Media Report 2025.08.12
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT August 12 2025
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The moment the PM gained confidence Australia could recognise a Palestinian state
ABC | Jake Evans | 12 August 2025
- A plan to progress Palestinian statehood agreed by major European and Arab states provided a key moment of confidence for Australia to do the same.
- Alluding to the agreement, the foreign minister warned last week there would be “no Palestine left” to recognise if the world did not act with urgency.
- A “time-bound” framework to settle the question of Palestinian statehood will be developed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next month.
The Albanese government gained confidence it could recognise a Palestinian state before a two-state solution was negotiated following a declaration last month that set out a new path to solve the decades-long Middle Eastern conflict.
The New York Declaration at the end of July was one moment in a steady stream of momentum building towards recognition of a Palestinian state.
But it was a significant moment.
At a high-level international conference led by France and Saudi Arabia, Middle Eastern and European powers committed to taking “time-bound” and “irreversible” steps for the settlement of the question of Palestine, and the implementation of a two-state solution.
On the same day the New York Declaration was settled, the United Kingdom announced its intention to recognise a Palestinian state, following France’s move a few days earlier.
Canada signalled its intentions to recognise the next day, and now Australia has also followed.
Since the outbreak of conflict in Gaza following the October 7 terror attack by Hamas, the international community has worked on a plan that could deliver peace in the region.
The New York Declaration lays the foundations of a plan that could be followed the “day after” war ends in Gaza, with commitments by the Palestinian Authority to hold democratic elections, accept a de-militarised state, and reform its school curriculum to promote peace.
Its policy — called One State, One Government, One Law, One Gun — spells out a program to hold elections within a year to trigger generational renewal, and support disarmament of Hamas under a set time-frame.
In return, financial support would be provided to the Palestinian Authority as it progresses its reforms, under a staged plan expected to be detailed further at the September UN meeting.
To support Gaza’s reconstruction, financial support would also be committed through an international trust fund, with the group backing an Arab League plan that would provide $53 billion to recovery efforts.
And following a ceasefire, a transitional administration under the Palestinian Authority would immediately be established to operate in Gaza, excluding Hamas from governance.
An international peacekeeping force would be deployed to ensure stability, which could also evolve to monitor any future peace agreement.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian said the authority had assured Australia and the world it would reform.
“We’re moving by the book and we are presenting our reports on the milestones we are achieving,” Dr Aghabekian told the ABC.
“[And] President Abbas has made it very clear to leaders of the world these elections are also a Palestinian demand.
“Now, we need the support of the international community to ensure that the environment is conducive to enable Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank to be part of this election process.”
‘Unique opportunity’ to progress peace
In a joint statement the day the declaration was settled, foreign ministers of several nations, including Australia, voiced their support for commitments by the Palestinian Authority. They also expressed their determination to work on the “day after” architecture to rebuild Gaza ahead of September’s UN General Assembly.
The agreement marked a shift in global politics, as the Arab League nations signed onto a plan with the West to recognise Israel, demand the disarmament of Hamas and condemn the terror group’s October 7 attack, opening a door for international recognition of both Israel and a Palestinian state.
And, critically, it provided a workaround to a longstanding hurdle. By providing a pathway for Palestinian recognition that could then lead to a two-state solution, it offered a way to progress a two-state solution that could not effectively be vetoed by nations unwilling to cooperate.
Alluding to the declaration, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said last week there was a “unique opportunity” in the international community to isolate and diminish Hamas.
“The best way to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East is for there to be two states and the reason for urgency behind recognition is this, there is a risk that there will be no Palestine left to recognise if the world does not act,” Senator Wong said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese affirmed on Monday that the world could no longer wait for success to be guaranteed
“There is a moment of opportunity here, and Australia will work with the international community to seize it,” Mr Albanese said.
Hamas, Israel and the US remain hurdles
While the declaration provided impetus, and fresh hope for peace, there are still major hurdles.
First, Hamas still holds hostages captured in its October 7 terror attack, and shows no intention of surrendering in Gaza.
The terrorist organisation has said it would not surrender until a Palestinian state was recognised.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his opposition to progressing two-state solution while war in Gaza rages, and just days ago announced plans to escalate Israel’s military operation and occupy parts of Gaza.
Its agreement to a two-state solution would also require withdrawing from West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law.
And the US, a key player that holds the power to veto full Palestinian membership to the United Nations, has opposed the push for recognition, saying it would be a “reward” for Hamas.
The Coalition has challenged the government to explain its break from a longstanding bipartisan position on a two-state solution. It has questioned how several commitments of the Palestinian Authority, including the disarmament of Hamas, will actually be achieved.
Former ambassador to Israel, Liberal senator Dave Sharma, said Australia’s decision would make reaching a ceasefire deal harder.
“Hamas has been portraying this concession from Australia, the United Kingdom, France and Canada as a win … it’s changed their approach to ceasefire negotiations,” Senator Sharma said.
Mr Netanyahu also said on Monday that international pressure through recognition would not change his position, labelling that push “delusional”.
International relations specialist Professor Amin Saikal said he did not expect Australian recognition to make much difference “on the ground” in the Middle East, where Palestinian territories remained under Israeli occupation, and Hamas refuses to surrender.
“They will simply be joining another 147 countries around the world that have recognised the state of Palestine. But this time it is members of the western alliance that have come forward, and I think that is very significant,” Professor Saikal said.
“The Israeli leadership will have to really take notice of that because, otherwise Israel is going to remain more isolated … the next step would be sanctions if Prime Minister Netanyahu remains defiant.”
International law professor Don Rothwell said recognising a Palestinian state while parts of it remained under Israeli occupation would be unprecedented, adding there was a risk the status quo would remain.
He said it was not meaningless for Australia to add its voice — but it was hard to see how some of the necessary conditions for peace would be met.
“There’s such a strong momentum towards Australia and many like-minded making this formal announcement of recognition at the United Nations it’s very difficult to see how anything could derail that,” Professor Rothwell said.
“It’s also very difficult to see how some of the expectations Australia has with respect to the reform of the Palestinian Authority elections will play out over the next month.”
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Community members divided over Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian state
ABC | Erwin Renaldi and Nabil Al-Nashar | 12 August 2025
Australia’s move to recognise an independent Palestinian state has been welcomed by some but has disappointed both pro-Palestinian groups and supporters of Israel.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday said at the United Nations General Assembly next month Australia would recognise a state of Palestine with a condition that terror group Hamas has no role in its governance.
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said.
It followed similar announcements from the United Kingdom, France and Canada.
At the moment, 147 of the 193 UN member states recognise Palestine as a sovereign state, with the notable exception of the United States — Israel’s most influential ally.
Neither side happy
Mr Albanese’s announcement was dismissed by the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) as a move to help shield Israel from legal accountability for its war on Gaza.
Nasser Mashni, the president of APAN, said the federal government’s recognition of a Palestinian state was “meaningless” without Australia cutting ties with Israel.
“Australia continues to trade, to supply arms, to have diplomatic relations and to diplomatically protect and encourage other states to normalise with this very state that is committing these atrocities,” he said hours after Mr Albanese’s announcement.
The government has repeatedly denied it has sold arms to Israel.
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the Jewish community was not surprised by the announcement, but it was disappointed.
“Australia is now committed to recognising a state with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory, and no capacity to live in peace with its neighbours,” he said.
Mr Ryvchin said he wanted to see the end of the war in Gaza, aid deliveries resumed, Hamas disarmed and defeated and the hostages returned home.
“No one who supports the recognition of a Palestinian state has so far made the argument compellingly as to how recognition will achieve these aims,” he said.
Announcement was late but important
Mohamed El Helou, a Palestinian from Gaza who came to Australia last year, said he has lost 300 family members in Gaza.
He told the ABC that while the decision had come “very late” it was an important one.
“The decision will support the two-state solution, which is the solution the entire international community is asking for,” he told the ABC in Sydney.
“Applying the two-state solution will contribute to ending the wars and having stability in the Middle East.
Mr El Helou said Palestinians wanted to live in peace and stability.
Another woman who spoke to the ABC said the recent massive protests in Sydney had likely played a roll in pressuring the government to recognise a Palestinian state.
Zaenab Yusuf in Melbourne said the recognition was “a great start, but a bit too late”.
“This is something that should have happened a long time ago, but we’re grateful that it’s at least happening,” Ms Yusuf said during a rally outside the ABC’s building in Melbourne.
Ms Yusuf said the Australian government needed to sanction and cut ties with the Israeli government.
Religious group wants Albanese to sanction Israel
The ABC has spoken with different Abrahamic religious groups in Australia, including Christian Palestinians in Western Australia.
One of the members, who didn’t want to be identified, told the ABC that he “finally feels Australian” after Mr Albanese’s announcement.
Although he said some critics said the recognition wouldn’t “do anything” to improve the situation in Gaza, he said it was “a step-by-step process to achieving justice”.
Susan Wahhab, the president and co-founder of Palestinian Christians in Australia said recognising the state of Palestine would acknowledge the existence of Palestinians and might end “the genocide and the starvation”.
“By recognising the state of Palestine, the world acknowledges that there are Palestinian people, and that the Israelis need to stop killing us,” said Ms Wahhab, who was born in Jerusalem.
She also said that the recognition would make Australia have “a proper relation” with the state of Palestine.
Ms Wahhab said Christian Palestinian groups in Australia have joined with other religious groups, including Muslim and Jewish organisations to ask the Australian government to sanction Israel.
“Sanctioning Israel, sanctioning the leaders who commit all these crimes, together with recognising Palestine would also put pressure on the Israelis to change the course,” she told the ABC.
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Israel kills Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza air strike
ABC | Allyson Horn | 11 August 2025
- Five Al Jazeera staff, including well-known Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif, have been killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Gaza.
- Israel’s military said it had struck an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed as a journalist”, as the Qatar-based broadcaster announced his death along with three other staff.
- A press freedom group and a UN expert previously warned that Anas al-Sharif’s life was in danger due to his reporting from Gaza.
Five Al Jazeera staff, including well-known Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif, have been killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Gaza.
Al Jazeera says its journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh were killed along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa when Israel bombed a journalists’ tent in Gaza City, near Al-Shifa Hospital.
The attack killed the whole of Al Jazeera’s reporting team in Gaza City.
“Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed alongside three colleagues in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack, the director of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City has said,” the Qatar-based broadcaster said.
“Al-Sharif, 28, was killed on Sunday after a tent for journalists outside the main gate of the hospital was hit. The well-known Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent reported extensively from northern Gaza.”
Israel had been openly threatening to target al-Sharif for several weeks, claiming he was a Hamas operative, which al-Sharif and Al Jazeera had denied.
Israel’s military said it had struck an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed as a journalist”.
“A short while ago, in Gaza City, the IDF struck the terrorist Anas Al-Sharif, who posed as a journalist for the Al Jazeera network. Anas Al-Sharif served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the military said on Telegram.
Just before his death, al-Sharif posted on social media about relentless bombings around Gaza City.
Another message was posted on his X account after the bombing, saying “This was what our dear beloved Anas requested to be published upon his martyrdom”.
“This is my will and my final message. If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” the post reads.
“Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp.”
The post ends: “Do not forget Gaza … And do not forget me in your righteous prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”
Weeks ago, the Al Jazeera network denounced the Israeli military for what it called a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in Gaza, especially al-Sharif.
“The Network considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of its journalists in the field,” it said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) previously said it was “deeply alarmed” by threats and smears made by Israel against al-Sharif, and called on the international community to protect him, predicting an assassination attempt would be made.
Palestinian journalists’ groups have also condemned the killings.
A press freedom group and a UN expert previously warned that al-Sharif’s life was in danger due to his reporting from Gaza.
UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan said last month Israel’s claims against him were unsubstantiated.
In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged the international community to protect al-Sharif.
The CPJ says at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed inside Gaza during the war, since October 7 2023.
“Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa director Sara Qudah said.
“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted.
“Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”
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Anas al-Sharif, prominent Al Jazeera correspondent, among five journalists killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza
Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital
The Guardian / Reuters, AFP | Lorenzo Tondo | 11 August 2025
A prominent Al Jazeera journalist who had previously been threatened by Israel has been killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike.
Anas al-Sharif, who was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night. His funeral was held on Monday morning.
Seven people in total were killed in the attack, including al-Sharif, Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.
The Israel Defense Force admitted the strike, claiming the reporter had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces”.
It claimed it had intelligence and documents found in Gaza as proof but rights advocates said he had been targeted for his frontline reporting on the Gaza war and that Israel’s claim lacked evidence.
Calling al-Sharif “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists,” Al Jazeera said the attack was “a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.”
Last month Israeli IDF spokesperson Avichai Adraee shared a video of al-Sharif on X and accused him of being a member of Hamas’ military wing. At the time the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, called it “an unsubstantiated claim” and a “blatant assault on journalists”.
In July, al-Sharif told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he lived with the “feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment”.
After the attack, the CPJ said it was “appalled” to learn of the journalists’ deaths.
“Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.
“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned what it described as a “bloody crime” of assassination.
In January this year, after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, al-Sharif drew widespread attention when, during a live broadcast, he removed his body armour while surrounded by dozens of Gaza residents celebrating the temporary halt in hostilities.
A few minutes before his death, al-Sharif posted on X: “Breaking: Intense, concentrated Israeli bombardment using ‘fire belts’ is hitting the eastern and southern areas of Gaza City.”
In a final message, which Al Jazeera said had been written on 6 April and which was posted to al-Sharif’s X account after his death, the reporter said that he had “lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification.”
“Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half,” he continued.
The 28-year-old leaves behind a wife and two small children. His father was killed by an Israeli strike on the family home in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City in December 2023. At the time al-Sharif said he would continue to report and refused to leave northern Gaza.
Another Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, said: “This is perhaps the hardest thing I’m reporting about the past 22 months. I’m not far from al-Shifa hospital, just one block away, and I could hear the massive explosion that took place in the past half an hour or so, near al-Shifa hospital.
“I could see it when it lit up the sky and, within moments, the news circulated that it was the journalist camp at the main gate of the al-Shifa hospital.”
Al-Sharif and his colleagues have been reporting from Gaza since the beginning of the conflict.
