Australia rewards Hamas for its anti-Semitic terror

The Albanese government has directly, if unintentionally, rewarded Hamas and its long history of anti-Semitic terrorism.

In a structural change to our politics, Labor voted for a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the Security Council to admit Palestine as a member state and, in the short-term, give Palestine more of the UN attributes of a state.

Foreign minister Penny Wong declared that while Australia had not itself formally recognised Palestine, it would do so “when the time is right”. The government now believed it was not necessary for there to be a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians for a Palestinian state to be recognised. The UN resolution itself achieves absolutely nothing and doesn’t advance the arrival of peace by a single nanosecond.

Though the government claims it is acting in the interests of promoting a peaceful two-state solution, the action is so gratuitous, and such a departure from decades-long bipartisan Australian policy, that the only explanation for it lies in tawdry domestic politics.

The macro political calculation for Labor is obvious. There are 100,000 Jews in Australia and nearly a million Muslims. Almost all Muslims are opposed to Israel. So Australian politics and foreign policy will now contend with a permanent anti-Israel dynamic.

The other political consideration for Labor is that the ideological Left, especially but not only parts of the Greens, have succumbed to intense hostility to Israel and increasing anti-Semitism in their ranks.

Labor has just watched many local council elections in Britain being won by candidates promising, bizarrely, to “raise the voice of Gaza”. Labor is threatened by the Greens in inner city seats and potentially by community independents in western Sydney.

Peter Dutton described Labor’s vote as “shameful”. Former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was “dismayed” by the vote which “looks like rewarding the October 7 atrocity”.

It’s difficult to disagree with the assessment of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the UN vote was “the most hostile act of an Australian government to the State of Israel in our history”.

So, although the parties would be horrified by the idea of confessional politics, here is the new stark sectarian divide which Labor has brought about.

Labor backs the Australian Muslim critique of Israel. The coalition backs the continued Australian Jewish support of Israel. This is both a tragic and needless development as the UN resolution itself is entirely worthless. A more responsible and experienced government, with an ounce more courage and heart, would have avoided this needless sectarian divide.

The government claims that the UN resolution is a repudiation of Hamas because the resolution backs a two-state solution while Hamas is opposed to a two-state solution.

This is utter nonsense. Hamas has as an obvious strategic aim to draw Israel into the inevitable war as a result of the savage, sadistic October 7 atrocities, then by hiding within civilian populations to force Israel to fight among civilians, and then to see Israel flogged and abused internationally, as with this UN resolution.

Hamas would be delighted with this resolution. It can say to Palestinians: yes, our resistance involved your blood sacrifice, but we, and we alone, have achieved for the Palestinian national movement unprecedented UN recognition. And our version of that project demands the destruction of Israel, don’t mind the language about two states, when we impose preconditions which absolutely rule out the survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

Most nations at the UN vote on national self-interest. There is one Jewish state but dozens of Arab, North African and other Muslim states. So the trend is to go with the numbers.

But in the AUKUS context the Albanese government frequently tells us our two closest allies are the US, which voted no, and Britain, which abstained. So did Canada. If we’re looking for regional solidarity, the biggest South Pacific nation, Papua New Guinea, voted no, and the second biggest, Fiji, abstained. But we only take these nations seriously sometimes.

In a press conference, Wong did put some useful conditionality around ultimate formal Australian recognition of Palestine.

In reality, a two-state solution can only come at the end of negotiations in which Palestinians accept realistic borders and guarantee Israel that their nation won’t be a source of military or terrorist attack. Most Israelis have historically supported such a solution but, having made the maximum possible offer on four occasions and been met with waves of terrorism in response, Israelis feel it’s off the agenda.

But it is the germ of wisdom to know that some problems can’t be solved, but must be managed. And if their management brings normalisation, that in itself can lead to solution. If the Palestinians had leadership interested in their welfare, they would concentrate on economic development. If there were economic development and no terrorism for even half a dozen years, Israelis would flood back to supporting a two-state solution.

That this can’t happen now is reality. But the Albanese government’s actions and gestures on all this have very little to do with Middle East reality, and everything to do with domestic politics at its most sectarian and irresponsible.