Grave Warning from Australia: Time Running Out for Palestinian Statehood
In the midst of Israel’s destructive war on Gaza and rising violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has warned the media that “there is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognize.”
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday morning, Wong made her remarks in response to inquiries regarding a large-scale demonstration against Israel’s war on Gaza that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Sydney. She did not say that Australia intends to reverse its position and recognize Palestinian statehood.
Between 200,000 and 300,000 people participated in Sunday’s demonstration across the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge, according to the organizers. At first, police thought that roughly 90,000 individuals participated.
The large turnout demonstrated “the broad Australian community’s horror” and the “distress of Australians, on what we are seeing unfolding in Gaza, the catastrophic humanitarian situation, the deaths of women and children, the withholding of aid,” according to Wong, who also said that the Australian government shared the demonstrators’ “desire for peace and a ceasefire.”
“We don’t speculate on sanctions for the obvious reason that they have more effect if they are not flagged,” Wong responded when asked if Australia was thinking of taking any more drastic measures, including slapping sanctions on Israel.
She pointed out that in June of this year, Australia had previously placed sanctions on “extremist” Israeli settlements and two far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s administration, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The “only business” Albanese should be talking about with Netanyahu, according to Rawan Arraf, executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, is ending the “two-way arms trade between Australia and and Israel, new sanctions measures, and Netanyahu’s one-way trip to the [International Criminal Court] to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.”
In a post on X, Arraf stated that Albanese “must not give legitimacy to an accused war criminal.”
Although Wong and Albanese have both emphasized the significance of a two-state solution, Australia has not yet joined the vast majority of nations that already recognize Palestinian statehood, such as France and Canada, which have recently announced their intentions to do so.
“It’s not surprising that so many Australians have been affected in order to want to show their concern at people being deprived of food and water and essential services,” Albanese said in response to inquiries over the protest gathering in Sydney.
However, in the week before the demonstration, the New South Wales state government, which is headed by Albanese’s Labor Party, attempted to stop the march from going across the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Only after Justice Belinda Rigg of the State Supreme Court declared that “the march at this location is motivated by the belief that the horror and urgency of the situation in Gaza demands an urgent and extraordinary response from the people of the world” did the demonstration proceed.
Speaking during the march on Sunday, Loewenstein said, “People are so outraged, not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s complicity.”
“The F-35 fighter jet, which Israel uses over Gaza every day, is part of the global supply chain, and the parts that are among those parts in the plane are probably coming from Australia,” he stated.
Source: Al Jazeera
