The Albanese Government’s failure to move to follow the lead of the UK, Canada and France in recognising the state of Palestine smacks of cowardice.

And the reasons it is giving for not doing so are a manifestation of that fact.

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney joined his UK and French counterparts, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, in saying that the so-called two-state solution that would have seen Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace “is no longer tenable”. “The prospect of a Palestinian state is being eroded before our eyes,” Carney said.

As former foreign minister Bob Carr said last week; “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.” That’s a Labor luminary with a conscience.

So what is the Albanese Government’s line? It says it will recognise the state of Palestine when the time is right – whatever that means.

Last week, former Keating Government minister Margaret Reynolds, Stuart Rees, the renowned academic and a founder of the Sydney Peace Prize, and others led a delegation to Canberra under the banner of Australians for Humanity. They met Labor, Green and independent MPs.

In _Pearls and Irritations_ over the weekend they reported on their trip. As they noted, where once Albanese was an enthusiastic supporter of Palestine (as Carr has observed) now he is prime minister that urgency “is apparently replaced by arguments that more time is needed, that wise politicians should wait until a non-existent peace process has been achieved, that Australia should act in concert with like minded nations”.

This was the line run on Thursday by senior government minister Tanya Plibersek who told Sky News; “We want to make sure that our recognition is more than just a gesture, that actually we do it at the right time in the right way, in a way that contributes to peace.”

Sound like a cop out? It is.

It is also inconsistent with the way Australia has approached other government-led human rights abuses over the years.

Take South Africa. Its policy of apartheid was opposed by the Whitlam Government, and its successors. Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser was one of the world leaders on sanctions against South Africa. It would have been easy for governments of the 1970s and 1980s to peddle the Albanese Government line that Australia is at best a middle-ranking power and can’t do a lot about South Africa, except impose sporting sanctions.

And what of Russia? Despite Australia’s relative lack of influence over that nation, it was very quick to jump on board when Moscow decided to invade Ukraine, and punish it. In February this year, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles announced “Australia’s largest sanctions package since February 2022”.

“The new sanctions target individuals propping up Russia’s illegal administrations in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, including so-called ‘ministers’, judges and prosecutors, and individuals responsible for conflict-related sexual violence and the forced deportation of Ukrainian children,” the ministers said.

Yet, despite Israel’s genocide in Gaza how many sanctions have been imposed on Israelis involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza? A handful.

The other “cop out” argument against recognition of the state of Palestine is complicated by terrorist organisation Hamas being in the picture. Former Tasmanian Labor leader Bec White, now an assistant minister in the Albanese Government, spun this argument on the ABC last Tuesday. And Labor Friends of Israel argues this case as well.

But the “eliminate Hamas and then talk” argument is simply a ruse for continuing to allow the oppression of the Palestinian people. And it is a cynical position to take, because those who argue that Hamas will be taken out by Israel know that is simply not the case.

Yaakov Katz, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post, wrote in January this year that “Hamas will not simply disappear”. Writing in Open Democracy last week, English international security expert Paul Rogers observed that “on the ground in Gaza, Israel has simply not succeeded in defeating Hamas – a fact that few in Israel will admit, though it is reportedly common knowledge in military circles”. He noted that “Major General Itzak Brik, a long-serving IDF infantry soldier, who went on to lead the IDF military colleges,” wrote last month that “Hamas has already replenished the huge numbers of paramilitaries it has lost in the war”.

As is often the case in conflict zones, peacemaking and nation-building recognises there are terrorist organisations lurking. Working around them, marginalising them, and building strong institutions is how they are rendered irrelevant.

Australia has run out of excuses. Albanese needs to stand with Carney, Starmer and Macron now.

Republished from the Hobart Mercury, 4 August 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.