“It’s important to highlight that this attack is just a week after an Israeli military official directly accused Anas and directly ran a campaign of incitement on Al Jazeera and correspondents on the ground because of their work, because of their relentless reporting on the starvation and the famine and the malnutrition,” Mahmoud added.
Israel has killed multiple Al Jazeera journalists and members of their families, including Hossam Shabat, who was killed in March, and Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in August.
Chief correspondent Wael al Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in October 2023 and he himself was injured in an attack weeks later that killed Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa.
Israel, which does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza and which has targeted local reporters, has killed 237 journalists since the war started on 7 October 2023, according to Gaza’s government media office. The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 186 journalists have been killed in the Gaza conflict. Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists.
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Recognising Palestine is a distraction. We need sanctions to stop my people being killed
The Age (& SMH) | Amal Naser | 12 August 2025
They are killing my people. My family. My homeland.
I am the granddaughter of Nakba survivors. In 1948, my grandparents were expelled from Lydd, Historic Palestine, along with 80 per cent of its people by Israeli militias. My father grew up in a refugee camp, no home, no stability, only the dream of return. I grew up with their stories, and I grew up watching Israel’s ongoing crimes: the occupation of the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of villages across Palestine. I never needed a state to tell me I was Palestinian or grant me my self-determination. We did that ourselves by keeping our struggle alive.
Witnessing these injustices gave me the determination and stamina to fight for my homeland. For years, I have witnessed institutions of power fail us, allow crime after crime to occur against the Palestinian people with full impunity. I knew it was us, the people, the masses, who could end this torture.
For nearly two years, I have organised weekly rallies with the Palestine Action Group to stop what Amnesty International, B’Tselem (the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights) and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories have called by its name: genocide.
Last week, we led one of Australia’s largest ever demonstrations on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We were driven there by the images from Gaza: children starved to skeletons, families crushed under rubble, messages from our families pleading that we fight, and a disgust that our government – by its inaction – is complicit in this slaughter. We also knew that a march this big and this symbolic could never be ignored. Our demands were clear: sanctions on Israel and an end to the two-way arms trade.
And yet, the government instead offers us “recognition” of a Palestinian state, as though that is what we have been demanding. Recognition, while I watch my homeland be exterminated, while Benjamin Netanyahu vows to occupy Gaza indefinitely, while Israel expands its settlements across the illegally occupied West Bank, is as hollow as the condemnations Western leaders have offered as Israel’s crimes escalate.
Recognition is not enough. You cannot “recognise” a state while you allow Australian-made components to help arm the regime destroying it. You cannot fight for the dead while helping make the weapons that kill them.
And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, has made record profits on the back of the genocide and it has confirmed that every single F-35 jet contains Australian parts and components. (I note that I can no longer find this mention on its website.) UN experts have noted that exporting parts could be a violation of international law.
These jets are destroying and obliterating Gaza. It is the bare minimum that we cease exporting these parts to Israel, along with the armoured steel used in Israeli armoured vehicles. Instead, Defence Minister Richard Marles declares that we are an F-35 country while seeking to recognise the state whose extermination his government, by its failure to stop exports, participates in.
The reality is that Israel acts with impunity because of the ongoing support it receives from governments like Australia. The same impunity that allowed my grandparents’ expulsion in 1948, that sustains the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza, that today enables the deliberate starvation of a population.
For nearly two years, I have watched bombs fall on hospitals and schools. I have seen my family members killed. I felt alone as I saw videos of screaming children on my screen and the world had abandoned us. I was enraged when Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced a complete siege on the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024, and declared that the people of Gaza, my people, my family, would be treated as “animals” – and the world failed to stop it.
Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, has indeed been wildly disproportionate and a violation of international law.
I have listened to leaders issue hollow words as the massacres escalated: the invasion of Gaza, the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab by 335 bullets, the flour massacre, the tent massacre in Rafah, the killing of more than 60,000 people. The crimes grew. The condemnations got louder. The actions stayed the same.
Israel will not be stopped by speeches or hand-wringing. It will only be stopped by cutting off supplies to its military killing machine: sanctions, an arms embargo, an end to trade with this regime. Indeed, this is the bare minimum that Australia must do to meet its legal obligations to prevent and punish Israel for this genocide.
This is not abstract for me. I carry the grief of generations, and I get messages from family in Gaza begging us not to stop protesting against this atrocity. I will not.
Our movement is being heard. The pressure is rising. The government is scrambling; not out of principle, but because the people are demanding it.
In 2003, the Howard government rejected the mass opposition in the streets and went on to invade Iraq, leaving millions dead in war and occupation, for nothing. The Albanese government must reflect on its legacy, on how it would like to be remembered: a government that serves the interests and desires of its people, or one complicit in a genocide.
History is watching. Lives are hanging in the balance.
Recognition is not enough. It never has been. Only action can end a genocide. On August 24, 2025, we will be in the streets again as part of a massive Nationwide March for Palestine. And we will not stop.
Amal Naser is a third-generation Palestinian refugee and an organiser with the Palestine Action Group.
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Netanyahu cares for nothing – except himself
The Age (& SMH) | Peter Hartcher | 12 August 2025
Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that Palestinian civilians are dying. If he did, he’d call the food trucks in and order his bombers out.
He doesn’t care that Israeli hostages are dying. If he did, he’d declare a ceasefire to allow some to be exchanged – the only way that large numbers of hostages have been recovered in this war to date.
He doesn’t care that three-quarters of Israelis want an end to the war to allow the remaining hostages to be freed, according to a Channel 12 poll last month.
He doesn’t care that more Israeli soldiers will die, in addition to the 454 killed so far in ground operations under his command since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.
If he did, he’d heed the warning of the Israeli army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who last week said that the prime minister’s stated intention to occupy Gaza would “place a heavy burden on, and lead to the erosion of, both the reserve and compulsory service soldiers”, according to Channel 12. It would also “significantly endanger the lives of the hostages”, Zamir reportedly said.
Netanyahu doesn’t care that every one of his previous military operations which he’d pledged would “eliminate” Hamas has failed to meet this objective. Or that his stated objective of elimination is unachievable. If he did, he’d declare a realistic aim instead, such as degrading Hamas to the point where it can no longer attack Israel, a mission Israel’s forces already have accomplished.
As 600 of Israel’s former security officials, generals and spy chiefs wrote in an open letter to Trump last week: “It is our professional judgment that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel.”
Netanyahu doesn’t care that most of the people of his vital ally, the United States, have turned against Israel as a result of his atrocities in Gaza, according to a Pew Research Center poll in March. Or that 78 per cent of Americans want an immediate ceasefire, according to an Economist/YouGov poll last week.
He doesn’t care that the US president, Israel’s ultimate security guarantor, contradicted him publicly and berated him privately over the starvation of children in Gaza. If he did, he’d change his policies or drop his denials.
And he doesn’t care that almost all of Israel’s traditional friends are distancing themselves from his government. Germany is halting the export of offensive weapons and Britain, France, Canada and Australia are in the process of recognising a state called Palestine.
He cared just enough about the loss of global support to hold an English-language press conference on Sunday, a rare event aimed at overseas audiences.
But not enough to change course: “To have European countries and Australia to march into that rabbit hole,” of recognising Palestine “is disappointing, and I think it’s actually shameful. But it’s not going to take, it’s not going to change our position.”
So what does he care about? In a word, himself. He is doing what he must to hold his precarious coalition government together by pandering to its most mutinously inclined elements. Specifically, his far-right allies, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of the Religious Zionist party, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit party.
These men demand continuous hostilities against Palestinians in both of the Palestinian enclaves, Gaza and the West Bank. They rank aggression against Palestinians above the lives of the Israeli hostages.
However far Netanyahu goes in acting against the Palestinians, it is never enough for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Indeed, Smotrich on Saturday criticised Netanyahu for half-measures in Gaza.
When the prime minister said he would order the army to occupy Gaza City, Smotrich said this was inadequate. He’d “lost faith that the prime minister is able and wants to lead the IDF to a decisive victory”. He implied that he’d be prepared to quit Netanyahu’s government unless his demands were accommodated.
This is the perpetual condition of the Netanyahu coalition, meaning he must wage perpetual war.
The alternative, as articulated by Ehud Barak, Israel’s former army chief, former prime minister, and ranked with two others as the most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s history: “From this position of strength,” he wrote in May, “Israel can now afford to pivot towards a broader deal: release all hostages (living and dead), end the war and pursue a peaceful regional order.”
Barak also explained why Netanyahu would reject this constructive solution: “Embracing this path would break Netanyahu’s coalition and likely end his political career. The prime minister is not acting in the national interest; he is acting purely for self-preservation. Every other argument is a smokescreen.”
Beyond his prime ministership, Netanyahu is protecting himself from two other personal reckonings. If he loses power, he will be held to account for the Israeli lapses that allowed Hamas’ barbaric assault in October 2023. Most Israelis hold him responsible. He is not interested in being the subject of a national investigation.
Second, there are three corruption cases still pending against him. The prime ministership protects him from accountability here, too.
A “total victory” over Hamas, says Barak, is a “mirage”, which is exactly why it’s so convenient for Netanyahu. So long as he rules, the war rages.
So what’s the point of London, Paris, Ottawa and Canberra moving to recognise Palestinian statehood? Surely it cannot stop Netanyahu fighting his one-man war of self-preservation.
Netanyahu himself gave a blunt explanation at his Sunday press conference: “Many of these leaders tell me in private conversations, ‘We agree with you. We understand what you’re doing. We would do the same.’ But they say, ‘We have to cater to public opinion at home.’ I tell them, ‘It’s your problem.’”
He’s right that these governments are responding to pressure from their electorates. He’s wrong that it’s their problem alone. It’s also Israel’s.
Since its founding in 1947, Israel has struggled to win support and recognition around the world. It was on the cusp of winning diplomatic recognition from Saudi Arabia when Hamas attacked. One of its specific aims was to sabotage the negotiations. It succeeded.
Netanyahu is making Israel untouchable. And that is rewarding Hamas.
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Netanyahu’s sharp jab at Australia came at critical moment and will do little to help his cause
The Age (& SMH) | David Crowe | 12 August 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed Australia as “shameful” for a decision he was certain it would make – recognising a Palestinian state.
Speaking to world media overnight, Netanyahu assumed such an outcome in Canberra – that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal cabinet would choose to recognise Palestinian statehood before joining other countries in voting for this position at the United Nations next month.
And his sharp and emotive jab at Australia during the press conference in Jerusalem did nothing to stop it happening.
Netanyahu knew where Albanese was heading – because Albanese had told him last Thursday and Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed this in a call with the Israeli foreign minister on Sunday. So the Israeli prime minister made no attempt to be diplomatic in urging Albanese to take a different path. Instead, he delivered a slap-down.
The context is important. The Israeli leader made his remarks after taking a question from ABC correspondent Matt Doran about calls from Western leaders to recognise a Palestinian state. Netanyahu was pointed about how people in Sydney and Melbourne would feel if they came under attack from terrorists such as Hamas.
“I think we’re actually applying force judiciously, and they know it,” he said of the world leaders who are critical of his conduct of the war after the Hamas attack in October 2023.
‘I think you would do at least what we’re doing.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how Australians would feel if attacked by terrorists
“They know what they would do if, right next to Melbourne or right next to Sydney, you had this horrific attack. I think you would do at least what we’re doing – probably maybe not as efficiently and as precisely as we’re doing it.”
Netanyahu’s critics will debate just how “efficiently” the Israel Defence Forces are killing and wounding civilians in pursuit of Hamas. The point here is that he framed his words with Australia in mind.
“Today, most of the Jewish public is against the Palestinian state for the simple reason that they know it won’t bring peace, it will bring war,” he said.
“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that – fall right into it – and buy this canard, is disappointing. And I think it’s actually shameful.
“But it’s not going to take, it’s not going to change our position. We will not commit national suicide to get a good op-ed for two minutes. We won’t do that.”
His words are like rotten tomatoes for the Liberals and Nationals to throw at Albanese.
There are serious arguments against recognising a Palestinian state at this point. What would this state look like? The borders are contested and overrun by war. The leadership is unknown. The dominant fighting force in a large part of the territory, Hamas, is a terrorist group.
The key condition for the existence of this state, at least in Western diplomacy, is that it accepts Israel’s right to exist and does not threaten Israel’s security. This means leaders are choosing to recognise Palestine before they can be sure it meets this condition.
The assumption is that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, could lead a Palestinian state. Several have spoken to him in recent days – including Albanese last Wednesday. Albanese says Abbas has reaffirmed the acceptance of Israel, the demilitarisation of a Palestinian state and the need for elections.
“Australia’s position is predicated on the commitments we have received from the Palestinian Authority,” say Albanese and Wong in their formal statement.
The obvious challenge is that Abbas has authority over the West Bank, as chairman of Fatah, the largest group within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, but he cannot speak for others. Hamas won 44.45 per cent of the vote in the 2006 election that led it to take control of Gaza in violence against Fatah and the Palestinian people. It is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
Peaceful co-existence may seem a bitter joke to the people of Gaza after more than 60,000 deaths in less than two years. Witnesses to the war have told this masthead about the indiscriminate casualties, the starvation, the flattening of homes and the restrictions on medical aid.
National leaders have avoided recognising a Palestinian state in the past, but the war is so horrific that this symbolic recognition is presented as urgent and necessary. Now Albanese has joined leaders from Europe and Canada in his call. Leaders use it to apply pressure on Netanyahu over the sheer scale of the suffering. As a road map to peace, however, it is only a sketch.
Netanyahu has been losing support among Western leaders for months because of the ferocity of his military strategy. Some chose not to take a firm stand against him in the earlier stages of the war, but this changed as the full horror grew worse, month after month.
After losing so many national leaders, Netanyahu needed to keep some on side. His remarks on Sunday only pushed Albanese further away.
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Indifference, criticism and frustration: How Palestinian-Australians feel about Labor’s move
The Age (& SMH) | Mostafa Rachwani | 12 August 2025
Palestinian Australians have reacted with indifference, criticism and frustration at the federal government’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state, dismissing the gesture as “just words”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next month, adding that he believed a “two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East”.
But to educator and community organiser Ziyad Serhan the move is “insulting” to the Palestinian community.
“We need more. The community sees right through this rhetoric by the government, at the moment they see this as a continuation of their lack of action. Recognition is not going to bring about accountability.
