Australia will recognise Palestine

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

Hi, Jules and Jez here, and every week on Not Stupid, we unpack the news of the week.

This latest chapter of Monica Lewinsky's life is about how you take control of a story that's run away from you and that you have no control over and to what extent you lean into it or you try to run away from it, you can find Not Stupid on ABC Listen.

Today I can confirm that at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, Australia will recognise the state of Palestine.

Australia will recognise the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own, predicated on the commitments Australia has received from the Palestinian Authority.

We will work with the international community to make this right a reality.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is delivering a lifeline to the people of Gaza.

That's how he framed Australia's very historic decision to acknowledge Palestinian statehood formally.

We are joining the United Kingdom, Canada and France in recognising Palestinian statehood.

The Prime Minister has made the announcement following major and mounting public pressure for the government to take action on conflict in the region.

But in answering your question on recognition, another one immediately follows.

What tangible impact will recognising statehood have?

And what more can and will Australia do?

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis.

And I'm Jacob Greber.

And Jacob, it's happened.

Australia has formally announced that it will recognise Palestinian statehood.

This is incredibly significant for Australia to make this move.

It's, in my view, largely symbolic.

But symbolism does matter.

It formalises a shift that Australia has been now making since about April last year when Penny Wong first gave the speech where she signalled that the order in which we would seek to resolve as a middle power this conflict had changed, that it was no longer to be at the end of a peace process.

Australia would use its leverage in mounting pressure on really both sides to create a two-state solution.

And now the decision has been made.

The big question to you, you were at the press conference, you asked the Prime Minister a really good question, actually.

I watch closely, as you know Jacob and I made an assessment that it was a good question.

You don't miss anything.

PK never misses a thing.

It was a good question because the question is, what does this mean and why now?

Jacob, why now?

So

what we've learnt at the press conference and we've been seeing it over the last few weeks is a diplomatic frenzy, I think, is a fair description of what's been going on around the world.

Our government talking to all or a lot of the governments that are in the thick of this, all of them,

the ones that have already signalled that they will recognize Palestinian statehood.

So it started with Emmanuel Macron a couple of weeks ago, then Kia Starma, the UK Prime Minister, followed.

The Canadian Prime Minister also indicated that Canada would recognize.

And they've all done it in slightly different ways, and there's nuance between each of the countries, but that has really driven the momentum.

It's been clear for a few weeks that I think our Prime Minister was going to go down this route and our government was going to go down this route.

It was a matter then of timing it.

And what's happened in the last week, I think Penny Wong has been instrumental in this and she's talked about

there needs to be a Palestine to recognize, by which she's referring to what's going on in Gaza.

We've seen the images

and also concern about settlers moving in greater numbers into Palestinian territories and disputed territories.

All of that has pushed the Australian government now to this point.

They are now at, really, I mean, you could actually say this started decades ago, Patricia.

Labor's been having this internal debate.

for a long, long time.

It's been a very difficult debate at times, but resistance to this move has broken down within the Labor Party.

Traditionally from the Labor right,

they have now stepped back and it's being driven by, I think, also a very large shift in public sentiment about what's happening in these Palestinian territories and people getting fed up with what we're seeing.

So, yeah, huge moment, Patricia.

What does it mean?

Where does it, what's its impact?

And I think both the Prime Minister and Penny Wong made clear that this is not the end.

This is actually the beginning of a whole process now that's about building momentum for,

well, once you commit to Palestinian statehood, you kind of have to help make it happen.

And that's essentially what the Australian government signed up to.

So

in terms of the different ways that all the countries have framed it, Australia's framing is interesting.

It is not a blank check at all, but equally...

Help me out here, Jacob.

I looked very closely at the conditions and the conditions, as far as I can see, see I cannot see any

reason that would stop Australia from recognising in September at the General Assembly to start with.

Secondly, the question on Palestinian authority reforms are in it.

They're long term and when Penny Wong was specifically asked would you revoke statehood if these are not met, she evaded that question and there is nothing in any of the documentation I've seen or words which give you any indication that there would be any revocation of statehood.

Once it's on, it's on.

However, she did talk about things like, you know, an embassy, for instance,

all of the kind of infrastructure that comes with statehood being conditional on meeting certain conditions.

And so the formalization, if you like, beyond just the words, all of the acts and deeds of a country, if I can make it very simple to understand, would be conditional on the Palestinian Authority reforming, elections being held, the education system being overhauled, not paying money for prisoners that have worked basically in terror-related activities.

Am I right?

Is this the sort of framework?

And that Hamas is not part of

any regime or any government that emerges after all this process.

So there are sort of get-out clauses in there, but at this point, once you say you've recognized or will recognize the state of Palestine, you're already a long way down the road.

