Palestinians – has drawn strong global condemnation. Indeed, Albanese targeted Israel’s actions in his speech: “Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe. And the Israeli government must accept its share of responsibility. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed; desperate people, including children, denied vital aid.”
Now that Albanese has made clear Australia’s position, the momentum must not stall. Words mean nothing if not followed by action. Pressure must be brought to bear on all sides, first for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and the free movement of aid into Gaza.