“We want to see meaningful action. In light of the thousands that are dead and the utter destruction of Gaza, this is just insulting in how little it matters. Recognition is the easy way out here, we need maximum pressure [on Israel].”
Serhan said he felt largely “indifferent” to the government’s announcement, saying it was just “validating our right to exist”.
“I think the overwhelming majority of people, as they witness the genocide that’s taken place over the last 22 months, want action. They don’t want words and I don’t think the rage, the grief and the loss will be affected by mere recognition and the government needs to know this.”
Serhan is one of the organisers behind the Shifa Project, a community initiative that seeks to provide mental health support and resources to those affected by the war in Gaza.
One of their next events will be hosted by Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, a writer and researcher at Macquarie University, who told the Herald recognition of a Palestinian state was just “theatre”.
“Recognising a Palestinian state is mere diplomatic theatre. It’s not a breakthrough, it’s a deliberate avoidance tactic from Australia and Western states to avoid their obligations under international law,” she said.
“Palestinians urgently need states to impose sanctions, arms and trade embargoes to stop Israel committing its genocide.”
But the move has not been welcomed by all, with members of the Jewish Australian community expressing dismay at the government’s decision.
Amanda Gordon is a Sydney-based psychologist who says her community is “profoundly sad” at the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood. She said most in the community would have preferred such a move only if Hamas was no longer in control of Gaza.
Gordon said she would “have preferred the government to say we continue to support the idea of Israel being the Jewish homeland, and that there will be a Palestinian state when the Palestinian leadership can recognise the right of Israel to exist”.
“This will only be exacerbating the community’s feeling of total abandonment. People are beside themselves, there is sadness, there is some hopelessness, the sense of the worst is to come.”
Gordon said she believed the government had made the move in an attempt to address issues with social cohesion.
“There is such poor social cohesion, and the government is hoping that if they show some leadership, no matter how poorly thought out, it’s better than no leadership on this issue,” she added.
The move by the Albanese government comes after at least 90,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3, protesting against Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza, its targeting of journalists and its reported usage of starvation as a weapon.
Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, among them mostly women and children, as well as 237 journalists, according to Gaza Health Ministry officials. The Israeli military campaign has left much of the territory in ruins, amid reports of a growing famine in the enclave due to what international aid agencies say is a deliberate plan by Israel to restrict aid.
Israel’s campaign began after the October 7 attack, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killed 1200 people and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Amal Naser, a spokesperson for Palestine Action Group, the organisers behind the Harbour Bridge march, dismissed the government’s move to recognise a Palestinian state, saying it was not “born out of principle, but out of political heat that has come out from the mass movement, particularly the historic march over the Harbor Bridge”.
“We’ve been clear from the get-go that recognition of the Palestinian state has never been a demand of the movement. We cannot recognise a state that Israel is actively seeking to destroy.”
Naser described the measure as coming “very late” into the conflict, adding that she believed the government has so far “dismissed the Palestinian movement as a fringe movement in this country.”
“As a result, they haven’t really felt pressured to take any action against Israel,” she said.
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network criticised the announcement, and listed what it believed the government should be doing, which included sanctions of Israel and Israeli individuals, arms embargoes and a suspension of trade agreements.
APAN’s president Nasser Mashni said the announcement was a “cynical political smokescreen” that was “designed to shield Australia’s economic, military and diplomatic ties, protect Israel and enable this rogue state to continue its deadly war crimes with impunity.”
In a statement, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry called the move “a betrayal and abandonment of the Israeli hostages” and that it gives the hostages “no hope for release”.
They said the Jewish community was not surprised by the announcement, but that it does not “lessen our disappointment”.
“Australia is now committed to recognising as a State an entity with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory, and no demonstrated capacity to live in peace with its neighbours.”
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‘Deputy sheriff’ no more: Why Australia broke from the US on Palestinian recognition
The Age | Matthew Knott | 12 August 2025
The Albanese government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state marks a historic moment in Australian foreign policy, even if the move is likely to have little to no practical impact on the Middle East in the foreseeable future.
The shift has been years in the making, but momentum accelerated dramatically over the past fortnight as global events convinced Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong that now was the time to cross the Rubicon.
Long derided as the United States’ “deputy sheriff” in the Asia-Pacific, Australia is asserting its independence from the Trump administration on a defining issue, even as the mercurial president weighs up the future of the AUKUS pact and possible tariffs on Australian pharmaceutical imports.
Wong called US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday to tip him off about the decision, but this was merely a courtesy call. Rubio has warned that recognising Palestine now would reward Hamas for its October 7 attacks and embolden it to act as a spoiler in ceasefire talks over the war in Gaza. These warnings carried no weight with Wong, despite the fact the US can use its United Nations Security Council veto power to block Palestine from being admitted as UN member state.
While disappointing our closest security partner, the announcement will be welcomed throughout South-East Asia, especially in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. It puts Australia in the same basket as Spain, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and other like-minded nations that have recently recognised or flagged they intend to recognise Palestine. New Zealand is likely to follow at the United Nations General Assembly next month.
Just a few weeks ago, Albanese was saying publicly, as well as privately to Jewish community leaders, that there was no imminent decision on recognising Palestine. He stressed that particular conditions had to be met on the Palestinian side, and that he did not want any move by Australia to amount to a mere gesture.
Despite his cautious instincts, Albanese ultimately felt he could not leave Australia isolated as countries use it as a tool to try to revive hopes for a two-state solution and community anger mounts at the devastating and seemingly endless war in Gaza.
“The world cannot wait for success to be guaranteed,” Albanese said on Monday. “That only means waiting for a day that will never come. There is a moment of opportunity here, and Australia will work with the international community to seize it.”
In one sense, there is something surreal about the growing push to recognise Palestine given how disconnected it is from events in Gaza and the West Bank. When Albanese and Wong speak about adding to momentum towards a two-state solution, they are talking only in terms of international diplomacy, not in terms of the current reality in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The goal is not to bring a Palestinian state into effect in the near future, but to keep the very idea of it alive.
In Israel, support for the creation of a Palestinian state has plummeted since the October 7 attacks. Last July, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly passed a motion rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, with 68 votes in favour and just nine against.
During the debate on the motion, Gideon Sa’ar, now Israel’s foreign minister, said: “We will not be able to convince our friends in the world unless we will speak clearly against the establishment of a Palestinian state, which is a threat to the State of Israel … There will be no foreign sovereignty west of the Jordan, there cannot be. Every area we withdraw from becomes a terror zone.”
As for the Palestinian side, the latest polling by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research shows four in 10 Palestinians support a two-state solution and six in 10 believe it is no longer feasible. Under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government, settlement building has rapidly expanded in the West Bank and much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble.
The same polling shows that Hamas remains a powerful force in Palestinian society, despite many Gazans loathing the group for the devastation it has inflicted upon them. Hamas remains the most popular party among the Palestinian population, ahead of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority. Excluding Hamas from participating in elections or any governing role in Palestine, as Albanese insists, will be easier said than done.
This is not an argument for doing nothing. As Albanese points out, the status quo has delivered neither a Palestinian state nor security for Israelis. Something dramatic needs to change. And Benjamin Netanyahu can hardly be shocked when countries such as Australia stop listening to him when he claims, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that there is no starvation in Gaza and oversees a surge of settlement building in the West Bank.
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A key difference
The Age | Letters | 12 August 2025
A key difference
To respond to two of your correspondents’ short letters on Gaza (Letters, 11/8), the difference between Ukraine and the Palestinians is that Ukraine was the innocent victim of murderous aggression, (as is Israel) having to defend their demise, but it is in Hamas’s Charter to commit genocide on Israel and they attempted it knowing the outcome of their own actions. What would stop any more killing and destruction is not countries refusing to supply Israel with munitions, nor recognising a Palestinian State, it’s the end of Hamas rule over Gaza.
Stephen Lazar, Elwood
Mixing art and politics
The NGV protest wasn’t about anyone’s religion (“Protests won’t stop billionaire Jewish family donating to NGV”, 11/8). It challenged a public gallery taking money from donors who actively back Zionist causes – including funding birthright programs run by the Zionist Federation that take young people to Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. Disagree with the method, sure. But the protest questioned a donor relationship – not Judaism.
There’s a bigger lesson here. When cultural institutions lean on billionaire philanthropy, they become vulnerable to donors’ politics. Melbourne has already seen funding stoushes and pull-outs across arts organisations whenever Israel Palestine is mentioned. That’s not healthy for artistic independence – or public trust.
The fix is straightforward: fund our galleries properly. The NGV is a statutory public gallery whose backbone is tax payer support. Strengthen that base so curators answer to the public interest, not a donor’s agenda.
And remember: so-called “private” giving is already publicly subsidised through tax deductibility – taxpayers co-invest via the system of deductibility.
Fernanda Trecenti, Fitzroy
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Recognition of Palestine will not end the killing
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 12 August 2025
The prime minister has announced that Australia will join 147 other countries and recognise a Palestinian state at the UN in September (“Australia to recognise Palestinian state”, August 11). No doubt this will bring fierce criticism from the Israeli government, but how will it serve to end the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? I suspect not at all. The Israeli government’s stated policy is that there will not be a Palestinian state and its actions in Gaza and the West Bank continue to diminish the prospect of a two-state solution. Until actions that have a material impact on Israel are introduced, such as trade, financial, cultural and sporting sanctions, many more lives will be lost.
Scott McKenzie, Brunswick East (Vic)
George Brandis wants us to believe Israel has long pursued a two-state solution (“Recognising Palestine will only reward Hamas, the side with clear genocidal intentions”, August 11). History says otherwise. Jewish-Israeli historian Ilan Pappe argues that from 1948 – when more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled in the Nakba – to today, the aim has been maximum land with minimum Palestinians. The Oslo Accords did not reverse that – East Jerusalem was annexed, Gaza blockaded. Every few years the army “mows the lawn”, a chill ing euphemism for periodic, overwhelming force designed to weaken Palestinian society, knowing it will grow back. This is not how a state prepares to welcome a neighbour. The claim that recognition “rewards Hamas” because Hamas has only “genocidal intent” col lapses on contact with facts. In 2017, Hamas issued a new charter accepting a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. You can dislike Hamas and still acknowledge the record. To say Hamas derailed a viable path to Palestinian sovereignty is to re write history. That path never existed because Israel never intended it to. Already, Australia and 147 other countries have recognised a Palestinian state.
Fernanda Trecenti, Fitzroy (Vic)
George Brandis provides something lacking in today’s heated debates: historical con text. The handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993 represented genuine hope for peace through mutual recognition. However, as Brandis notes, achieving such peace requires meeting specific conditions. Any Palestinian state recognition must be earned through concrete steps: release of all hostages, disarmament of Hamas, and establishment of democratic institutions. Borders must be negotiated consistent with UN resolutions, Oslo Accords and the Road Map to Peace. Most fundamentally, Palestinian leadership must unequivocally accept Israel’s right to exist. Unfortunately, recent actions by Israel’s longstanding allies threaten to undermine these essential prerequisites. Premature recognition of a Palestinian state by Israel’s al lies would only reward terrorism, while achieving nothing substantive for peace.
John Kempler, Rose Bay
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is right: Palestinian statehood must be realised (“Gaza ceasefire hopes revived”, August 11). Decisive action is needed now, not more platitudes. The stakes are too high not to act. Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 must be condemned without qualification. The hostages must be released immediately. Arab nations have rightly denounced Hamas, which must have no role in Palestine’s future. But Israel, as a powerful democracy, must be held to a higher standard, especially when its current leader ship seeks to erode the very democratic principles it claims to defend. Netanyahu and his cohorts are utter vandals. The human cost, borne primarily by Palestinians, is intolerable. As Penny Wong has warned, soon there may be no Palestine left to recognise if the world fails to act. Those who still seek common humanity stand opposed to extremists on both sides who exploit this moment to spread hatred. History leaves no ambiguity: this outrage must be brought to an end.
Simon Tedeschi, Newtown
George Brandis mocks protesters for chanting “from the river to the sea”, but does he know the expression has long been an Israeli mantra? The intentions of Israel have long been to annex the territory from the river to the sea, with systematic appropriation of portions of the West Bank and expulsion of the locals. Israel may say Palestine has the right to exist but its actions speak otherwise.
Ross Devine, Mallabula
Brandis seems content to quibble about the meaning of the word “genocide” but the fact remains that tens of thousands of innocent Gazans have lost their lives since October 7, 2023. As for his outrage about protesters “advocating ethnic cleansing” by chanting “from the river to the sea”, he conveniently disregards the eviction of Palestinians by Israel from their homes in the West Bank. It’s also telling that he makes no mention of Netanyahu’s early support for Hamas over the Palestinian Authority.
George Watkins, Blaxland
There have been Middle East deals in the past that could have led to a lasting two-state solution, the last being the Oslo Accords, which fell apart because right-wing Israelis shot PM Yitzhak Rabin, leading to the past 30 years of Israel governments making sure a two state solution would never hap pen, including supporting Hamas as a foil to the PLA so they could say we can’t negotiate with terrorists.
Brenton McGeachie, Hackett (ACT)
By exercising his “right to be a bigot”, George Brandis fails to speak the truth. The starving and killing of non-combatants can never be justified, legally or morally.
Mark Porter, New Lambton
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PM: all the way with P.A.
The Australian | Ben Packham | 12 August 2025
Anthony Albanese has pinned his landmark recognition of Palestine on the assurances of an 89-year-old leader who has overseen payments for terrorists and the indoctrination of children against Israel, in a move savaged by the Netanyahu government, Israel’s President and Australian Jews.
The Prime Minister announced on Monday he would formally recognise a Palestinian state when he addressed the UN in September, in a move that will fracture Australia’s ties with Israel and further test the government’s relationship with Donald Trump’s administration.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog accused Labor of making a grave mistake that was “a reward for terror, a prize for the enemies of freedom, liberty, and democracy”.
Mr Albanese had framed the ongoing presence of Hamas in Gaza and its refusal to release its Israeli hostages as red lines that would prevent his government from recognising a Palestinian state. But he said he was swayed by the commitments of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who controls the West Bank but not the Gaza Strip, that Hamas would play no future role in a Palestinian state, end “pay to slay” rewards for terrorists, and stop the enclave’s schools from inciting hatred.