And actually, you might actually even own some of those problems if it does go off the rails.

But that's, I mean, let's not jump ahead.

Let's come back to where we are now.

And it's pretty clear, like, this has

not been an easy decision for them to make, but I think they've wanted to make it for a long, long time.

Patricia, I don't know.

Well, there was a line in the press conference from Penny Wong where she said that she'd been having this conversation with the Australian people since her speech last year was a speech at the ANU where she talked about it can't be the end offering Palestinian statehood can't be the thing that you bring up at the very end of a peace process it's got to be something you do earlier at some other point.

Well, we're in that other point right now.

So what she was basically saying when she said that, though, was that

it's been a one-year process of

getting the Australian public's head around what the government is doing here.

And it's an interesting one about whether the government's led that or whether the public opinion has led that.

And in some way, one doesn't operate without the other.

It's been quite circular in my view,

Jacob.

One has responded to the other as the other's responding to the other.

And there is definitely a head of steam around this now with the international partners going first.

Australia hasn't gone first.

It's interesting to mention that I think that a very like-minded country, New Zealand, the Prime Minister spent the weekend really with the New Zealand Prime Minister.

They've put out a statement just actually right before and this all happens coordinatedly.

Coordinatedly?

That's ridiculous.

What did I just say?

You know what I'm saying here, in a coordinated fashion, where the New Zealanders have said they are now actively considering recognition.

So that's their next step to tell to prepare.

And then we went there.

So it's all it's all orchestrated.

Well that that's the last, yeah, so that's the last of the five eyes partners other than the United States now all on a unity ticket.

Have I got that right?

UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

Yes.

You've got France.

The Germans are making lots of noises in this direction.

They cut arms

exports, which is huge for Germany.

Extraordinary move by Germany.

So yes, I think the public in Australia has played a big role in this, but I think this is also a global public and leaders responding to that.

What is a sense or what people feel is an overreach by the Netanyahu government has now essentially precipitated this movement.

And what is unresolved, of course, is Hamas is still there.

Hamas still has hostages.

And that was part of my question to the Prime Minister was is that

now

there's no conditionality of recognition that hinges on those two things being resolved.

That's a bit muddied I think.

It's very muddy.

The government has in some ways while consistently making the argument that it wants the hostages released because how can you not?

The hostages must be released.

It's despicable.

They've really de-linked this from recognition and that was clear, wasn't it, Jacob?

I think that that particular nexus has been broken.

That will have to be resolved, but it's not going to be the thing that stops statehood.

And so

that is really the biggest criticism of this thing out of Israel, is that you've effectively rewarded acts of terror because it's led to this point.

But the international community has, I think, gone beyond this and is now saying

this cannot continue, the broader context cannot continue, and that there needs to be some kind of circuit breaker.

Whether that succeeds or not, we'll probably be debating this for a long time, but that is the big shift in the way this is held together.

So the Prime Minister...

has framed it in a way that this is about the best hope of breaking a cycle of violence, that this is about recognition that upholds a commitment to the people of Israel as well, because it's about, you know, them, Israel being able to exist and not not you know agreeing to Hamas being part of the solution because Hamas does not support Israel's right to exist that's how they frame that so huge words from them already we're getting a little bit of reaction as we record just after the Prime Minister's press conference making this big historic announcement from the opposition the opposition Not surprising at all.

The Defence Minister, shadowed Defence Minister, saying that this this is premature, that Hamas would be very pleased if the international community goes down this path of recognition.

The answer from the government on this question, because

this critique has been out there in the ether,

is Hamas is against a two-state solution, that this is actually not what Hamas wants.

Now, I think that's partly true, Jacob.

Hamas,

you know, they've never been about two states side by side that is not their vibe let's be let's be honest that they I mean so there there might be some shades here in terms of different types of Hamas leadership but the militant wing the group that

the group that did what it did on that on that terrible day wants to destroy Israel.

Let's be completely clear about that.

There's no ambiguity in that.

It was called the Al, I think it was the flood of Al-Aqsa

was the name they gave

their terrible actions,

which is about reclaiming this holy land

for themselves.

So, you know, I think that's

the Prime Minister

has grabbed onto that part of the Hamas story as a way to try and alleviate

the problem, which is that some of those forces and some of those people are still there holding hostages.

That's going to be a very

awkward thing until that is finally resolved.

But what they've decided is that can't be the barrier to moving to this next step, this broader step of the recognition.

And that's why I think you've seen the conditionality on some of these things.

