Australia’s Palestine Problem

If progress on a peace process leading to a two-state solution remains Australia’s sole pathway to recognition of a Palestinian state, Palestinians have been hung out to dry, writes Stefan Moore.

By Stefan Moore
in Sydney, Australia
Pearls and Irritations 

The Australian Labor Party’s insistence that it will only recognise a Palestinian state as part of a “peace process” leading to a two-state solution wilfully dodges one very basic question – how can you negotiate a two-state solution, or any solution for that matter, without the participation of two states?

It’s a question that recently came to a head when Muslim-Australian Senator Fatima Payman defied Labor Party rules and crossed the floor of Parliament to support a Greens’ motion calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state asserting, “today I have made a decision that would make everyone proud who are on the side of humanity.” Payman was suspended from the Labor Party and later quit to become an independent.

At her press conference on May 11, Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s insistence that “we will recognise Palestine when the time is right” is disingenuous at best. What the Foreign Minister is really saying is that until the “time is right” Australia will only recognise the State of Israel as party to a “peace process” while it commits war crimes in Gaza and its illegal occupation of the West Bank proceeds unimpeded.

In a speech at the Australian National University, Wong laid down the rules for statehood like a cop on the beat. She stipulated that the peace process must exclude the recognition of Hamas (the political party elected by the majority of Palestinians in 2006), and that the Palestinian Authority must undertake “necessary reforms” (against corruption) to take up “its responsibilities over a unified West Bank and Gaza.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese further insisted, “any existence of a Palestinian state would be one which was a demilitarised state as well.”

So, is it fair to ask: Would Australia’s recognition of Israel be contingent on the removal of the Likud Party that is conducting “plausible genocide” in Gaza and the illegal occupation of the West Bank?

Would it stipulate the removal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is facing multiple corruption charges? Would Australian recognition of Israel as a state require the demilitarisation of its massive war machine?

Of course not, because Australia, slavishly echoing U.S. policy, is committed to the unconditional support of Israel and its refusal to recognise Palestinian self-determination has deep historical roots.

From early in the 20^th century, Palestinian concerns have been ignored in every major decision about their future. In 1917, the British Balfour Declaration unilaterally proposed a Jewish homeland in Palestine at the behest of Zionists without Arab involvement or consent.

Again in 1937, the British Royal (Pool) Commission proposed the division of Palestine into two states without Arab involvement or approval. And in 1947, Palestinians were again ignored by the United Nations Partition Plan that divided Palestine into two vastly unequal states where Jews who only comprised a third of the population were given 56 percent of the land.

But even this was not sufficient for the Zionists. Once the Plan was in place, Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared, “we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.”

And expand they did.

As the collective West stood by, 750,000 Palestinians were driven off their land and into neighbouring countries during the Nakba of 1948, thousands more were displaced and murdered in the decades that followed, and Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza has created two million refugees who may never be able to return to their homes.

Coupled with the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank the amount of land Arabs now occupy has decreased from 45 percent in 1948 to 15 percent today completely destroying any prospects for a viable two-state solution.

As Craig Mokhiber, who resigned as New York director for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights over the U.N.’s failure to act on war crimes in Gaza, said in his resignation letter:

“The mantra of the ‘two-state solution’ has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people.”

Today, any hope of a just and lasting peace in Palestine remains more illusory than ever as the West continues to supply Israel with weapons, refuses to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and as Netanyahu declares that Israel will never recognise a Palestinian state.

If progress on a peace process leading towards a two-state solution remains Australia’s sole pathway to recognition of a Palestinian state, Palestinians have been hung out to dry.

“The government’s position that Australian recognition must be contingent on a non-existent ‘peace process’ undermines and nullifies the platform policy,” says Labor Friends of Palestine, “It means in effect that this Labor government will never recognise Palestine.”

To fulfill its moral obligations and retain its integrity, Australia has to break from its servile adherence to U.S. foreign policy and the influence of the Israel lobby and join the vast majority of nations – 145 out of the 192 members of the U.N. General Assembly – calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state now.

Stefan Moore is an award-winning American-Australian documentary filmmaker. In New York, he was a series producer for WNET and a producer for the prime-time CBS News magazine program 48 HOURS. In the U.K. he worked as a series producer at the BBC, and in Australia he was an executive producer for Film Australia and the national broadcaster ABC-TV. His articles have appeared in Consortium News, Counterpunch and Pearls and Irritations.