He said he wanted to see Hamas’s Israeli hostages released, but did not make it a precondition for his government’s recognition of Palestine.
The announcement divided the Labor movement, with former Labor minister Mike Kelly saying that it risked betraying ALP values because of Hamas’s persecution of gay people and trade unions. But Labor’s Friends of Palestine group pushed for the government to go further, urging a review of political, economic and military ties with Israel.
Israel on Monday night accused Mr Albanese of playing domestic politics, its Deputy Foreign Minister Shareen Haskel saying Labor had rewarded the monsters of Hamas.
“Fifty of our hostages remain in Hamas’s dungeons of torture, being starved to death – being forced to dig their own graves, yet the Australian government has decided now is the right time to reward the monsters of October 7 with recognition of a Palestinian state,” Ms Haskel said.
Invoking icons of Israel’s early democracy, Mr Herzog said in Jerusalem on Monday night: “I wonder what the Knesset members in those days (for example, would have said about the Australian Prime Minister’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state.
“I have no doubt what (Daniel) Ben-Gurion and (Menachem) Begin, who were on opposite sides of the aisle, would have said together, and I too say here emphatically to the whole world: Israel has always strived, and will always strive, for peace with our neighbours including the Palestinians.”
“These declarations, by Australia and other countries, are a reward for terror, a prize for the enemies of freedom, liberty, and democracy. This is a grave and dangerous mistake, which will not help a single Palestinian and sadly will not bring back a single hostage.”
Jewish groups said Mr Abbas, who had not faced an election since 2005, was a serial promise-breaker and in no position to offer guarantees over what happened in Gaza. “He has a record of repeatedly breaking commitments he has made in the past, including numerous unkept promises to hold Palestinian elections,” said Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion.
“Secondly, neither he nor the PA have the power to deliver on those commitments. They do not have the capacity to secure the release of the hostages, disarm Hamas and remove it from control over parts of Gaza.”
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said the Palestinian Authority was “irredeemably corrupt, and so hated by its own people that, as polls repeatedly show, any election would result in a Hamas victory”.
“The Palestinian Authority has rejected every opportunity to achieve a two-state peace for the last 25 years,” Mr Rubenstein said. “It incites its population to hatred of Israel through every available medium, including education, and glorifies and financially incentivises terrorism.”
The Coalition also lashed the decision, saying it had put Australia at odds with the US, while rewarding Hamas.
“Despite his words today, the reality is Anthony Albanese has committed Australia to recognising Palestine while hostages remain in tunnels under Gaza and with Hamas still in control of the population of Gaza – nothing he has said today changes that fact,” said Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
“Recognising a Palestinian state prior to a return of the hostages and defeat of Hamas, as the government has today, risks delivering Hamas one of its strategic objectives of the horrific terrorism of October 7.”
The move to recognise Palestine follows similar commitments by Britain, France and Canada in recent weeks. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Monday that his country was considering taking the same position.
Mr Albanese flagged his decision in a tense phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, telling him the situation in Gaza was intolerable and accusing him of breaching international law. “I have said it publicly – and I said it directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu – the situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world’s worst fears,” the Prime Minister said. “Far too many innocent lives have been lost. The Israeli government continues to defy international law and deny sufficient aid, food and water to desperate people, including children … This is about much more than drawing a line on a map – this is about delivering a lifeline to the people of Gaza.”
The government also flagged the move with the Trump administration, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong revealing she told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the decision in an overnight phone call. Mr Rubio, a strong supporter of Israel, previously accused French President Emmanuel Macron of scuttling peace negotiations with Hamas by announcing he would recognise Palestine next month.
US Studies Centre chief executive Michael Green said it was likely the announcement would “not be well received by the Trump administration or Republicans in congress”.
Asked whether she expected any blowback from the White House, Senator Wong said: “We speak for Australia and we make our sovereign decisions.”
Mr Netanyahu hit back at the government’s march towards recognising Palestine on Monday morning (AEST), saying the push was “shameful” and “disappointing”. He said recognising Palestine “won’t bring peace; it will bring war”.
“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole … and buy this canard, it is disappointing. And I think it’s actually shameful,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Labor backbencher Ed Husic lauded his party’s move on social media, saying it was “important for long-term peace”. He challenged Mr Netanyahu’s criticism, saying: “What’s shameful is killing 60,000 innocent Palestinians, half of which are women and children.”
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Labor in a state of fraud and fantasy
The Australian | Paul Kelly | 12 August 2025
This is a Labor Party project in fraud and fantasy. Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state has been delivered by the disastrous overreach of the Netanyahu government, the anti- Israeli momentum of the West and the improbable promises of the Palestinian Authority.
Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong have announced an epic shift in foreign policy on a flawed basis: their claim Palestinian state recognition will open the door to the prized two-state settlement.
History and realism suggests it will have the opposite impact.
Labor’s stance is about political gesture. It is popular at home, gives Australia diplomatic cover by acting with Western nations and is driven by a backlash against Israel – the belief it must be punished and deterred from its tactics in Gaza and the West Bank. Critically, there are no preconditions on Australia’s stance. This is a commitment to recognition at the UN next month. It is coming fast and unqualified. Labor renders itself hostage to a divided Palestinian entity that is supposed to act with magnanimity.
Australia gets nothing tangible from this historic declaration.
Hamas has political control in Gaza. It won’t surrender. It exploits Western recognition of Palestine. The hostages are not released. The war continues.
Netanyahu has doubled down, now with a new cause – to prove Palestinian recognition won’t work. Labor says Hamas will have no role in Palestine’s future, a promise that is wish fulfilment.
But wait. Labor has a piece of paper from Palestinian Authority chair Mahmoud Abbas, pledging to reverse virtually everything the PA has believed for years – it will hold elections, reform itself, end terrorist payments, terminate incitement of hatred, back a demilitarised state and renew its acceptance of the Israeli state.
What sort of deal is this? Labor delivers Palestinian recognition and gets nothing in return but improbable promises. The best hope lies in the breakthrough statement from Arab nations following the France/Saudi Arabia initiative, a momentum that Albanese is joining.
Palestinian recognition was an idea waiting to happen. Now it has arrived, courtesy above all to Benjamin Netanyahu in his reckless campaign that has undermined Israel’s moral standing. The Israel Prime Minister is the force behind Albanese’s fantasy.
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Makes it worse: hostage family
The Australian | Christine Middap | 12 August 2025
Daniel Lifshitz’s grandparents, Oded and Yocheved, devoted their life to peace.
The human rights activists would drive sick patients from Gaza to Israel for medical treatment, part of a lifelong mission to foster understanding and provide care to those in need, “regardless of which side of the divide they came from”, Mr Lifshitz said.
Yet their compassion mattered little to the Hamas terrorists who attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, shooting Oded through the hand before kidnapping him, and bundling Yocheved on a motorbike and into the tunnels under Gaza.
Yocheved, 85, traumatised and starving, was freed weeks later and in February this year, the body of her 84-year-old husband Oded, a journalist and leader in the kibbutz movement, was released along with confirmation he had died less than a month into his captivity.
“We fought all through the years for social justice, for peace,” Yocheved said at her husband’s funeral. “To my sorrow, we were hit by a terrible blow by those we helped on the other side.”
Their grandson, speaking to The Australian on the day Anthony Albanese announced that Australia would recognise the state of Palestine, was disappointed with the international response.
He fears growing moves to recognise Palestine will allow Hamas to back away from negotiations to release the hostages.
“It will cause huge suffering for the Gazans and continue the huge suffering of the hostages,’’ Mr Lifshitz said.
“You make it difficult for us … this kind of recognition is making it way more difficult for the families of the hostages and for the Israelis to make the pressure we need to make internally.”
Mr Lifshitz, a wine importer who has devoted his time to advocating for the hostages, said the unconditional release of the remaining captives, a permanent ceasefire, humanitarian aid into Gaza and the disarming and permanent sidelining of Hamas must be the priority.
“When those things happen, that can … lead to future talk about a Palestinian state,’’ he said.
Mr Lifshitz said no one, including the Israeli government, had done enough to free the hostages.
“I’m not here to say anything good about the actions of the Israeli government,” he said.
“My issue is how we release the hostages, and how we ease the pain for the mothers in Gaza and their children.”
Australia’s move, in line with recent announcements from the UK, France and Canada, drew strong response from some quarters yesterday.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the decision was a betrayal of the hostages still being held by Hamas.
“This announcement gives them no hope for release,” Mr Aghion said.
“It leaves Hamas armed and in control of territory, and in a position to regroup and rearm, thereby creating the conditions for the next war rather than a comprehensive peace.”
It is believed 20 of the 49 hostages remaining in Gaza are alive.
Sydney man Zack Shachar, the cousin of freed hostage Naama Levy, has been a staunch advocate for the hostages, attending small weekly public vigils to remember those who were kidnapped on October 7.
The sole focus of his group was on the release of hostages, he said, not political announcements.
“We are an apolitical group of people coming from different countries and different religions and we only advocate for the release of hostages,’’ Mr Shachar said.
“This is a humanitarian crisis.
You saw the picture of the hostages, how they are starving while the Hamas terrorists are well-fed.
“It is taking far too long (to release the hostages) and soon there will be no one to release alive.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in response to the French and UK moves to recognise Palestine that the decisions, taken while 49 hostages remained trapped, amounted to reward for terrorism.
“If the international community truly desires peace, it must join US efforts by demanding first the release of all hostages, followed by an end to the fighting,” the group said.
“Recognition of a Palestinian state before the hostages are returned will be remembered throughout history as validating terrorism as a legitimate pathway to political goals.”
In Israel, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets at the weekend to demand a hostage deal and oppose Israel’s plan to expand its military operation in Gaza with families calling for a general strike on Sunday, August 17.
Yehuda Cohen, whose 19-yearold son Nimrod is still being held, told the Jewish News that recognition of a Palestinian state might finally force a ceasefire and hostage deal.
“I totally support this act,” he said of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement.
“Along with France, Canada – whoever. Every potential crane that will get the end of the war, the hostage deal, is something we need to use.”
However, freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari said recognition of Palestine sent a dangerous message that violence earns legitimacy.
“Recognition under these conditions emboldens extremists and undermines any hope for genuine peace,” she said in a social media statement.
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This is a betrayal of party values: ex-ALP minister
The Australian | Paul Garvey & Richard Ferguson | 12 August 2025
Moves to recognise Palestine have fractured Labor, with ex-minister Mike Kelly saying his own party risks betraying gay people and trade unions by supporting such a state and as an ALP pressure group demands all ties with Israel be reviewed.
Mr Kelly, a minister during the Gillard government who is now a co-convener of Labor Friends of Israel, told The Australian that it was “very disturbing” to see the party moving towards recognising Palestinian statehood.
“It’s really distressing for those of us who are actually committed to the principles that we adhere to in the labour movement and the reasons why we’re part of the Labor Party,” he said.
He said Hamas’ treatment of gay people and trade unions, the lack of free and democratic elections, and the unequal rights of women in Gaza were all at odds with the core tenets of Labor.
“Those are our fundamental beliefs and principles. We’re abandoning that if we take the side of evil, retrograde, medieval elements like Hamas and Iran, the puppet master of Hamas. And these freedoms don’t exist within the Palestinian Authority right now,” he said.
“We’re still seeing rampant persecution of LGBTQI people, and no free trade unionism. They haven’t had an election since 2006. So these things are all absent there and we need to insist on them because otherwise what we’re doing is just creating a mirror version of the other trainwreck states that exist in the Middle East and North Africa.”
There has long been growing pressure from the Labor rank and file for the government to recognise a Palestinian state. Immediate recognition of Palestine emerged as a key ask from the 2025 Victorian Labor state conference, and about 90 Labor branches have passed pro-Palestinian motions.
Asked if the pro-Israel movement inside Labor was outnumbered by the pro-Palestine movement, Mr Kelly said he was sure that a majority of Labor voters supported Israel.
“In the movement I can’t say now where things stand, but (supporting Israel) should be the position of every single Labor person who believes themselves to be fighting in the cause of progressive issues,” he said.
The announcement by Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong that Australia would move to recognise Palestinian statehood was welcomed by senator Fatima Payman – who defected from Labor over the government’s previous stance on the conflict – and Labor Friends of Palestine.
Senator Payman and Labor Friends of Palestine demanded the Prime Minister follow his recognition of Palestine with a review of Australia’s political, economic and military ties with Israel.
In a sign anti-Israel activists will be emboldened by the decision, the Labor Friends of Palestine said Mr Albanese now had to go further and punish Israel over the war in Gaza.
The ALP pressure group said the government needed to engage in a “ a full review of political, economic and military ties with Israel”, despite warnings from security experts that Israeli intelligence services have been invaluable in saving Australian lives.
Labor Friends of Palestine also wants greater sanctions against members of the democratically elected Netanyahu government, and an end to defence exports that may indirectly end up in the Israeli military.
“We congratulate the government on today’s announcement, but we also call for Australia to move urgently to build on this with further strong action under international law, including sanctions and an arms embargo,” Labor Friends of Palestine spokesman Peter Moss said.
“Immediate recognition was a key ask from the 2025 Victorian Labor state conference and a significant step towards Palestinian self-determination. But recognition alone is not enough, the government must go further.”
Senator Payman said the decision had “vindicated” her long-held position on the issue and called on her former party to impose sanctions on Israel.
Senator Payman quit Labor just over a year ago after she defied the party and voted with the Greens to call for the recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Her decision sparked fury among Labor colleagues at the time, given she was early in a six-year term as a senator from Western Australia.
She said the government’s recognition of Palestinian statehood was “bittersweet” and should only be a first step, followed by sanctions on Israel.
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Landmark call laced with opportunism, symbolism
The Australian | Geoff Chambers | 12 August 2025
Anthony Albanese’s landmark decision changing Australia’s longstanding foreign policy on Palestine is opportunistic, symbolic and on many levels meaningless without US involvement.
Albanese, a political chameleon and co-founder of the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, will recognise Palestinian statehood despite claiming in recent weeks that his government’s historic decision wasn’t “imminent” and invoking a red line that Hamas can have no role in Gaza.
