Whatever his personal views, Anthony Albanese would be foolish to allow his government to be railroaded by mindless left-wing pressure within the ALP into recognising a non-existent Palestinian state. Doing so would be against Australia’s interest. It would overturn decades of sensible political bipartisanship over Israel’s security and its right to exist in a hostile world. Such recognition of Palestine would deeply offend the Jewish state, with which we have enjoyed the closest relations since its foundations. It also would put us at odds with all our main Western allies, none of which has taken the recognition road. And it would anger many in the Jewish community in Australia that is a vital part of our society.
Yet that is what the Victorian Labor conference on Sunday effectively called on the federal government to do. It would be hard to think of anything likelier to derail what has been a generally well-considered approach to foreign affairs by the Albanese government. The Left faction hotheads who issued the call for recognition are hoping to make it a binding issue at the ALP national conference in Brisbane in August. That ambition contradicts Middle East reality.
The so-called state of Palestine has neither internationally defined and accepted borders nor a centralised government. It has none of the criteria for statehood required by the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. Even the status and control exercised by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, on the West Bank, is dubious. It is fiercely contested by Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Read the editorial in The Australian.