Penny Wong’s speech on recognising Palestine statehood a diplomatic disgrace: Tim Blair

Penny Wong’s speech should forever be known as the Hamas appeasement speech and will rank among history’s most craven and ill-considered political misjudgments, writes Tim Blair. Take our poll, tell us what you think.

• Palestine call ‘a win for terrorists’

Penny Wong’s Hamas appeasement speech, as it should forever be known, may stand as Australia’s greatest diplomatic disgrace.

For that matter, it should rank among history’s most craven and ill-considered political misjudgements, right up there with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s notorious “peace in our time” announcement following his meetings with Adolf Hitler in 1938.

At least Chamberlain had the excuse that Hitler’s full depravity wasn’t known at the time. Hamas, though, is another story.

October 7 revealed Hamas as the most evil force known to modern day humankind. The atrocities committed on that day – including a Satan’s list of butchery, torture, rape, blindings, infanticide and kidnappings – should have removed Hamas and its supporters from any future negotiations about a Palestinian state.

We’ve seen how Hamas negotiates. They use bullets, barbed wire and a level of barbarity that Australia and all civilised nations should permanently reject.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Picture: Rohan Thomson/ANU

Yet here we have Foreign Minister Penny Wong calling for Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state, declaring: “The simple truth is that a secure and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians will only come with a two-state solution; recognition of each other’s right to exist; a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel.”

The simple truth is that Wong is wrong. All the way down to a cellular level, Hamas and its supporters will never recognise Israel’s right to exist, nor even the right of Jews to exist. October 7 provided the latest and most horrific proof of that obvious fact.

“Recognising a Palestinian state – one that can only exist side-by-side with a secure Israel – doesn’t just offer the Palestinian people an opportunity to realise their aspirations,” Wong continued.

Smoke billows during Israeli strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 9, 2024. Picture: AFP

“It also strengthens the forces for peace, and undermines extremism. It undermines Hamas.”

This isn’t a call for peace. This is pure Palestinian agitprop from someone who must know the only effective way to undermine Hamas is to liberate their bargaining-chip hostages and then eliminate Hamas itself.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Picture: AFP

Wong just glides by the whole hostage issue, doesn’t she, on her way to hoping the Palestinian people will one day have “an opportunity to realise their aspirations”.

Meanwhile a core aspiration among Hamas’s hostages – a number of whom are held in domestic Gaza properties – is to avoid being raped and murdered.

Wong’s talk of statehood implicitly recognises October 7 and continuing Hamas atrocities as legitimate strategies.

Speaking of strategies, consider how debased Labor must be to play the statehood card as a way to stop an inner-city surge in support for pro-Palestinian Greens.

Hostages are being defiled and executed. Within the ALP, this somehow leads to concern about Labor’s marginal seats.

“The Greens,” Wong said, are “exploiting distress in a blatant and cynical play for votes with no regard for the social disharmony they are fuelling,”

Blatant and cynical, she says. Sounds like Labor and the Greens have formed another alliance.