Standing alongside Left-faction ally Penny Wong after cabinet on Monday ratified the decision, the Prime Minister delivered on their shared dream of recognising a Palestinian state, with loose conditions.
“This is about much more than drawing a line on a map; this is about delivering a lifeline to the people of Gaza,” Albanese said.
The majority of Labor and Greens voters will applaud Albanese’s call to formally recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly next month. But for many Australians, the Israel-Gaza war and Palestinian recognition are not first-order issues.
For supporters of Israel, Albanese’s condemnation of Hamas seems like fickle rhetoric given they feel he is rewarding the murderous actions of Hamas. Slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s terror attacks against innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023, and the cruel sacrifice of thousands of his own people, combined with concerns about Benjamin Netanyahu’s military response and the unfolding humanitarian disaster, have put Palestinian statehood back on the international agenda.
As Hamas and Israel fail to secure a lasting ceasefire or the release of Israeli hostages, Netanyahu’s press conference on Monday was typically defiant and direct. But he is facing a serious challenge to his authority and leadership that will soon come to a head.
Albanese, who has spoken with Donald Trump only three times on the phone since last November and is yet to meet the US President in-person, must know that Australia recognising a Palestinian state is largely symbolic and raises more questions than answers.
With Gaza and the West Bank on either side of Israeli territory and Palestinians claiming large sections of Jerusalem, what are the boundaries for a new Palestinian state? After years mired in corruption and losing power to rivals such as Hamas, can Australia and allies rely on Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority to lead a new state? Would a Palestinian state really demilitarise and eradicate terrorism? Would it formally recognise Israel? Would Israeli settlers be prepared to cede territory? Who is going to rebuild Gaza and guarantee security? Would Hamas or supported entities win elections? Would Australia put peacekeepers on the ground?
On the last question, the government’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review made clear Australia needs to focus on its immediate Indo-Pacific region and not far-flung conflicts in the Middle East.
Formal recognition of Palestine means the government can directly fund the new Palestinian government with aid, establish diplomatic missions, enter treaties and if requested deploy defence personnel to provide assistance.
The history and realities of Israel and Palestine are more complex than social media videos and posts, which are often biased or intended to spread conspiracies.
Albanese’s argument that Australia should have its say and stand up for what it believes is correct. But the eternal pursuit for peace in the Middle East faces near-insurmountable hurdles that will take generations to overcome, or potentially never be fully resolved.
The government’s recognition of Palestine, which further erodes the relationship with Israel and could attract backlash from Trump, has been calculated and methodical. Days after Albanese’s May 3 election victory delivered his Left-faction dominance in Labor’s caucus, pro-Israel ALP figures warned that Albanese and Wong would move quickly if global partners shifted and Netanyahu refused to yield.
On May 9, Labor Friends of Palestine sent Albanese a letter demanding urgent recognition of Palestinian statehood to deliver on the commitment enshrined in the ALP’s national platform. Across May, ahead of the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia in June, Albanese and Wong began crystallising in their minds how to execute the foreign policy change. Over the past two months, they have moved with a bloc of like-minded countries, penning statements laying the ground for a move to endorse Palestinian statehood. The statements amplified the credentials of the Palestinian Authority, whose power in Gaza and the West Bank has been degraded by Hamas and others.
Before France, Britain and Canada declared positions in favour of a Palestinian state, Albanese and Wong had determined their government would move amid growing criticism of Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza.
The focus on Labor’s economic reform roundtable next week gave Albanese space to enact his plan behind the scenes. After speaking with Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders, Albanese’s conversation with Abbas last week was one of the final pieces of the puzzle. Albanese, who finally stated his position directly to Netanyahu in a long phone call last week, told Abbas they would meet at the UN summit in New York, where Australia would endorse a Palestinian state.
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So-called solution comes with one guarantee: bloodshed
The Australian | Alex Ryvchin | 12 August 2025
The government has finally ended years of debate about Palestinian statehood to announce that at the United Nations General Assembly next month, Australia will recognise Palestine.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong spoke of it as a piece of unfinished business. Australia recognised Israel when it declared statehood in 1948, pursuant to the UN’s partition plan endorsed by a majority of states, including, crucially, rival superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. It is high time to finish the work the UN started and acknowledge a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one.
Only there’s a hitch. The reason why Palestine wasn’t created in 1948 wasn’t because of opposition to it. It wasn’t because of settler violence or Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard line or a crisis in Gaza.
It was because the Palestinians rejected it because accepting it would mean permanently entrenching a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Instead, they wagered on civil war buttressed by the Arab world, which dutifully invaded the Jewish state.
Israel wasn’t recognised by the world as a gift bestowed upon the Jewish people.
It was recognised because it had attained statehood by virtue of carefully building the components of a viable, democratic state – a free press, a multi-party political system, a vibrant civil society, organised labour, industry and free markets.
The world merely recognised a reality that had come to pass.
This is what has allowed it to sustain and thrive through incomparable adversity.
Have the Palestinians built the essential components of a viable state capable of withstanding jihadist forces, Iran and the competing tribes and factions that will be salivating at the prospect of claiming Palestine as a staging ground for the final destruction of Israel? Australia is now committed to recognising as a state something with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory, and no capacity to live in peace with its neighbours.
In doing so, Australia has abandoned decades of bipartisan consensus which has envisaged Palestinian statehood and recognition as part of a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states.
The Prime Minister spoke compellingly of the evils of Hamas, its crimes against Israelis and its own people, and the fact that its days of governing are over.
All well and good.
But who will now finish the mission of rooting out Hamas in Gaza or stopping it from dominating in the West Bank? The Palestinian Authority? International peacekeepers? Only Israel has shown the willingness and ability to confront Hamas.
The commitments made by the Palestinian Authority to live in peace, demilitarise and engage in widespread reforms are a good start. But conditions that cannot or will not be enforced are meaningless.
Anthony Albanese and the Foreign Minister failed to clearly articulate how the commitments made by the Palestinian Authority will be enforced and the consequences if they fail.
This announcement removes any incentive or diplomatic pressure for the Palestinians to do the things that have always stood in the way of ending the conflict, specifically the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and the need to negotiate the five final status issues that separate the sides.
Israel will feel wronged and abandoned by a longstanding ally.
The Palestinian Authority will feel that a huge diplomatic prize has been dropped in its lap, despite its consistent failures to reform, democratise and agree to peaceful coexistence alongside a Jewish state.
Hamas and other Islamist groups will see that barbarity on a grand scale can lead to desired political transformation.
While we believe that the government sincerely believes in a two-state solution and that these moves will help achieve it, we fear that its actions, intended to sideline extremists, will have the exact opposite effect.
It will encourage Hamas to keep fighting and heap more misery on its people, and it will invigorate the most extreme elements of the anti-Israel movement, those who have targeted electorate offices, galleries, Jewish families, individuals and diners in Melbourne alleys to escalate their own activities.
There is a story in Greek mythology of Procrustes, who sought to fit travellers into a bed by hacking or stretching them into size, instead of adjusting the bed.
It is a parable for seeking to solve a problem in the most absurd way, of lacking the right response to a problem and mutilating one’s way to a solution.
In its desperation to ease our fatigue with this war and this conflict, our government has now presented its solution. Except it is no solution at all.
Merely a guarantee of more false dawns and the inevitable bloodshed that follows them.
Alex Ryvchin is co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry
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Impotent and 89: Abbas not the best of bets
The Australian | Amanda Hodge | 12 August 2025
Anthony Albanese has predicated Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state on the assurances of Mahmoud Abbas – a deeply unpopular 89-year-old leader who has held office by decree since his first and last election in 2005 – that he will meet all the caveats set for that decision.
Among the “new and important” conditions the Palestinian Authority leader has told the Australian Prime Minister he can meet are the demilitarisation of any future Palestinian state; a potential security role for international forces; elections that exclude Hamas, governance reform, and financial transparency in the education system, including international oversight to guard against the incitement of violence and hate.
He has also pledged to abolish the system of payments to the families of prisoners and martyrs, and reaffirmed that the Palestinian Authority recognises Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.
All sound reasonable and necessary preconditions for an independent Palestinian state existing peacefully side-by-side with the state of Israel, as Mr Albanese has made clear is the Australian government’s ambition.
But the first and most obvious question is whether Mr Abbas, who turns 90 in November, is capable of delivering on those promises? Having failed to hold promised elections for more than 17 years – most recently in 2021 when he called off polls that his party, Fatah, looked certain to lose – Mr Abbas can hardly be considered to be a man of his word.
There is little love lost for the veteran political leader among Palestinians in the West Bank, let alone in Gaza where Fatah split from Hamas after a brief civil war and then lost the 2007 Gaza elections when Hamas campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. In a 2023 poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, 63 per cent of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza said the Palestinian Authority was a burden on the Palestinian people, that the Abbas government was authoritarian and that it was too beholden to Israel – on which it relies for tax revenue to pay its civil service.
The survey also showed the Palestinian Authority administration was viewed as irredeemably corrupt, with senior officials enjoying lifestyles that most Palestinians could only dream of.
Born out of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the mid 1990s, the Palestinian Authority was created as an interim governing body intended to pave the way for an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
Thirty years later it has little power real and even less legitimacy among most Palestinians.
It controls only part of the West Bank, where Israeli settler communities have grown exponentially in recent years, and has no presence at all in Gaza, raising still more glaring questions about how it intends to deliver the promised demilitarisation, let alone its other assurances. The Palestinian Authority lost a brief civil war to Hamas as well as an election and has shown no ability since then to impose its will on the proscribed terrorist organisation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that recognising Palestinian statehood rewards Hamas for its militancy, including the October 7, 2023, massacre of 1200 Israelis and the taking of more than 200 hostages, 50 of whom remain in Gaza. On Monday he insisted his plan to seize Gaza City – home to about one million Palestinian refugees – was the best and quickest way to end the war.
“Israel has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas,” he said at a press conference ahead of Mr Albanese’s announcement.
“Today, most of the Jewish public is committed, is against the Palestinian state, for the simple reason that they know it won’t bring peace. It’ll bring war. To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that, fall right into it and buy this canard is disappointing, and I think it’s actually shameful.”
There seems little doubt the federal government’s move towards recognition reflects a deep frustration within the federal Labor Party over Israel’s conduct of its war with Hamas in Gaza, concern for the plight of Palestinian civilians caught up in that conflict, and fears that Mr Netanyahu’s intended escalation of that war could compound the humanitarian crisis.
Mr Albanese insists Hamas – long opposed to a two-state solution – reaps no reward from Palestinian recognition, and recognising Palestinian statehood is “a practical contribution towards building momentum”.
Yet doing so without establishing clear markers for measuring how and whether those conditions have been met risks the opposite.
“I don’t see this as rewarding Hamas so much as rewarding inertia from the Palestinian Authority,” Middle East analyst Rodger Shanahan said.
“The problem with recognition is when you fire the arrow you cannot then put it back in the quiver. Their (government’s) argument is they’re trying to build momentum but they are giving (the Palestinian Authority) the carrot at the start, with not much stick.
“It would be pretty embarrassing if we recognise the state of Palestine and they don’t achieve the commitments you require of them. Then will a future Australian government say we’re stripping recognition away?
Foreign Minister Penny Wong acknowledged there was “much more work to do in building a Palestinian state” and that democratic reforms would be crucial.
“We will help build the capacity of the Palestinian Authority and, with the international community, Australia will hold the Palestinian Authority to its commitments,” Senator Wong said.
“The practical implementation of our recognition will be tied to progress on these commitments. “
How that will work in practice however – how those achievements will be measured and who will measure them – is yet to be determined. How do you build up the prestige and authority of an organisation held in such contempt by its people?
“They have set these really vague commitments upon which statehood recognition is predicated but the devil is always in the detail and without any detail on how that will be assessed it’s purely symbolic,” Dr Shanahan said.
“You’re also making this agreement with an 89-year-old leader who’s probably not going to be around very much longer.”
Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings believes Australians should be “very, very sceptical”. “I don’t think Abbas can deliver on those. He’s never shown a capacity to do it in the past and he turns 90 soon. With the best will in the world, he is unlikely to be holding onto power much longer,” he told The Australian.
“Even if it was possible for the PA to hold elections, they have no sway in Gaza. And the likely outcome is we might actually see more radical groups selected than what we have right now.”
Mr Albanese’s announcement was little more than a “strategy to legitimise what’s going to happen in New York in a few weeks”.
The UN General Assembly will vote early next month on the so-called New York declaration, drafted out of a France and Saudi-hosted conference last month, that proposes the Palestinian Authority be the body controlling all Palestinian territory when a ceasefire in Gaza is reached.
Mr Albanese says Australia has moved towards recognition in concert with other nations; in this case G7 nations Canada, the UK, France, which have all announced their intention to do so. In doing so, they will join more than three-quarters of UN member states in recognising the state of Palestine.
But the declaration has no chance of being adopted without the approval of the 15-member UN Security Council, where the US has for decades exercised its veto in favour of Israel.
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Palestine move disregards decades of Israel friendship
Labor delivered recognition in return for improbable PA promises
The Australian | Editorial | 12 August 2025
Almost two years after Hamas tortured and murdered 1200 Jews in Israel, from Holocaust survivors to infants, and kidnapped another 250, many Australians watched in sadness and horror on Monday as Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong bolstered the terrorists’ morale, announcing that the nation would recognise a (non-existent) state of Palestine next month at the UN. Their doing so is anathema to those who remember the last 20-odd living hostages, some of whom are close to death, who remain in captivity.
Hamas, much diminished by Israel, has been bolstered by France, Britain and Canada making moves similar to Australia’s.
Hamas declared last week that its “armed resistance … cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”. Should it arise, the battle for Jerusalem would be one of the most meaningful in modern history.
