Former Foreign Minister and NSW Premier Bob Carr has compared the situation in Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto, and urged the Government to move with the French on Palestinian statehood. He made his comments in an interview with ABC Radio National Breakfast host Sally Sara. 

An edited transcript follows.

Sally Sara: Bob Carr, what did you make of the Prime Minister's comments on _Insiders_ yesterday, about Gaza and possible recognition of the Palestinian state?

Bob Carr: Well, of course I welcome the Prime Minister’s strong words that Israel is breaching international law.

He is very good on the humanitarian indictment of Israeli behaviour, and he is really reducing this to a matter of time.

It’s clear that Australia is ready to move, but I think we’re giving the impression that we need the comfort of Britain rather than the comfort of the French initiative.

I think that’s very unfortunate if we see ourselves as a strong, creative, middle-power. A nation in the Asia Pacific where two of our most important neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, are surely bigger considerations for us, than what Britain does.

It would strengthen the impression of Australia as a country that can do things, big and important, a model to the world as we did with Gareth Evans as Foreign Minister in the Cambodian peace process and the peace accords.

I just think Australians are ready to see our country show a flash of independence, strength and maturity, by moving with the French and not huddling, and waiting for the sanction that Britain would give us, when Downing Street finally gets round to us.

Sally Sara: What makes you think that now is the right time for Australia to publicly support Palestinian statehood?

If we’re leaving Australia’s international reputation to one side, in terms of the practical situation in Gaza and the West Bank at the moment, why do you think now is the time?

Bob Carr: Well, Sally, overwhelmingly for one reason. This is the first time, in the eyes of the world, that a modern country has used mass starvation against a civilian population, as a weapon of war.

That’s the massive thing we’re looking at here, and we’re having reinforced every day for us by terrible, terrible photos of babies with their vertebrae showing through their starved skin, their internal organs, according to the pediatricians, collapsing.

They will bear the marks of this starvation, for all their lives, suffering stunting.

Of a 14-year-old youngster, on a palate, wounded after being shot by these heroes of the IDF, because he presented at a food distribution centre, seeking food for his family, at the wrong time and was shot.

There’s a pattern of behaviour here that really demands comparison with the worst of the last hundred years: of Stalin’s Ukraine, of the Warsaw Ghetto, of Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

There are families who have now gone for five days without a crumb of food, and the point is that the IDF controls all the levers.

It controls food access and it has opted to use its power, even on occasions, to shoot the people who are distributing the food.

I say again, we are lost for recent and modern comparisons, of a serious state, opting to use mass starvation as a weapon of war.

There’s another reason why it’s appropriate for us to follow the French example and behave and to give extra weighting to recognition, the tool we’ve got is recognition.

That is to salvage a two-state solution.

Israel has dropped any pretence. A pretence that they have been using since the assassination of [Yitzhak] Rabin, that they believe in a two-state solution, they don’t, and the spread of settlements confirm that.

If we’re to salvage the prospect of the Palestinian state existing, as the world community has wanted for near on 40 years, then recognition is the policy tool we must reach for and implement.

Sally Sara: Bob Carr, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister have made it clear that certain conditions need to be met before Australia should recognise a Palestinian state, including hostages being released, better governance from the Palestinian Authority, for example. Are they reasonable preconditions?

Bob Carr: Well, yes, yes, yes. But those considerations are outweighed by a bigger fact and a bigger truth, namely that a vast civilian population is starving, that deaths are coming fast, unspeakable cruelty is being visited against babies and children in the enforcement of something not seen in the modern world, that is an advanced state, using mass starvation as a weapon of war, and giving effect to a genocide.

Up against that huge fact, it’s appropriate for us to say we will work ferociously to see that the entity we recognise on the West Bank, will meet deadlines for democratisation.

We will insist that the Palestinian state that comes into being, will be one that opts to be a non-militarised state, that is, not to have armed forces.

That is a serious security guarantee, that can be delivered in negotiations, and which the Palestinians have already offered to put on the table.

So there are devices and designs here that can meet those concerns.

What I’m arguing is that there is an overshadowing reality, and that is of mass starvation. Faced with mass starvation against a civilian population - a behaviour on which history will judge us.

Let’s use the policy tools we have:

One, recognition in the manner and style of the French, moving with France, at the General Assembly later this year to give effect to it.

And second, the sanctioning of the Israeli Prime Minister, who ultimately is giving direction to his ministers and the IDF to enforce a genocidal mass starvation in the territory of Gaza.

What we see now in the promise that Israel will deliver more supplies, allowing more supplies is something we have seen three times in the past.

The supplies haven’t arrived. They have arrived in such a form [that] they are not reaching starving families. They are not alleviating this extraordinary suffering being inflicted on helpless children and babies.