[This article was updated on August 14.]
While finally recognising Palestinian statehood gives legitimacy to Palestinians’ aspirations, using it as a bargaining chip — as the West, including Australia, is doing — is a face-saving exercise.
It is a distraction from taking immediate steps — such as sanctions, ending weapons trade and massively expanding aid — to stop Israel’s genocide and starvation of Gazans.
The horrifying images of people being deliberately starved and killed is adding pressure on Western governments, which have been enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s genocide.
Around the world, views of Israel are mostly negative, as the Pew Research Centre shows. The big media that, for nearly two years, has been complicit in manufacturing consent for Israel’s “right” to defend itself, are now condemning its killing of Palestinian journalists.
Now, only 32% of people in the United States approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, according to a new Gallup poll.
However, with the noteworthy exceptions of Ireland and Spain, Western leaders still refuse to describe Israel’s war as an act of genocide.
It helps explain why they are only now starting to talk up the need to recognise Palestine as a state.
Canada, Britain and France said they will recognise Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September. Following the March for Humanity over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Australia announced it will follow suit.
However, the West is using the tactic as a stick to beat Israel.
Other than Germany, which has suspended arms exports to Israel, the countries that have said they will recognise Palestine have so far refused to.
Recognising Palestinian statehood without taking concrete measures to stop enabling genocide means very little, especially since the West, including Australia, has imposed conditions including: demilitarisation, no role for Hamas and recognising Israel’s right to exist in peace and security. Support for a Palestinian state should be unconditional, based on their right to self-determination.
It shows the West is becoming nervous about how far Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — with US President Donald Trump’s support — is prepared to go to annihilate Palestine. Nevertheless, Western imperialism remains committed to propping up Israel as a garrison state, whose function is to project Western power in the Middle East.
It has come behind the 22-member Arab League — which has not come to Gaza’s aid — which also called on Israel to recognise a Palestinian state, while laying out a phased plan to end the nearly 80-year war on Gaza. It too says Hamas must be disarmed, release the hostages and leave the Strip.
The league has endorsed a UN-auspiced “New York Declaration”, signed in late July by 27 European Union states and 17 other countries, which said the same.
This is the fantastical plan that Labor says it supports — just as Israel has declared it is about to launch a ground war on Gaza City.
Australia’s decision to recognise Palestine is not part of a package of measures that can support Gaza right now, such as sanctions, expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, a decent chunk of aid, and for Israel to withdraw all its troops from the Occupied Territories.
Nevertheless, the measure is likely to open up new contradictions for Labor, which could help build the case for justice for Palestine.
If you recognise a state and another much more powerful state is bombing, starving and destroying it, and you fail to act, doesn’t that make you complicit?
The collapse in support for Israel poses a headache for the West. They need Israel to dial back the horror and be seen to offer the Palestinians some crumbs — just enough for the pressure to be eased.
In that sense, their calculations are more about trying to save Israel from itself, rather than save Gaza.
We must use this moment to ensure they fail, by kicking the door open even further. This means making sure that the national day of action on August 24 is massive, and the union call-out for a national day of action on September 10 to demand sanctions involves more institutional support, piling the pressure on Labor to act for humanity and save Gaza.
[Jacob Andrewartha is a national co-convener of the Socialist Alliance.]