How Hamas’s ambitions, which Iran no doubt endorses, fit with commitments the Prime Minister outlined from Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, 89, makes no sense. Those commitments – in theory – include no role for Hamas in a future state. Australians will not forget, however, that on Sunday Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told Sky News that Labor could recognise Palestine even if Hamas occupied half its lands, due to an ISIS precedent in Iraq and Syria. Mr Burke’s comparison was wrong, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said, because Iraq and Syria existed for years before they fell to terrorists while Palestine would be a “failed state on day one”. Mr Albanese said on Monday that Mr Abbas had also agreed to demilitarisation of a Palestinian state; PA recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security; holding general elections; abolition of the PA’s payments to families of prisoners and “martyrs”, and; reform of governance, financial transparency and the education system. These commitments, Mr Albanese said, were “given even greater weight by the Arab League’s demand for Hamas to end its rule in Gaza and surrender its weapons to the PA. This is an opportunity to deliver self-determination for the people of Palestine in a way that isolates Hamas, disarms it and drives it out of the region once and for all.” Given that Israel, with its military expertise, has been unable to destroy Hamas totally, there is no reason to believe the ramshackle, corrupt PA under Mr Abbas would do any better. Israel’s handling of a near impossible situation in Gaza, with too little aid distributed too late and acute sufferings of ordinary people, has not helped. Neither has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to take over the Gaza Strip temporarily.
But as Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said, the nation was now “committed to recognising as a state an entity with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory and no demonstrated capacity to live in peace with its neighbours”. The move, he said, “leaves Hamas armed and in control of territory, and in a position to regroup and rearm, thereby creating the conditions for the next war rather than a comprehensive peace”. That Australia has acted in concert with France, Britain and Canada does not make our recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state any more credible. Rather, it has done immeasurable damage to our longstanding close alliance with Israel while creating new difficulties for our relationship with the Trump administration. Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon says the recognition of Palestinian statehood “undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence”.
And as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week, the 140 heads of state threatening to recognise or who had already recognised a Palestinian state “can’t even tell you where this Palestinian state is”. As Mr Rubio said, the Hamas side is the Palestinian statehood side: “Hamas is sitting there saying: ‘We’re winning the PR war.
We’ve got all these countries lining up on our side of this argument. We’ve got leverage now. We shouldn’t agree to anything. We should keep this thing going.’ ” Hamas did not care how many people died in Gaza, he said – it had hostages as a shield and “all these countries sort of lining up on their side”. Donald Trump is right to refuse to take the US down the same misguided trajectory as Mr Albanese and Senator Wong.
If, as Senator Wong says, there can be “no sustained peace unless we see a two-state solution” and Australia’s move will “best contribute momentum to peace”, it is premature at best. As Cameron Stewart writes, Australia’s once rock-solid alliance with Israel has suffered a death by a thousand cuts since October 7, 2023, but none deeper than this. The decision “has cast adrift generations of Australian government policy. Long gone are the days when Labor prime minister Bob Hawke embraced Israel and Australia’s Jewish community without hesitation or equivocation.” History casts a long shadow on the issue, as Mr Albanese said, especially in the week when the anniversaries of Anne Frank’s capture in Amsterdam and the deaths of saints Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe, among more than a million innocent, overwhelmingly Jewish souls in Auschwitz, are remembered. The implications of this shortsighted announcement, rightly condemned as “shameful” by Mr Netanyahu, from which little good is likely to follow, will never be forgotten by thinking Australians, especially our much-esteemed Jewish community.
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Dangerous folly to recognise ‘state’ run by terrorists
The Australian | Letters | 12 August 2025
I am appalled that the Australian government has planned to recognise Palestine as a state.
The Palestinian people have been categorised as refugees for more than 50 years, and need their own place and their own government. At present they are in two places, the West Bank and Gaza, and have two “governments”
– one being ineffective and ignored, and the other being a proscribed terrorist organisation that murders both its Palestinian opponents and the citizens of its neighbour.
This Palestinian situation does not fulfil the UN’s own definition of a nation. A rational case for recognition has not been presented by the Australian government.
What exactly would Australia be recognising? A decision to recognise a Palestinian state would also be immoral.
The current crisis was precipitated by the ruthless murder, rape and kidnapping of Israeli civilians in their own land. Australia’s response to this shocking event has been pitiful, both on the international stage and domestically.
However, given the opportunity to support an irrational proposal, it seems that the Australian government is ready to step up to the plate without demonstrating any commitment to the more difficult tasks of achieving peace and building Palestinian nationhood.
Hamas recognises this foolish move will allow it to retain its hold over Palestinians and continue its war with Israel. Is this what the proponents of immediate recognition want? Are we also to become “useful fools” for Hamas’s public relations campaign?
Graeme Suthers, Woodforde, SA
Anthony Albanese says Hamas has no place in a future Palestine state, but fails to address the critical issue of how recognising the state will achieve this.
It is naive in the extreme to believe Hamas will see the light, admit the errors of its ways and lay down its arms.
R. Watson, Sunnybank Hills, Qld
The trio of Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong has mastered a stage act of proud, confident, total irrelevance on the Gaza war, in front of dumbstruck media.
Our performative trio is now in bad woke-ideology company with another pontificating trio: Emmanuel Macron in France, Mark Carney ruling Canada by a Trumpian default, and Keir Starmer of the UK.
These two trios blithely ignore the historical reality of pernicious Islamism in the Middle East. They unite to utter symbolic irrelevancies for a magic-wand, immediate two-state solution of Palestine free of Hamas. Hamas is gleeful about duping a prejudiced world.
Betty Cockman, Dongara, WA
The UN secretary-general has said that he is gravely alarmed by Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City. Wow!
All decent human beings are gravely alarmed. What is he going to do about it? The UN is simply a toothless tiger. When forced displacement, killings and massive destruction are occurring, a talkfest is an insult. What is needed is action. Surely, with all the intelligence and technological knowhow available to Israel, the total demilitarisation of Hamas and its complete exclusion from any form of governance in the Gaza Strip should occur forthwith, along with the insistence that all hostages be released, and the allowing of Palestinians to take charge of their own destiny without outside interference.
Rita Zammit, Concord, NSW
The two-state solution has been offered to the Arabs many times.
After seeing Iran’s and Hamas’s true intentions on and since October 7, 2023, how can our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister believe this time it will be different? Hamas representatives themselves say they will carry out future attacks until Israel is destroyed. The majority of Palestinians have said they do not want a two-state solution. What will possibly be different this time, Prime Minister?
Zvi Civins, Caulfield, Vic
Hamas is the largest militant group and the largest political party in Palestine. The terrorist organisation is synonymous with the Palestinian territory. If you recognise Palestine as a state, you recognise Hamas.
The mere idea that the federal government could provide official recognition is repugnant. Is there nothing this government won’t do to appease its left-wing MPs?
Riley Brown, Bondi Beach, NSW
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PM’s Palestine blunder plays to domestic cheer squad
The Australian | Greg Sheridan | 12 August 2025
The Albanese government has made a shocking mistake in offering official recognition to a Palestinian state when no such state exists.
These actions are not likely to have any particular consequence in the Middle East. They’re not really concerned with the politics of Gaza city and Ramallah but with Marrickville and Liverpool, Northcote and Broadmeadows.
This is about domestic politics, not the Middle East. As Frank Knopfelmacher long ago quipped: Australia foreign policy is often domestic politics by other means.
Consider the simple logic. You recognise a state when a state exists.
This move would be the equivalent of recognising a Tibetan state. After all, Beijing invaded Tibet and has perpetrated undeniable human rights abuses. The Tibetan government-in-exile claims to be the true representative of the Tibetan people. Are the Tibetan people less worthy of a state than Palestinians? But China is a big power, Israel a small power. Our “conscience” typically goes quiet with big powers.
Australia recognises states rather than governments. If we decline to have diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, we still recognise Afghanistan.
International convention, to which Australia subscribes, is that a state must have recognised borders, a clear government in control of its territory and various other attributes, none of which Palestine enjoys.
What has happened here is that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, especially in recent months, and the prospect of an intensified campaign in Gaza city are very unpopular.
(Incidentally, I strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas but think in recent months the moral, human and political cost has outweighed any benefit. Therefore it should change the campaign. That view doesn’t require early recognition of Palestine.) One way left-of-centre governments are coping with the domestic politics this situation throws up is the empty, symbolic and meaningless gesture of recognition, though the politics of this recognition could be destructive.
Russia recognised a Palestinian state decades ago, yet this didn’t hasten an actual Palestinian state.
As Liberal senator Dave Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, told Radio National, recognition has “strengthened Hamas’s international position, it’s made Hamas less likely to reach a ceasefire. It’s made Hamas able to portray itself as making political progress because of its military actions, and that is actually pushing back the resolution of this conflict.”
Hamas also credibly claims these moves by Western governments to afford recognition as a huge victory for its violence.
Sharma makes the broader point that conflating criticism of Israel’s latest military policy with formal recognition of Palestine is illogical and counter-productive.
When a new state is established, diplomatic recognition helps legitimatise and normalise it. Thus when what is now the Republic of Ireland broke away from Britain and became the Irish Free State in 1922, international recognition helped underwrite the deal. Similarly when South Sudan became independent.
When the former Yugoslavia broke up, the individual nations like Serbia and Croatia were recognised one by one. When Ukraine left the Russian Federation, Moscow and Kyiv negotiated borders and the deal was ratified, among others, by Britain and the US, though Russia under Vladimir Putin later invaded.
This move by the Albanese government is more akin to recognising a government-in-exile; the White Russians in the 1920s, for example. Most of the opposition figures who spoke on this were nearly as confused as the government, saying predominantly that the conditions Anthony Albanese mentioned should be satisfied before recognition.
The opposition shows its lack of sophistication here. All the conditions Albanese outlined could be theoretically satisfied and it still would be illogical, counter-productive and meaningless to recognise a state that can come into existence only at the end of a complicated negotiation.
As has often been stated, the Palestinians have been seriously offered a state on four separate occasions.
When Israel and Palestine were first partitioned the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states refused, rejected the partition and launched a war of annihilation against Israel.
Then under the Oslo Accords there were two separate offers to the Palestinians. We needn’t rely on Israeli testimony. These are all described at length in the memoirs of Clinton administration officials.
Then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert made a further offer in 2008. Again, no need to rely on Israeli sources. This was described in Condoleezza Rice’s memoirs.
In each case the offer was essentially the same: a Palestinian state on almost all the West Bank, about 94 per cent of it, with only the Jewish settlements adjacent to Jerusalem kept by Israel but with compensating land swaps from Israel proper; plus all of Gaza; plus a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem.
In return the Palestinians had to accept that this was the end of all claims against Israel and that they give up the idea that millions of Palestinians living overseas could come back to live in Israel, and of course they had to put an end to terrorism and anti-Semitic incitement in their education systems.
But the whole ideology of Palestinianism, as some call it, is that they have been removed from the whole land of Israel, which belongs to them, and that there’s no legitimacy to a Jewish state in the Middle East. Therefore they could never finally agree to any possible deal. The extremists among them responded with anti-Israeli terrorism.
Not only that, it was clear that any Palestinian leader who made peace on those terms would be assassinated, just as Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by extremists who objected to his peace with Israel.
For much of the period since the Olmert offer the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate so-called final status issues with Israel at all.
The “right of return” is the most ridiculous Palestinian demand.
Under this, every descendant or blood relative of any family that historically once lived in the territory of Israel would have a right to return and live permanently in Israel.
Years ago I interviewed senior Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh, who told me he thought the right of return was simply completely unrealistic.
By now it’s probably seven million people who would qualify under the right of return to live in Israel. No Palestinian leader will give this up. No Israeli will ever accept it. Its only real purpose is to offer an excuse for Palestinian representatives to reject any realistic offer of a state. All this rejectionism has moved Israeli politics to the right. Indeed, while ever Palestinian leaders hold these positions a two-state solution is indeed impossible.
Yet all of Albanese’s blather doesn’t even mention any of the three final status issues – accepting the 1967 borders with land swaps, the status of Jerusalem and forgoing the right of return.
It is of course inconceivable that even the conditions Albanese claims now accompany recognition will be met. Reform of the Palestinian Authority? Now there’s a novel idea. Similarly, what happens if there is an election and, as likely, Hamas wins? Support for an eventual twostate solution has been bipartisan in Australia but not support for early recognition of a Palestinian state. No Australian government can solve the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Australian governments can cynically manipulate these issues for domestic political purposes.
That’s what’s happening here.
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Albanese hands Hamas its sweetest propaganda victory
The Australian | Arsen Ostrovsky | 12 August 2025
In announcing Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state, Anthony Albanese said it was “humanity’s best hope” for peace in the Middle East. But it is fair to ask: Where was that humanity last week as Hamas forced an emaciated Israeli hostage to dig his grave in Gaza? On Monday, Australia has rewarded Hamas’s inhumanity with the ultimate prize: statehood.
Only days ago, the Prime Minister ruled out recognising a Palestinian state at the UN in September, saying Australia “won’t do any decision as a gesture” but only “as a way forward if the circumstances are met”.
Those circumstances, to which the Prime Minister referred, included: making sure Hamas would have no role in a future state; releasing the hostages; and structural reform in the Palestinian Authority, where there has been no election in two decades.
Albanese emphasised these steps were necessary before recognition could occur.
On Monday, however, the Albanese government abandoned those conditions, instead bowing to pressure from extreme anti-Israel elements and delivering precisely the performative gesture he warned against.
The plain truth is Monday’s announcement will not bring peace, or Palestinian statehood for that matter, any closer. It will actually push both further away.
What incentive is there now for Hamas to release the hostages and agree to a real ceasefire when it knows it can effectively sit back, reject all offers on the table, and the West will still reward it with a state? Foreign Minister Penny Wong ominously warned last week “there is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise if the international community (doesn’t) move to create that pathway to a two-state solution”.
The reality is, if the prospect of a Palestinian state was slipping away, it was not because of Israel.
It is because of the unimaginable cruelty Hamas unleashed on October 7, 2023, and because of decades of rejectionism, corruption and incitement by the Palestinian Authority.
Recognition also should not be a symbolic or performative act.
It has legal, diplomatic and strategic consequences. Under international law, particularly the Montevideo Convention, a state must meet clear criteria: a defined territory, a permanent population, a functioning government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
By these standards, the Palestinians do not yet qualify – not even close.
Gaza is still controlled by Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation under Australian law, while the West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority, which has rejected all peace offers put before it during the past three decades and where president Mahmoud Abbas is in the 21st year of his four-year term, continuing to pay salaries to convicted terrorists, instead of investing in peace and building the criteria for statehood.
Recognition not only undermines the framework of international law Australia rightfully champions, including the Oslo Accords, which stipulate that final status issues must be resolved through direct negotiations, it jeopardises our own national interests.
