ByMatthew Knott
August 9, 2023 — 4.46pmSave
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his government’s decision to begin referring to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied” and Israeli settlements as “illegal” as the Palestinian government urged Australia to go further by quickly recognising Palestine as a state.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton began question time on Wednesday by accusing the government of hanging “one of Australia’s closest Middle East partners [out] to dry as part of a backroom deal to avoid an embarrassing factional fight” at next week’s ALP national conference.
Pro-Israel groups slam Australian government for reinstating the term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories
“My government is a strong supporter of Israel and its right to exist within the borders. We also support a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state,” Albanese replied.
He added that the government had adopted the same language as the UK’s conservative government and the European Union.
In a marked change to Israel’s furious response last year to the government’s decision to no longer recognise west Jerusalem as the nation’s capital, the Israeli government has not responded to Tuesday’s announcement, which was revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
While Australian Jewish groups decried the change in language, the Palestinian National Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it welcomed Australia’s new position as a “significant and important development”.
“In this context, the Ministry emphasises that the State of Palestine continues to await action by the Australian government towards implementing resolutions passed by the Australian Labor Party calling its government to recognise the State of Palestine without delay or hesitation,” the ministry said in a statement from the de facto capital of Ramallah.
“The Ministry hopes that the Australian government and Minister for Foreign Affairs will recognise the State of Palestine swiftly, in accordance with international law and international legitimacy.
“This step not only reflects the position of the Labor Party and its members, but also the broader sentiment of the friendly people of Australia, who support the just and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to establish their state within 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
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Labor’s national platform, passed in 2021, calls on the next Labor government to recognise Palestine as a state and says it expects the issue will be an important priority for the government.
The Israel-Palestine section of the party’s draft national platform to be debated in Brisbane next week is almost identical, but calls on the “Australian government” to recognise Palestine rather than the “next Labor government”.
Some 138 of the United Nations’ 193 member states recognise Palestine as a state, but the countries that do not include Australia’s closest international partners such as the US, UK, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Canada and France.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jillian Segal and Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the government’s change in language had pre-empted negotiations on a two-state solution, criticising the move as “inaccurate, ahistorical and counterproductive”.
“Describing East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ effectively denies any Jewish claim to the West Bank and Jerusalem,” they said.
“The most important Jewish holy sites of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall are in East Jerusalem, and there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years. Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to negotiate the division of the West Bank between them.”