(The Age, 11/1/2024)
As the Albanese government approaches 600 days in office, Penny Wong is preparing to make her first visit to the Middle East as foreign minister.
In coming days, Wong will travel to Israel, the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank and other key regional nations on a diplomatic mission full of opportunities for error, but with minimal scope for dramatic triumphs.
As minister, Wong has used her time in office primarily to focus on Australia’s relationships within South-East Asia and the Pacific region. Wisely, she has judged that the Indo-Pacific is where the threats to our national interests are most acute and where Australian foreign policy can make the most difference.
Now, she is heading to a more distant and immensely complicated part of the world where Australia has traditionally had little clout, and where efforts to achieve peace have repeatedly imploded.
A skilled diplomat – rated among the nation’s most impressive politicians in a recent Resolve Political Monitor poll – Wong is facing one of her toughest tests with this visit. It is one that will require management of internal divisions within Labor on Israel-Palestine while political adversaries stand ready to pounce on any perceived slip-ups.
“It is not going to be an easy mission for Penny Wong,” Amin Saikal, emeritus professor with the Australian National University and leading Middle East expert, says.
“I expect she will try to have it both ways as much as possible, manoeuvring her way through it. She’s going to walk a very tight rope.”
The Coalition, which is resolutely pro-Israel, is calling for Wong to make the dismantling of Hamas a central feature of her visit after the militant group launched the shock October 7 attacks.
“In the immediate term, it’s essential that Australia is crystal clear in supporting Hamas being disabled as a terrorist threat and removed from governance in Gaza,” opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says.
Meanwhile, the Greens, who strongly back Palestine, want Wong to condemn Israel for the war in Gaza and demand it stop its military campaign.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesman Jordan Steele-John says that Wong’s visit “must be an opportunity to call the Israeli Defence Forces’ actions out, not provide political cover for the war in Gaza”.
What’s more, the timing of the visit comes at a pivotal moment in the ongoing conflict.
After months of intense combat, Israel has begun withdrawing thousands of troops from Gaza, signalling what many believe could be the start of a deescalation, and hopefully less deadly, phase of the conflict.
Wong’s trip also follows that of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in the region this week and warned the Israeli government that the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high”. In a pointedly blunt moment, Blinken also said Israel “must stop taking steps that undercut Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves effectively”.
Saikal predicts Wong will also strike this frank tone.
“I would expect her to say that Australia is a friend of Israel, that it has a right to defend itself and that we are committed to Israel’s security, but too many Palestinians have been killed and there will be too much suffering,” he says.
From her travel itinerary to the diplomatic language she deploys, every element of Wong’s trip will be closely scrutinised, far more than any other diplomatic travel she is likely to undertake this year.
An adroit political tactician as well as diplomat, Wong will be conscious of the growing local sympathy for the Palestinian cause and the community outrage over the climbing number of civilian deaths. Being seen as too close to Israel risks driving younger and more progressive voters from Labor to the Greens, as well as alienating Muslim and other Arab-Australian voters who have reliably voted Labor. But causing offence to her Israeli hosts would draw intense blowback from News Corporation media outlets and vocal pro-Israel lobby groups here in Australia.
The Israeli government will no doubt invite Wong, like other foreign officials who have visited the country, to tour a kibbutz in southern Israel that became a massacre site on October 7. Doing so would send a strong symbolic message to Israel that the government understands the gravity of what occurred that day. While Gaza remains almost impossible to enter, Wong is expected to meet with officials from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
Then comes the issue that was the source of much debate over semantics late last year: the government’s position on a ceasefire. Though last month Australia voted at the United Nations in favour of an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, it framed its vote simply as a plea for more negotiated pauses in the fighting like the seven-day truce that took place in November.
There will also be pressure for Wong to call out Israel for the upsurge in violence from Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, and there is the question of how much detail she will offer about Australia’s view on the future of Gaza.
Though discussions in the region are intensifying about a long-term governing strategy, no sign of consensus is in sight. The US has insisted that the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, should have a governing role in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected this idea.
In other words, there is an array of thorny issues to address and many competing constituencies to placate.
Despite the high degree of difficulty and necessary tact involved, it’s good that Wong is making the trip. Australia may not be a powerful player in the Middle East, but the importance of expressing our views on the big global challenges of our time and trying to make a useful contribution to solving them cannot be overstated.
We shouldn’t inflate our influence, but we shouldn’t dismiss it, either.
If Wong can nudge a troubled region towards a better future, even in a small way, the tightrope walk will have been worth it.
Matthew Knott is foreign affairs and national security correspondent.