The US – Australia’s most important strategic ally – has made clear its deep reservations about unilateral recognition outside of a negotiated peace process. President Donald Trump recently warned Canada’s recognition of a Palestinian state would hurt the chances of a future trade deal with the US. Is Australia now prepared for similar fallout? The government’s decision also profoundly strains the longstanding bipartisan support for Israel that has underpinned Australian foreign policy for decades.
Worse still, it will inflame the already toxic anti-Semitism, intimidation and polarisation we are seeing on Australian streets, campuses and public landmarks, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge last week.
The pro-Palestinian cause has been hijacked by those who use it as cover for hate. Recognition hands them another propaganda victory and pours more fuel on a fire already raging through the fabric of Australian civil society.
For decades, Australia prided itself on being a principled middle power: one that stood up for democracy, opposed terrorism, and applied international law consistently. That reputation took a major hit on Monday.
Ultimately, the decision is not a step towards peace. It’s a road map to further bloodshed and instability, and an unconscionable reward for the terrorists who are forcing emaciated hostages to dig their own graves.
Arsen Ostrovsky is an Australian- Israeli human rights lawyer and chief executive of The International Legal Forum.
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A ‘solution’ or ‘betrayal’?
What a two- state solution would look like
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun) | Clare Armstrong | 12 August 2025
The West Bank and Gaza Strip would be united under the control of the Palestinian Authority, while the state of Israel would exist around and between them.
Australia will recognise the state of Palestine in a move Anthony Albanese says will add to the “momentum” for a permanent peace in the Middle East, despite warnings it will embolden and reward terrorist group Hamas.
The Prime Minister yesterday announced his government would formally recognise “the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own”, putting Australia at odds with allies the US and Israel.
The decision drew sharp criticism from Jewish groups who branded it a “betrayal” of the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023, terror attack, while the Coalition questioned what would happen if the Palestinian Authority (PA) did not follow through on reform promises tied to Australia’s recognition.
“I think that Mr Albanese is clearly very naive or does not understand history,” Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said.
“The Palestinian Authority … have made these promises before.
“They have never, ever honoured those promises.”
The PA’s renewed commitments included reaffirming Israel’s right to exist in “peace and security”, demilitarising the region and holding general elections.
The PA, which currently governs parts of the West Bank but not the Gaza Strip, also pledged to abolish a system of payments to the families of prisoners and “martyrs”, and promised to allow international oversight of its education system to “guard against the incitement of violence and hatred”.
Mr Albanese argued the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza combined with the actions of the Israeli government risked putting a two-state solution “out of reach for a generation”, and Palestinian recognition would change that.
“Until Israeli and Palestinian statehood is permanent, peace can only be temporary,” he said.
The PM’s carefully sequenced announcement followed similar pledges to recognise the state of Palestine by France, the UK and Canada at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September.
“Australia is making this statement … as part of a co-ordinated global effort, building momentum for a two-state solution,” Mr Albanese said.
Shortly before Australia’s announcement yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the prospect as “shameful”.
Mr Netanyahu said an independent Palestine “won’t bring peace, it will bring war”.
He argued Israel was applying force “judiciously” and argued Australia would “do at least what we’re doing” if it had suffered its own version of the October 7 attack in Melbourne or Sydney.
In the two weeks leading up to yesterday’s decision, which has been formally adopted by Labor’s cabinet, Mr Albanese revealed he had discussed Palestinian recognition with French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, New Zealand PM Chris Luxon and Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba.
Last Thursday, Mr Albanese spoke with Mr Netanyahu for almost an hour, during which he canvassed the possibility of Australia taking steps to recognise the state of Palestine.
Describing the conversation as “civil”, Mr Albanese said he told Mr Netanyahu the region needed a “political solution, not a military one”. But Mr Albanese rejected assertions made by Mr Netanyahu that recognising Palestine at this time rewarded Hamas, arguing Australia, unlike the terror group, supported two states.
Mr Albanese said recognising Palestine with assurances from the PA about acknowledging Israel’s right to exist would help “isolate” Hamas.
“This is an opportunity to deliver self-determination for the people of Palestine in a way that isolates Hamas, disarms it, and drives it out of the region once and for all,” he said.
Prior to his conversation with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Albanese last Tuesday spoke with PA President Mahmoud Abbas to reaffirm the assurances the PA had first offered in a statement on June 10.
The Opposition criticised this approach, arguing the government had not explained what the consequences would be if the conditions were not met by the PA.
Asked if failures on the PA’s part could lead Australia to revoke its recognition of Palestine, Foreign Minister Penny Wong indicated she was not entertaining that possibility.
“Our expectation is the international community will work with all parties to ensure not only that those commitments are adhered to, but there is progress towards two states,” she said.
Senator Wong told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who has warned recognising Palestine at this time was creating a disincentive for Hamas to engage in ceasefire talks – about Australia’s plans during a phone call about 10.30am yesterday. “As a matter of diplomatic courtesy, (I) advised (Mr Rubio) of our intention to announce,” she said.
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‘This is a slap in the face for us’
Daily Telegraph | 12 August 2025
Anthony Albanese’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine appears to have made no one happy, with Muslim groups saying it does not go far enough and Jewish people feeling betrayed.
Israeli hostage campaigner Alexis Aruch said the promise to recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly next month had left her questioning whether she even had a future in Australia.
But at the same time, the Palestine Action Group – which organised the recent Sydney Harbour Bridge protest march – said the statement was “meaningless” without sanctions against Israel.
“Recognition without sanctions is an empty gesture. It will not stop the bombs, the siege, or the starvation. It will not save lives,” the group said.
“The only proportionate and effective response to genocide is to impose comprehensive sanctions on Israel.”
The Palestine Action Group’s vow to follow up its march on the Harbour Bridge with another on August 24 was called “a slap in the face” by members of the Jewish community yesterday.
Vanina Vaisman-Levy, who has campaigned for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, said fears raised by almost 100,000 people attending the protest march had been compounded by Mr Albanese’s decision yesterday.
“This is a slap in the face for us,” Ms Vaisman-Levy said.
“I fear for the future of Jewish people in Australia. There has always been an unwritten contract between us and the Australian government and now people I know are asking if they actually have a place here.”
Fellow campaigner Ms Aruch said she no longer felt at home in Australia.
“My concern is that issues that are important to our community have not been made a priority and clearly bringing home the hostages is not a priority,” she said. “It makes me question whether I have a future here in Australia or where else do I go?”
Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon said that peace could only be built by defeating terror, rather than rewarding it.
“By recognising a Palestinian state while Hamas continues to kill, kidnap and reject peace, Australia undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence.”
Former prime minister Tony Abbott said recognition of Palestine should be a “reward for good behaviour not bad” and Australia was “handing a propaganda victory to terrorism”.
“Recognising Palestine with Hamas still armed, still holding hostages, still largely running Gaza and withholding aid, and still pledged to the destruction of Israel, is unconscionable,” he said.
Jewish groups united yesterday in condemning the decision as Labor politicians jumped on board to support the Prime Minister’s stand.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said a two-state solution was the “only way of having a permanent, long-term, just peace” in the Middle East.
However, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the announcement was a “betrayal and abandonment of the Israeli hostages” and gave them no hope of release.
“Australia is now committed to recognising as a state an entity with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory, and no demonstrated capacity to live in peace with its neighbours,” he said.
Australian-Israeli human rights lawyer and CEO of the International Legal Forum Arsen Ostrovsky said: “In announcing the decision to recognise a Palestinian state, PM Albanese said it was ‘humanity’s best hope’ … But where was that ‘humanity’, as Hamas forced emaciated Israeli hostages to dig their graves in Gaza?
“Today, Australia rewarded their inhumanity.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said the recognition of Palestine was a “symbolic gesture” that would achieve nothing except to “embolden Hamas” to resist calls for a ceasefire.
“At the very least, the Australian government’s announcement should have been conditional on Hamas releasing the hostages who continue to languish in its underground dungeons,” he said. “Tragically this is not the case.”
Keysar Trad, founder of the Islamic Friendship Association, said Mr Albanese had not acted quickly enough and should not wait for the UN meeting next month to recognise Palestine but should do it unilaterally, right now.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction but it should have been taken before Israel started starving children,” Mr Trad said, adding that he believed most Sydneysiders felt the same way.
“I don’t believe Sydney is divided, the Harbour Bridge march showed that the majority of Sydneysiders want an end to all this starvation.”
Gamel Kheir, secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said the PM had taken a “courageous” if long overdue stand that reflected a groundswell of public opinion in Australia.
“It is a symbolic gesture but a courageous one,” Mr Kheir said. “The Harbour Bridge march showed that the majority of the community want this. Australians are saying they do not want to be party to a genocide in their time.”
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Peace plan all vibe, no action
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun) | James Morrow | 12 August 2025
Peace in the Middle East? Not so fast.
More like, in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s words, a “practical contribution to building momentum”.
Or, to put it another way, the Albanese government has just brought a vibes-based foreign policy to bear on one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Mr Albanese clearly thinks he has read the room in deciding to throw his weight behind the movement to recognise a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations.
He may have even thought that this – following last week’s Harbour Bridge rally – could be a chance to restore the social justice cred he hoped but failed to gain at the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.
Over and over again throughout yesterday’s press conference, the PM and Foreign Minister Penny Wong repeated the formula that “there is no sustained peace until we see a two-state solution”.
But this gets it backwards.
If peace were as simple as statehood for Palestine, it would have been achieved decades ago.
Yet for groups like Hamas, the only solution is the formula chanted at countless pro-Palestinian marches, including the one held on the Harbour Bridge two Sundays ago – “From the River to the Sea” – that is, no Jews at all between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
And after a more than half-hour-long press conference in his Canberra courtyard, no one was left any clearer about how this move would actually lead to both sides laying down their arms.
Sure, there were welcome commitments announced from the Palestinian Authority to increase transparency, fight corruption and end their disgraceful “pay for slay” program that sees fat pensions paid to the families of suicide bombers.
But the only problem is that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t control Gaza, only the West Bank.
Questions of how to evict Hamas – which still holds hostages and still steals aid and which shows no signs of being ready to give up control of Gaza – were bounced over.
Likewise the PM’s references to calls by the Arab world for Hamas to lay down its arms and shove off ignore the fact that Hamas’ backing in no small part comes from Iran – no friend of the Arab world.
The best Albanese could do when asked about what would happen to Hamas was to say that this recognition was “an opportunity to isolate” the terror group.
Even more depressing was the disturbing lack of understanding of the history of this tragic conflict. Albanese and Wong said Australia voted for a two-state solution back in 1947 when the State of Israel was declared official at the UN.
But the reason it did not get off the ground was because all of Israel’s Arab neighbours joined together to wipe it off the map. In that light, the idea that simply giving both sides a “state” will lead to peace seems optimistic, if not dangerously naive.
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Dangerous reward for terror, anti-semitism
Daily Telegraph | Colin Rubenstein | 12 August 2025
The UK and Canada, the latest Western governments to join the profoundly counter-productive trend to unilaterally recognise, or threaten to recognise, a Palestinian state are regrettably now joined by Australia.
The UK, France, Canada, Australia, and others paint recognition as a response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and now to the Israeli plan to temporarily control the rest of Gaza due to the Hamas refusal to accept a ceasefire.
However, this trend not only sets back genuine peace hopes, but also will not help alleviate the plight of Gazans. Contrary to claims, the UN admits Israel has allowed more aid into Gaza than the UN has tried to deliver, and that 90 per cent of the aid the UN has tried to deliver is looted.
Israel has taken further steps to mitigate the food crisis there, including airdrops and daily humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
However, the only recent way to end Gazan and Israeli suffering was to accept the two-month ceasefire deal, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, that had been on the table for weeks. As happened during the last ceasefire in January, this would have seen Gaza’s stockpiles of food and other vital supplies fully replenished.
Israel accepted that deal, but all three mediators say Hamas intransigence blocked any agreement. It is no coincidence that Hamas scuttled the ceasefire talks right after this Palestine recognition trend began with the French announcement, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has underlined.
Yet now, when even the Arab League has signed a welcome statement condemning the October 7 attacks and demanding Hamas release the hostages, disarm and relinquish power, is the time to ramp up pressure on Hamas.
The recent joint statement including the UK and Australia also risks undermining a key aspect of Israel’s contested Gaza strategy, which is to pressure Hamas back to serious ceasefire negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right to say our government should consider how Australia would react under the circumstances Israel has confronted before moralising or casting aspersions on Israel’s military campaign of self-defence.
Longer term, the “recognise Palestine now” campaign’s most troubling aspect is the message it sends in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, atrocities.
To recognise a Palestinian state now, without meaningful Palestinian Authority reform achieved, and with Hamas still ruling Gaza, constitutes a dangerous reward for terrorism. Indeed, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, who promised Hamas would repeat October 7 again and again, recently told Al Jazeera that the current recognition push was because of the October 7 attacks.
Far from advancing peace, premature recognition thus rewards the rejectionism and genocidal eliminationist strain of the Palestinian national movement. It tells Palestinian leaders and society they can bypass direct negotiations and still achieve their goals through terrorism, lawfare and continued incitement, thus eroding any incentive to compromise or reform.
The Palestinian territories – divided between a corrupt, ineffective Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and a terrorist Hamas regime in Gaza – also fail to meet the international law criteria for statehood.
Meanwhile, the claim that Palestine recognition is needed to keep alive hopes for an eventual two-state resolution is nonsensical. The Palestinian Authority walked away from several comprehensive Israeli peace offers – in 2000, 2001, 2008 and 2014 – each of which would have established a sovereign Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem.
To get the two-state resolution back on track requires reversing these trends, not misguided “recognition” of a state that does not exist and cannot exist without a return to serious negotiations with Israel.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had previously and correctly indicated that Australia would not recognise a Palestinian state until more of the preconditions for Palestinian statehood were achieved, a stance he should have retained, in the lead-up to his appearance at the UN next month.
If the international community truly wishes to help Palestinians, the path forward is clear: pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal including the release of the hostages and push for the war to end with Hamas disarmed and no longer controlling Gaza.
Recognising a non-existent state in defiance of legal norms, morality and practical realities, particularly while Hamas remains in Gaza, not only delays peace, it prolongs the suffering of both Gazans and Israelis. It is just a recipe for further, unending bloodshed and conflict, not to mention the serious strains places on Australia’s ties with our major security ally, the United States.
