‘We wanted to vote yes’: Australia expresses regret over UN Palestine vote

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has expressed regret that Australia was unable to vote for a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza within a year, saying the nation’s diplomats had tried and failed to redraft the motion to make it less contentious.

Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations insisted that, despite the country’s abstention, it was only a matter of time until Australia recognised a Palestinian state.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia was disappointed it could not secure amendments to the resolution.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The non-binding motion, which also called for Israel to make reparations to Palestinians for damages incurred by the occupation, passed the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly on Wednesday, with 124 nations voting in favour and 14 voting against.

Forty-three nations abstained from the vote after a push by Australia and other countries failed to convince the Palestinian Authority to water down its motion, intended to force Israel to comply with International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion in July that found its occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank was illegal.

The Albanese government angered Israel with its previous two high-profile UN votes on the Israel-Palestine issue by backing a December resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and a May resolution expanding Palestinians’ right to participate at the UN.

Representatives attending the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly last week.Credit: AP

In abstaining on the latest vote, Australia joined Britain, Canada, Germany and Ukraine, while voting differently to the United States, which voted against the motion.

“We wish we were in a position to have been able to support it,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told ABC radio on Thursday.

Wong said Australia’s diplomats had worked hard to secure amendments to allow it to vote yes – as the nation did in the previous two UN votes – but failed to convince the Palestinian delegation to rewrite the resolution to more narrowly reflect the ICJ’s finding.

“I would say there are many things the resolution calls for we are already doing,” she said.

“We do not supply weapons to Israel, we have imposed sanctions on a range of extremist Israeli settlers, and we will deny any extremist settlers entry to Australia.

“We wish we were in a position to be able to support [the resolution].”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said in his weekly interview on 2GB that Australia should have voted against the motion, as the US did, to support Israel.

“That’s exactly what the Hawke government would have done, it’s what a Howard government would have done, it’s what an Abbott government would have done, and I think Penny Wong here is – and along with the prime minister, frankly – damaging our relationship very significantly with Israel, with the United States and with like-minded partners,” he said.

James Larsen, Australia’s representative to the United Nations, told the general assembly: “We wanted to vote for a resolution that clearly offered the Palestinian people a path to self-determination and gave the world a path to a two-state solution ... However, we are concerned that by making demands of the entire UN membership that go beyond the scope of the advisory opinion, the resolution distracts from what the world needs Israel to do.”

Declaring that “the occupation must be brought to an end”, Larson referred to a high-profile speech earlier this year in which Wong said Australia could recognise a Palestinian state before a final peace settlement with Israel.

“It’s a matter of when, not if,” he said.

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network President Nasser Mashni said he was “extremely disappointed” by the fact Australia had not voted in favour of the resolution.

“While New Zealand, France and a number of other European states voted in favour of the resolution, Australia shamefully chose to abstain, yet again undermining the rights of the Palestinian people to peace, safety and self-determination,” he said.

Greens Senate leader Mehreen Faruqi called a press conference to condemn Labor as “gutless fence-sitters” for abstaining. “People in this country will not forgive and forget, and people will punish the Labor government at the next election.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said Australia “should have voted no instead of taking the morally cowardly way out and abstaining”, while the Zionist Federation of Australia said Australia “has missed an important opportunity to take a strong stand against the politicisation of the UN”.

By contrast, Sarah Schwartz, executive officer of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, criticised the government for not voting in favour of the motion, saying: “Its failure to vote in favour is a missed opportunity to show stronger, principled leadership.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.