Recognising Palestine now is ‘virtue signalling', says veteran Middle East negotiator

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

Sweeping sanctions on Israel would be the most effective way for Australia to try to change the Netanyahu government's behaviour in Gaza and the West Bank, a veteran Middle East peace negotiator has argued as the Albanese government blocks a far-right Israeli MP from travelling to Australia.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed on Monday that the government had banned Israeli politician Simcha Rothman, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, from travelling to Australia for a speaking tour scheduled this week.
It is believed to be the first time a sitting Israeli politician has been denied a visa for a planned visit to Australia since the war in Gaza began almost two years ago.
Aaron David Miller, who advised six United States secretaries of state on Middle East policy, said moves by Australia and other Western democracies to recognise a Palestinian state next month would be meaningless at best and counterproductive at worst.
'This is, in my judgment, virtue signalling. It will have no impact in altering the behaviour or the policies of the two major combatants,' Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told this masthead when asked about the recognition push.
'In fact, you could argue that all it's really doing is driving Israel more to their own corner, and creating this false sense, on the part of Hamas, that if they just hold out a bit longer, good things will happen for them.'
Miller continued: 'If the Europeans were serious about this, if Australia were serious about getting Israel's attention, why don't they impose bilateral sanctions? Why not impose travel bans?'
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week announced a major expansion of settlement building in the occupied West Bank, declaring it 'definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state, simply because there is nothing to recognise, and no one to recognise'.