It's if the Palestinian Authority does not reform or does not provide a stable governance, then you might get what happened back in 2005 and 2006 when Hamas won democratic elections, and that was the last time they ever let people in Gaza vote

and you you entrenched what has turned out to be a

you know a terror organization

that that

to avoid that happening again is what the pressure on the Palestinian authority is about so the big question is

what are the implications now what happens next well

For the international community, I think we are now in a, you know, there is a sort of chorus of opinion on denouncing the continuation of the war, which

lots happened in the last few days.

The news out of Israel on Friday from a marathon meeting of the Security Cabinet and now the cabinet is basically that the war will be intensified, Gaza city.

to be occupied.

We know that there are settlers ready to roll, to move back into Gaza.

That's what they want.

Now, that's not what Netanyahu says he wants to do, but we know there are radical elements in his own cabinet who are pushing for this.

So massive escalation and a massive denouncement of that escalation from big players.

We've got now Australia joining the chorus on recognition to put pressure on Israel, but also to try and kickstart a two-state solution process before anything further radical happens.

We've already got, you know, the settlements in the West Bank.

The big question that a lot of these Western nations have is what will be next for Gaza.

So they're trying to get ahead of that.

But we still don't, I don't think, have anything that resembles significant movement from the United States.

I was about to say, yeah, this all comes back to the White House.

Not least at a very technical level, because my understanding, and I'm certainly not an international lawyer, but my understanding is that Palestinian recognition for it to actually be achieved requires not only the United Nations General Assembly to vote, which will happen in September, that that much is very clear.

It's whether the Security Council agrees with that and all the members, all the permanent members of the Security Council have a veto on that, including the United States.

And I don't know what you think, Patricia, but I think most people would assume at this point in time Trump would veto such a thing.

But do we know that for certain?

We don't know it for certain, but yeah, I don't think, I can't see any shift that is at all, you know.

Think about what Trump's focusing on at the moment.

He's all about his meeting with Putin that's coming up.

I feel like Trump kind of can only deal with one thing at a time.

Is that unfair?

I feel like he kind of, he's sort of hyper-focused.

And at the moment, it's Putin, and we haven't given enough focus on that.

But come September, come, you know, UN meeting on this matter.

whether Israel has done what they've indicated they're going to do and moved into Gaza, that that will have happened if that happens.

And then

maybe there's a crisis off that, or maybe they might even let some of the world's journalists in to have a look at what's going on there.

I cannot see Trump administration who have, even over the weekend, Marco Rubio, who can I say Penny Wong gave the heads up to that we're about to do this, she confirmed, but Marco Rubio denouncing the move of France, saying that they essentially, by recognizing Palestinian statehood, had

ruined the chances of a ceasefire.

So we're seeing not just from Trump but all of the people who are

pretty significant players in his administration, obviously Rubio being a pretty key person with a lot of, in a really weird way, I think as it's turned out, a lot of power actually.

I know Trump's the ultimate decision maker, but it seems that Rubio does is given a lot of leeway when it comes to these international conversations.

Did you hear anything from what Rupio said, which gave you any indication that there's been any shift?

No,

but

I also have been reading some of the American press over the weekend where there's criticism from Trump's MAGA base about the thought of a big escalation in Gaza.

because I think they understand that would probably involve America as well.

It's a big thing to take over that whole area.

If it's just the Israeli Defence Forces, do they bring in the Americans as well?

And I think there's unease

in Donald Trump's own political base about that.

There would be huge backlash to that, and I can't see Donald Trump agreeing to being boots on the ground, which is what you're essentially saying.

I can't see it.

And we know that there's huge resistance to that.

I mean, he promised to end the forever wars.

He kind of gave the public the impression that he was a peacenick, really, didn't he?

He did.

And Americans are tired of wars.

There's a really good documentary at the moment on Netflix about the Vietnam War.

And there's always a,

you know, the story, but it's amazing when you see it again and there's different footage and they've interviewed different people.

And it's yet again a reminder of why Americans to this day are so worried about being drawn into conflicts like that.

The one other thing I think it's worth us touching on is

that Benjamin Netanyahu, who and the Prime Minister did speak last week.

The Prime Minister confirmed that.

They kept that on the down low.

In fact, I directly asked this this of a minister on Friday who said he did not know that they talked.

Well, actually, if you look at the timeline, they had talked by then.

So I don't know, was the Prime Minister not sharing that with his colleagues?

So we learned about it at the press conference today, right?

That they had, in fact, spoken.

And what's unusual about that is

usually when two sides communicate like that, there are readouts, which is that sort of American term that they like to use, where you get four or five lines, you know, so-and-so and so-and-so spoke about X, Y, and Z.

They agreed to yada, yada, yada.

It's kind of diplomatic boilerplate stuff, but at least you know the meeting was held.

Presumably, they said some nice things to each other.

Now,

when there's no readout from either side.

I think that's a good piece of analysis there.