Dr Colin Rubenstein is executive director, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)
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Albanese gives a trophy to terrorists
Daily Telegraph | Editorial | 12 August 2025
There was a moment in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Monday press conference announcing Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state when the cynical futility of the whole effort was laid bare.
Following on from the prime minister’s announcement, Foreign Minister Penny Wong unintentionally exposed the fundamental contradictions in the logic of the plan which the government believes will help achieve peace by giving “momentum” to Palestinian statehood.
First, Wong said: “It’s been more than 77 years since the world promised a Palestinian state knowing that there cannot be lasting peace for both peoples without a two-state solution.” True, but the foreign minister told only half the story. Wong glossed over the fact that when, 77 years ago, the modern state of Israel was created, a Palestinian state was also on offer. But the Arab world rejected this settlement and instead tried – unsuccessfully – to smother the infant Jewish state at its birth.
Then, moments later in her remarks, Wong continued: “Nations have agreed that we cannot keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome,” again, suggesting the problem of peace was one that was as simple as sovereignty.
Taken together, these two statements sum up the naivete and narcissism of Western governments – such as those of the UK, France, and now Australia – who believe that peace is something that is theirs to confer in the form of recognition and statehood, rather than something that will come when Israel’s enemies decide to lay down their arms. And this is why, along with our distance from the conflict, the prime minister’s announcement is not worth much, and certainly will do nothing to change the facts on the ground. Instead, it must be seen as a cynical and ultimately counterproductive move whose only practical outcomes will be the betrayal of the sole functional multi-ethnic and multi-faith democracy in the Middle East and further damage to our relationship with the US.
Domestically, Albanese’s proposed Palestinian recognition is likely to satisfy no one. Jewish Australians and supporters of Israel are rightly furious that Labor has gone back to the bad old days of Gough Whitlam and his legendary hostility to the Jewish state. Many on the pro-Palestinian side will also be left disaffected, seeing the move as tokenistic and not going far enough to punish Israel through sanctions and other measures. For a government that sees foreign policy solely through the prism of domestic interest groups, the dividends are likely to be thin on the ground.
But it is globally where the offer really falls apart. It is illogical, and gives a moral victory to terrorists. Put aside the precedent it sets (commit terror attack, suffer consequences, go to ground, get a state), it does not even appear to be capable of doing what is promised. From what the prime minister said, the Albanese government appears to have made an offer of statehood to people with no standing to end the fighting in Gaza. Instead, the offer is based on a proposed deal with the corrupt Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, neither of which have an ounce of control over what happens in Gaza.
To be fair, some of the promised concessions Mr Albanese claims to have gotten from the PA in exchange for recognition – transparency, anti-corruption efforts, and an end to the barbaric “pay for slay” pensions to the families of suicide bombers – are not insignificant. But nor are they likely to come off, given the fact that the PA president is now 20 years into a four-year term (he was elected in 2005 and decided simply to stay) and as recently as 2023 was giving rambling anti-Semitic speeches about Jews and the Holocaust.
Nor does Albanese’s recognition solve the problem of Hamas and its control over Gaza and its people, for whom there seems to be no real alternative plan other than more aid and “isolation” of the terrorists. As for the remaining hostages still held in tunnels built underneath Gaza by Hamas with Western aid money, well, again, it is simply a matter of hoping for the best. “We want to see the hostages released. We wanted to see the hostages never taken,” the prime minister said. It is a lovely sentiment, but just like the recognition of a Palestinian state, it will do nothing to bring them home, or end the suffering.
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Statehood means little
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 12 August 2025
It is fairly obvious that the leaders of Hamas who mostly live outside of Palestine (Qatar, Turkey) don’t care about the wellbeing of the Palestine population.
I’m sure they knew there would have been a severe backlash from Israel following October 2023.
Now that left leaning countries, including Australia, have come out in support of Palestine, Hamas is emboldened even stating that the atrocities that they committed have now been endorsed by these countries.
At the last general election in 2006 in Palestine, Hamas had the majority support.
Further, it is apparent that there is ongoing support for Hamas from every day Palestinians.
It has only taken 20 months for left leaning governments to forget the atrocities committed by Hamas. Albanese has long been a supporter of Palestine and has now shown his true colours.
Glenn Walker, Sydney
Australia would do exactly what Israel is doing if we were attacked – defend ourselves to the best of our abilities.
Recognition of a Palestinian state by countries will achieve absolutely zero just as the Israeli Prime Minister has stated.
David Ingram, Randwick
Recognising a country only has symbolic value with no practical effect (“Perilous time to recognise Palestine”, DT, 11/8).
Australia’s Jews say we should not recognise Palestine because Hamas controls some land there – about two square kilometres of Gaza according to Israeli maps.
The Palestinian Authority has some governance over the West Bank and around five million people. This is the real concern.
However, the area the Authority has some control over has shrunk dramatically in the last few years as Israelis take land from Palestinian farmers and villages.
If Australia was not a strong supporter of everything Israel is doing we would signal that with a ban on transactions with Israeli bank accounts. That would cause a small delay as transactions were routed through banks in other countries. Until that happens we are in full support of Israel’s actions.
Israelis know they only need the support of the United States to achieve their objectives.
Peter Egan, Fairview Park
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Hamas won’t be cured of bloodlust by a state
Daily Telegraph (& Courier-Mail) | Maurice Newman | 12 August 2025
When 100,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge chanting, “From the river to the sea” and “Death, death to the IDF”, they were calling, wittingly or unwittingly, for the elimination of the state of Israel.
And when Western elites champion a “two-state” solution, they reveal themselves as either naive idealists or closet anti-Semites who favour an absolutist religious regime over multi-faith democracy.
After all, it is not the creation of a Palestinian state which drives Hamas leaders, but the elimination of the Jewish state and, by extension, the Jewish people.
It’s why five times since 1937, Palestinians have rejected coexistence. “From the river to the sea” makes plain, there is only a one-state solution which Hamas and other radical Islamists will accept.
Still, emboldened by “two-state” Western leaders, Hamas has agreed to the idea, conditional upon full Palestinian statehood with Jerusalem as the capital. Unless and until that condition is accepted, Hamas refuses to lay down its arms or end armed activities. It maintains it will continue to retain its weapons as a form of “armed resistance”.
In so saying, it knows Hamas disarmament is central to Israel’s continuation of a ceasefire and peace negotiations. It also knows Israel will not return to pre-1967 borders, which encompasses the West Bank Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. And that a Palestinian state governed by Hamas is also unacceptable to Israel.
In other words, Hamas is paying lip service to a two-state solution as a public relations stunt while it regroups and rearms in preparation for another assault on the Jewish state.
Despite the condemnation of the world’s autocracies and many Western leaders, what alternative does Israel have but to temporarily occupy Gaza City in an attempt to demilitarise it?
Characterising Israel as evil and, as having genocidal intent, helps rationalise the Hamas savagery that led to the rape and slaughter of 1200 innocent Israelis.
That Hamas deliberately set out to provoke Israel and achieve the response it got is presented as Israel overreacting.
Israel will receive no credit for warning Palestinians in Northern Gaza of impending attacks or for creating safe corridors and evacuation routes. Needless to say, credible reports of Hamas terrorists trying to prevent Gazans from leaving are to be dismissed. But not the misleading photo of an emaciated child, being widely published as evidence that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians and committing genocide.
While Palestinians were indeed poor before the latest conflict, it is difficult to justify the claims of many international organisations, human rights groups, and economic analysts, who attribute a significant portion of Palestinian poverty, especially in Gaza and the West Bank, to Israeli policies.
Again, blind eyes are turned to Hamas’s diversion of a significant proportion of the $23bn in international aid money received over the past 15 years, to the construction of an extensive tunnel network, estimated to have cost around $1.5bn, not to mention military spending, believed to run into several billion dollars.
How much of Australia’s aid now estimated at $130m has ended up or, will end up, in tunnels and weapons? And how much found its way into the pocket of now deceased Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief behind the October 7 massacre, who had an estimated net worth of $4bn and whose body was found with $15,000 in cash?
Notwithstanding, Hamas and its anti-Semitic sympathisers must at least be congratulated for winning the propaganda war.
While it is fashionable to declare anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as being of equal concern, there is no comparison.
No one disputes that war is a terrible thing. That it impacts many innocent people. Nor should it be denied that at times Israel may have acted in ways it may have later regretted. But equally, no one should pretend that the leaders of Hamas, a terrorist organisation, are not using their people as cannon fodder when required. That it is driven by ancient religious hatreds that have no place in civilised society.
It is Hamas, which, since late 2023 has rejected several ceasefire proposals, including one from Egypt.
Even when agreed, Hamas has violated ceasefire and humanitarian lulls, even those they themselves initiated. From the original 251 Israeli hostages, Hamas continues to hold 50 as bargaining chips. Only 27 are believed to be still alive.
Come what may, as former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir prophesied 50 years ago, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Something for those promoting a two-state solution to ponder.
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PM’s reward for terror
Herald-Sun | Editorial | 12 August 2025
The Albanese government’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood will be seen – unavoidably – as reward for one of the most grotesque terrorist acts ever committed.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has in recent days been stumbling dangerously towards a premature decision on formal recognition – a position now only being contemplated after the PM has chosen to follow moves by the UK, Canada and France.
The Albanese government may want to position itself as a voice for peace but far from it – this decision will not just validate terror, it will invite Hamas to continue its avowed campaign, as well as that from Iran and its other terrorist proxies, to seek to destroy Israel.
The Albanese decision to follow others in announcing recognition at the United Nations General Assembly next month takes the Middle East further away from any prospect of stability and hands Hamas a huge victory.
The October 7, 2023 terror atrocities committed by Hamas saw over 1200 Israelis murdered, the largest loss of Jewish life on any single day since the Holocaust.
Amid the slaughter – aspects of which were filmed by terrorists and later celebrated – victims were raped, some were beheaded, others were burned alive, including infants.
Some 251 hostages were taken back to Gaza and 50 still remain, at least 27 of whom are dead and the others still held captive in horrendous conditions in what remains of the Hamas tunnel network.
Hamas, as the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks and instigators of the ongoing war, has refused to release the remaining hostages or lay down arms to end the carnage being suffered.
It has refused to cease using the Palestinian population as human shields in the war and it will never, unless forced militarily, relinquish its position of authority in Gaza.
The Gaza conflict has been driven by the continued refusal by Hamas, and most elements of the Palestinian Authority, to ever accept the legitimacy – or indeed existence – of the state of Israel.
In that light, how can it be that the terrorist actions of Hamas, and its unwavering pledge to destroy Israel, is now followed by Australia’s recognition of Palestine.
The history of the Middle East, and the enmities that bedevil it, are written in stone.
Make no mistake, Hamas will ensure that its bloodthirsty and evil rampage on October 7 two years ago will forever be celebrated as the reason for the recognition of Palestinian statehood by Australia and a range of other nations.
Australians, and people across the world, are understandably horrified by the scale of loss of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
But the losses are overwhelmingly a result of Hamas’s terror and cult-like extremism that seeks to use civilian casualties as its most potent weapon against Israel.
Despite attempts by Israel, as well as the US and others in negotiations prior to 2023, Palestinian leaders have repeatedly refused moves towards any two-state solution.
Since 2014, there has been a continual refusal by the PA to negotiate at almost any level.
Hamas has flatly rejected Israel’s right to exist, let alone any prospect of peace or two states alongside each other, regardless of territorial boundaries and borders.
Australia’s long-held support for a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict is the right approach.
But premature recognition for Palestine, in what will inextricably be seen as reward for terrorism, while Hamas remains undefeated and unavowed, will put those two state hopes back perhaps decades.
And it will embolden Hamas to repeat its terror, condemn the remaining hostages to even longer in their hellish captivity and see Israel continue to fight in self-defence.
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Co-existence needed
Courier-Mail | Letters | 12 August 2025
Columnist Joe Hildebrand is right to acknowledge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s disdain for slogan-heavy protests and virtue-signalling spin on Gaza (“PM refuses bait left out by pointless protests”, C-M, 11/8).
Most people are affronted by Israel’s civilian overkill in response to the Hamas October 7, 2023 massacre.
But supporting one side won’t help us understand the root causes and seek a practical way out of the current mess, where religious zealotry helps justify armed conflict and destruction by both sides.
It was a strategic move by Hamas to take hostages, that has divided Israel and compromised its government.
Hence one can understand why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to destroy Hamas by conquest of the parts of Gaza not yet occupied.
But further civilian overkill will only help Hamas recruit more to its cause and go underground within whatever remains of Gaza as it does now in the West Bank.
Israel needs secure borders but so do Palestinians need a route to a secure co-existence.
The ideal of a two-state solution presents the least-worst working strategy towards Israel negotiating a lasting peace with its Islamic neighbours.
Donald Maclean, Fig Tree Pocket
Role of protests
I fully support Peter Haslett (Letters, 9/8) and others regarding protesters marching for Palestine across the Sydney Harbour and Brisbane’s Story Bridge.
One of our wonderful democracy’s benefits is freedom of speech and assembly.
Haslett says that closing a bridge for these marches will do nothing because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government doesn’t care and isn’t listening.
I would politely remind him that, similarly, just because these protesters aren’t listening to him, doesn’t mean his opinion is ignored completely or can’t sway other people’s thinking.
Perhaps he could consider freedom of speech and opinion isn’t always about convincing everyone.
Sometimes it is a healthy outlet for completely acceptable feelings of anger, frustration and empathy for others and sometimes it can keep an important issue in our government and public’s eye.
If 100,000 people can march for an issue in a peaceful and respectful way it is a statement to the world.
I, like Haslett, can only write letters.
Brian Cavanagh, Tarragindi
I dare say that the non-aligned Australians out there have had a gutful of the divisiveness and violence caused by the sympathisers of the Israeli and Palestinian sectors here in our country.
But my main concern is for the silent, defenceless, innocent victims no matter where they might be, particularly the children.
Here in Australia, the holy war exported from the Middle East has given rise to disruptive protests and vandalism of private property and smashed the serenity of a once peaceful society.
That is not going to win over any sympathisers.
Stephen Kazoullis, South Brisbane
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