Palestinian statehood declares 'enough' suffering
Canada has joined the UK and France in announcing plans to support statehood at a United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
But Canada's pledge comes with conditions, including the demilitarisation and exclusion of Hamas, which Australia deems a terrorist organisation.
Labor backbencher Ed Husic, the first Muslim elected to federal parliament and one of the first Muslim cabinet ministers, said the move had become a way for countries to put pressure on the Israeli government.
"A lot of our friends in the international community, for them, recognition is their way of saying enough," he told ABC News on Friday.
"Enough with the blockade, enough with holding back humanitarian aid. Enough with people starving, enough with people being killed - innocent Palestinians in their scores.
"Australia has this opportunity now to be able to press its ambitions and objectives in this area that are founded on very solid grounds."
Mr Husic said there were "conditions that need to be fulfilled, and then recognition will be part at the end of that process".
The federal government is under increasing pressure to follow suit, with senior ministers saying Australia's recognition of Palestine is a matter of "when, not if".
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the nation would not be bound by the deadline of the UN conference.
"The decision to recognise (Palestine) on the path to two states being created would make a positive difference … but in order for that to be achieved, there needs to be security for the state of Israel," he told ABC's 7.30 on Thursday.
Liberal senator Paul Scarr said the coalition's "firm view" was a negotiated two-state solution and that Hamas could not be in control of Gaza.
"We all want to see peace, we all want to see an enduring solution, we all want to see the suffering end," he told ABC Radio.
"A negotiated, enduring solution is the pathway we should be looking for."
It comes as Australia's representative to the UN James Larsen said the government would continue to work with the international community to make a two-state solution a reality.
"Australia shares the frustration of the great majority of countries that a Palestinian state still does not exist," he said at the UN overnight.
Mr Larsen reiterated terrorist group Hamas could play no role in the future governance of a Palestinian state and that hostages needed to be released immediately.
But statehood remained "an essential step to a two-state solution", he said, amid criticism from Israel and Jewish groups in Australia that recognition would reward Hamas.
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