The most important meeting of Albanese's career just got trickier
The federal government's decision to sanction two far-right Israeli minsters, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, has been a long time coming.
It underscores the deep frustration with the Netanyahu government felt by some of Israel's oldest and most reliable allies at the intransigence of that country's prime minister and a growing disgust at the human toll of the war in Gaza.
It's also an exquisite piece of timing, coming on the eve of Anthony Albanese's expected first meeting with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Canada. But the PM has hardly signed up to a radical position. Joined by the Norwegians, the conservative prime minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon and a pair of centre-left leaders – UK's Keir Starmer and Canada's Mark Carney – the sanctions carry weight, as evidenced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's almost immediate pushback, and the move is sure to be discussed if, or when, the president and the PM finally meet in person.
Given that the only world leader Netanyahu appears to pay any significant heed to is Trump, leaders like Albanese have a part to play in both publicly and privately lobbying the president over ending the war in Gaza, and a possible, eventual two-state solution.
At the time of writing, on the eve of a trip that will take him to Nadi, in Fiji, Seattle, Washington and Kananaskis, Canada for the G7 summit, a sit-down between the prime minister and the US president had not been confirmed. But it seems highly likely that the men will meet, if Trump turns up at the summit. Albanese will have bilateral meetings ('bilats') with world leaders including Carney and Starmer, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung.
The Australian decision to sanction the Israeli ministers comes less than two weeks after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called publicly for Australia to increase its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, an increase of about $40 billion a year and a near-doubling from the current level of about 2 per cent.
Hegseth's call received a lukewarm reception, at best, in Canberra with Albanese noting at the National Press Club this week that 'if the health minister or the comms minister or the infrastructure minister came to us and said, 'we want you to spend X percentage of GDP but we won't tell you what it's for' ... they wouldn't get far in an ERC [Expenditure Review Committee] process'.
The prime minister's view is that his government will find the necessary equipment and capabilities for the Australia defence forces, rather than increasing its spending before it knows what it wants to spend it on.
Taken together, the decision to sanction the two Israeli ministers and to push back against the American defence spending demands signal something more significant.
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