‘The time is right’: Labor luminary calls for Netanyahu sanctions, Palestine statehood
Labor’s longest-serving foreign minister has called on the Albanese government to sanction Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and recognise Palestinian statehood within weeks, a move he said could help resuscitate stalled efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
Gareth Evans, a Labor luminary who served as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, rejected claims by pro-Israel voices within Labor that recognising a Palestinian state would reward Hamas’s terror attacks of October 7, 2023.
Former Labor minister Gareth Evans.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host a high-profile meeting at the United Nations from June 17-20 aimed at creating momentum for a two-state solution, and which some nations, including France, may use to officially recognise Palestinian statehood.
Australia’s top representative to the United Nations, James Larsen, raised speculation of an imminent shift by saying in a speech on Monday night that a two-state solution was the only hope for ending the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Evans backed calls by former cabinet minister Ed Husic for Australia to draw up a list of sanctions against top Israeli politicians.
“Imposing financial sanctions, travel bans and the like on the most egregious Israeli promoters and perpetrators of violations of Palestinian human rights – adding government ministers like [Finance Minister] Bezalel Smotrich and [National Security Minister] Itamar Ben-Gvir, not to mention Netanyahu himself, to the list of those violent individual West Bank settlers already sanctioned by the Albanese government in July last year – would certainly send a powerful message in response to the ongoing, and now further escalating horror in Gaza,” Evans told this masthead.
“By far the strongest message Australia could send would be to announce at next month’s critical UN high-level conference that we are immediately recognising Palestinian statehood: not just as the final outcome of a political settlement but as a way of kick-starting it.
“Recognition is ALP policy, and Penny Wong and her colleagues have been wrestling only with the timing – and the timing now is absolutely right.”
The international community has grown increasingly alarmed by Netanyahu’s determination to continue the war in Gaza and assert control over most of the devastated strip, with leading aid organisations warning of a humanitarian catastrophe unless Israel allows more food and medical supplies to enter Gaza.
More than 1000 artists and performers – including Miriam Margolyes, Anthony LaPaglia and Judy Davis – signed a letter to the government calling for a total arms and energy embargo on Israel, targeted sanctions and travel bans on Israeli government officials and a commitment to executing the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu.
While some Labor sources said they believed it was “more likely than not” that Australia would use the UN conference in New York to recognise a Palestinian state, others cautioned that a decision had not been made and that the issue was still in flux.
Government sources not authorised to speak publicly stressed that the conference “was not being framed as a pledging conference where countries announce they are recognising Palestinian statehood” and that the seniority of those who would attend was unclear.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will attend the G7 summit in Canada in the days leading up to the conference, raising the possibility he could also appear at the UN talks.
Wong signalled a possible shift in Australia’s stance last year when she used a speech to say that Australia believed recognition of Palestine could come before a final peace settlement between the two sides.
Mike Kelly, a former minister who now leads the Labor Friends of Israel group, urged the government not to recognise Palestine as a state, even as he acknowledged growing frustration with the Netanyahu government over the mounting death toll and destruction in Gaza after over 20 months of war.
“It would be a completely pointless gesture and even worse than that: Hamas would take it as a reward for the violence they have inflicted not only upon Israel but also their own citizens,” Kelly said. “We all want to see a two-state solution, but this will not happen until Hamas is removed from power in Gaza.”
Evans rejected this argument, saying that recognising Palestine would enhance Israel’s security rather than rewarding Hamas, which is a listed terror group in Australia.
“Conferring on Palestinians the extra legitimacy, leverage and bargaining power inherent in recognised statehood would help ensure for both Palestinians and Israelis a future that is better than the awful status quo,” he said.
“Of course creating a viable physical entity out of the settlement-decimated West Bank and shattered Gaza will be nightmarishly difficult.
“And of course there are massive governance problems to be resolved on the Palestinian side, with the Palestinian Authority a corrupt gerontocracy and Hamas in its present form dealing itself out of any international acceptance with its military wing’s terrorist excesses.
“But with strong regional and Western political and financial support neither problem is totally insoluble.”
While the vast majority of UN member states already recognise Palestine, most western countries including Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France do not.
James Larsen, Australia’s ambassador to the UN, said in a speech on Monday night: “A two-state solution – a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel – is the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, and the only hope of a just and enduring peace, for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
“Like other partners, Australia no longer sees recognition of a Palestinian state as only occurring at the end of negotiations but rather as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution.”
He said that Australia “welcomes the conference’s ambition of a time-bound, irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution”.
Husic, who lost his position in cabinet after infighting between the Victorian and NSW Labor Right factions, said tougher action was needed against Israel beyond rhetorical condemnation.
“I think we should be actively considering – and I suspect it’s probably under consideration – drawing up a list of targeted sanctions where we can join with others,” he told ABC radio. “We should be ready to move when others move as well, to be able to exert maximum international pressure to stop this blockade and to help people in Gaza.”
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