Why Netanyahu calls Australia ‘shameful'
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world's worst fears.
Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu says recognising Palestinian statehood is a win for Hamas and he's defending his decision to expand the war in Gaza.
Today, ABC Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn on Netanyahu's war plans and why his own military is opposed to them.
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Allyson Horn, ABC Middle East correspondent
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Poll shows Gazans prefer Hamas to Palestinian Authority leader touted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Polling has revealed more Gazans support Hamas than Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who convinced Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to support a push for internationally recognised statehood. Independent non-profit think tank the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research published polling in May which found just 15 per cent of respondents backed President Abbas. Meanwhile, support for Hamas sat at 57 per cent - 67 per cent in the West Bank and 43 per cent in Gaza. Catch up with all of the day's breaking news and live interviews from politicians and experts with a Streaming Subscription.
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The Australian government has announced it will recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next month. Australia, in joining a growing band of world opinion, which includes Britain, France and Canada, is declaring that recognition is a step towards giving to the Palestinians something desired by most people: a homeland. The state of Palestine should be more than a state of mind. It should be real. More than three-quarters of UN members agree. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, like other world leaders, believe a two-state solution is the answer. It was, said the prime minister on Monday, 'humanity's best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East. Until Israeli and Palestinian statehood is permanent, peace can only be temporary.' Critics, from many angles, may see this as both a hollow gesture, one that rewards bad actors and one powered by the engine of domestic politics. Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators marching through the streets of Melbourne and across the Sydney Harbour Bridge can have that effect. Measuring the effect of recognition to the diabolically complex Middle East is harder to discern. The history of the past 100 years is a road strewn with false starts, dead-ends, betrayed hopes, terror and cities in ruins, and thousands dead. Half a century ago, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed the rights of Palestinians to self-determination and sovereignty. There have been accords, road maps, ceasefires and wars. In 2002, the UN Security Council affirmed a vision of two states – Israel and Palestine. In 2007, Hamas took power in Gaza. Its stated ideology, in part, is the eradication of Israel. To terrorists, a life is secondary to the cause.
Sydney Morning Herald
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Widespread sympathy for Israel's pursuit of Hamas following the terror group's unforgivable attack on October 7, 2023, started to rapidly erode once the apocalyptic spectre of famine rode into Gaza. The seismic shift in sentiment over recent months and actions by other international governments over recent days made it inevitable that the Albanese government would recognise a Palestinian state. With some 60,000 Palestinians killed and more than 150,000 wounded, the growing sense of disproportionate horror prompted some of our closest allies including Britain, France and Canada to opt for recognition, while many hoped for an Israeli change of heart. Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down and called for one final military drive to destroy Hamas. He also dismissed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's promise to recognise Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly next month, labelling it shameful. Given the intransigence of both Netanyahu and Hamas and their failure to halt the killing, recognition could certainly be a first meaningful step toward peace, but one highly dependent on the goodwill of both protagonists. Relying on assurances from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Albanese put no conditions on Australia's recognition. Rather, he signalled the authority must guarantee there was no role for Hamas in a Palestinian government, plus ensure the demilitarisation of Gaza, the holding of elections and commitment to peaceful co-existence with Israel. But history has shown the authority has been incapable of these goals in the past, and it's hard not to be sceptical about any promises to exclude Hamas from the decision-making process. As the Herald 's national security and defence correspondent Matthew Knott reports, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, a supporter of a two-state solution and fierce critic of successor Netanyahu, has dismissed Australia's move as a populist act of symbolism that will not advance a two-state solution. He said the Albanese government should have waited until key conditions, such as Palestinian elections, were met first, rather than accepting assurances from Abbas, a position the Herald supported. Olmert also predicted Netanyahu would lose the next elections, due by October next year. 'The right people will take over again, and Israel will return to be what it was for many years,' he said. The world cannot endure 14 more months of slaughter and starvation in the hope that Olmert's forecast comes true.