It's hard to put that in writing, what they said to each other.

And the things that Netanyahu has said publicly.

I mean, to Matt Doran, when he asked the question at the end of the press conference.

I I know so much has happened where he, you know, rebuked Australia for even thinking about statehood and also the other nations that have done it.

Look,

this is not a man who's taking phone calls and really weighing up the advice that his historical friends are giving him.

This is not the way this is operating.

This is a man that, if you look at the history here before October 7, was under incredible political pressure,

is dealing with so much internal pressure in his own cabinet.

He only governs with the support of the far-right wing who are pushing him further and further to escalate.

And it's all about his own political survival.

Israel is right now grappling with where they go next.

I'm talking here, the voting public, the hostage families who know that this man is taking them to a dangerous place.

And that is an existential issue really for them and the way they handle this.

Well,

they probably like, I don't know,

haven't been to Israel recently, but

whether he's taking them to a dangerous place, maybe in a security sense

they feel more secure now than they did two or three years ago.

because of the way Israel has degraded all of its enemies.

That's an interesting way of framing it.

Look, I consume a lot of Israeli media

and just just to understand how the conversations are going there and what's clear is you are right in a technical sense i don't know if that's the right word technical but well it's it's different to so so you're not as threatened obviously by an attack from hamas because israel has degraded them so heavily likewise hezbollah likewise even even iran to some extent but is that the same as saying israel is now

in its current in its current shape and form in a more secure position than it was before all of this unfolded.

Well we've just spent the last 20 minutes talking about Palestinian state recognition that has been in at least part precipitated by what is overreach or seen as overreach by Netanyahu.

For decades Palestinian recognition didn't happen because the world's richest economies didn't allow it to happen.

Now it's happening.

Why?

Because Netanyahu is seen to have gone too far.

That's right.

He's seen to have gone too far and he has gone too far on the facts.

More than 60,000 people have died, a lot of them women and children.

The world has

not been able to look away and the populations in the UK, in France, in Australia have held their governments to account in many ways.

Let's not pretend that the public pressure is not part of this story.

It is.

What about for Labor, though?

Does this satisfy their own critics that they've been too slow and that they haven't gone hard enough, that they should have done more?

That is such a fantastic question.

It satisfies some of its critics.

So I'm looking even in its internal but outspoken critics, people like Bob Carr and others are congratulating the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister for finally taking this step.

So they will be given credit for going there.

Yes, some of those people wish that they'd gone first or right after France when it all started.

But, you know, in the fullness of time, I don't think that will become

is a very significant or lasting

or meaningful issue.

I don't personally, in my own assessment, think a couple of weeks here or there

is a great difference in terms of an announcement.

But the pressure won't end and there will be pushes for more action if the Netanyahu government and the IDF goes further and we see even further horror in Gaza

for the government to be sanctioning the entire security cabinet, for instance, something Helen Clark, the former New Zealand Prime Minister, called for.

So not just the two far-right ministers, but more of them for

our supply chains that are contributing perhaps to ammunitions, right, through supply chains, not directly.

So I think the argument that the government makes that it's not direct is true, but whether we take action on those sorts of issues to send further signals, there will be pressure on Albanese on all of that.

He clearly has decided that's not where he's going today, but that doesn't mean that won't happen down the track if this escalates further.

And if you look at the news coming out of Israel, it looks like it will escalate further, Jacob.

So watch that space.

Yeah, so what does it do for the folks on the ground there?

It's hard to see it having an immediate improvement, does it?

None of this will improve the lives of Palestinians today or tomorrow.

None of this will.

But what will?

What will?

I think Donald Trump putting his foot down with his friend, Netanyahu, and until that happens,

I don't see much of a shift for the lives of Palestinians on the ground.

But that doesn't mean that middle powers like us shouldn't

take

actions that perhaps contribute to sending messages.

And that's what we've done.

Now, the Australian public will make its assessment about whether this goes far enough.

Already, there will be strong critics, I think, who think that this does reward Hamas.

You know, some of the pro-Israel groups, some of the Jewish groups, not all, but some,

are saying this already.

But the Prime Minister has made the estimation that this is the right time for Australia.

Will it be seen as just a gesture, though?

He said he wasn't into gestures, but will it ultimately be seen just as a gesture, Jacob?

I think that's going to be seen in the future.

Beautifully summarised.

Jacob, love hanging out with you on a Monday.

I know you've got lots of work to do as we all sort of digest what this all means.

Tomorrow I'll be back with Politics Now.

It's rates day.

That's a big day in the households that have thumping mortgages, and we will deliver you analysis with Brett Worthington.

Frank Kelly and I are together on Thursday, as we always are, taking your questions.

Send them to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

Thanks, Jacob.

See you later.