Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on August 11 that Australia would recognise a Palestinian state in September.
The response from pro-Palestine groups has been swift; they all want Labor to take concrete measures to stop Israel’s genocide now. Some are emphasising the inadequacies of Labor’s stand, while others say it provides more openings to force Labor to act.
The Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) said Labor’s recognition is “a political fig leaf to deflect from the urgent legal obligations Australia must uphold under the Genocide Convention”.
APAN president Nasser Mashni emphasised this, saying that recognising Palestine is “tantamount to [Labor] declaring its intention to entrench the status quo of Israeli genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation”.
“It is an insult to Palestinians, and is veneer that allows Israel to continue brutalising Palestinians with no consequences,” APAN said.
Further, it said it “encourage[s] other states to normalise relations with the very state perpetrating these atrocities, and with Israeli leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes”.
The government announced its decision a week after the historic 300,000-strong March for Humanity over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which called for sanctions on Israel.
The Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) said on August 11 that the decision to recognise Palestine as a state “is a response to the growing groundswell of public support for Palestinian rights across this country”.
However, it said “recognition of the State of Palestine must be combined with principled action to stop Israel’s intensifying genocide in Gaza”.
Recognition, the JCA said, “needs to be combined with immediate action, including sanctions, to help end Israel’s ongoing genocide and the deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza”.
The JCA pointed out that Israel has admitted deliberately assassinating prominent Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, along with four of his colleagues, on the same day that Albanese announced Australia’s recognition plan.
“If Australia is sincere in its support for Palestinian liberation, it cannot have any involvement in arming the state which is committing this genocide. This means that Australia must stop supplying components for F-35 fighter jets used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza,” it said.
Palestine Action Group Sydney activist Amal Naser in an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald said the historical March for Humanity demanded sanctions on Israel and an end to the two-way arms trade.
“Yet, the government instead offers us ‘recognition’ of a Palestinian state, as though that is what we have been demanding … Recognition is not enough. You cannot ‘recognise’ a state while you allow Australian-made components to help arm the regime destroying it.”
Palestinian activist Khaled Ghannam pointed out that Western governments, such as Australia, which are promising to recognise Palestine are linking it to a requirement that Hamas disarm and leave government. “How can there be such [a free and fair] election in which a major political movement such as Hamas, which has at least 35% support, is excluded?” Ghannam asked.
Ghannam said that “disarming the Palestinian resistance is a violation of international law” since “international law has affirmed, again and again, that Palestine is being occupied by Israel” and occupied people have a legal right to resist.
“Western countries are really exercising a public relations campaign aimed at letting off steam from the popular anger building against Israel’s daily war crimes,” he said.
Agreeing that recognising Palestine would be “largely symbolic and a diversion from actions Labor needs to take to stop the genocide, academic Michael Karadjis identified a “silver lining” in the move.
“Recognition actually does put more pressure on the government,” he said on social media. “In the past, when confronted by the question of why Australia does not impose the same penalties on Israel as it imposed in Russia for invading the sovereign state of Ukraine, the government could weasel out of it”.
However “recognition means that Israel is likewise invading the sovereign state of Palestine” which is a point of pressure for the movement.
Shamikh Badra, a member of the International Committee of the Palestinian People’s Party who is studying in Australia, welcomed the decision. “Recognition — especially from countries like Australia with strong diplomatic and economic ties to Israel — can help break Israel’s monopoly over the political narrative, expand legitimacy for Palestinian rights, and create new leverage for accountability in international forums.”
He said by recognising Palestine, Australia joins those challenging the “logic of erasure”.
“It affirms the existence of a people who have endured decades of displacement, military occupation, and attempted genocide — and still refuse to disappear.”
He said recognition “confronts the Trump–Netanyahu strategies of forced displacement, coerced normalization, and so-called ‘economic peace’, which treat Palestinians as a demographic problem to be removed or controlled”.
Australia’s recognition is “not a token act from a faraway country”, Badra said, but “a political signal that even Western states long aligned with Israel can shift their position when faced with mounting evidence of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid”.
“Recognition is only the beginning,” Badra told Green Left. “Words must be matched with action” including "cutting military ties, sanctioning the Israel until the occupation forces leave, guaranteeing humanitarian aid reaches everyone in need in Gaza".
Badra said that all Palestinian factions welcome Australia’s decision, including Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, representing more than 85% of all Palestinians.
Remah Naji, an activist with Justice for Palestine Magan-djin, said “regardless of what people think [about recognition], the government has achieved what it wanted: getting people to argue over a symbolic gesture that changes absolutely nothing for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank or beyond”.
“Like the endless ‘peace talks’, this recognition is designed by and for political elites — never by or for the people who actually live under occupation.”
Even though Israel has described countries’ recognition of Palestine as “shameful”, Naji said it is still being done on Israel’s terms. This “only reinforces how detached this move is from justice or liberation”.
“Our job in our grassroots movements is to not be sucked into their narrative: Sanction Israel; end all weapons trade with Israel, including weapons parts, and divest from all companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
[Join the national day of action for Palestine on August 24.]