Australia has announced it will consider formally recognizing a Palestinian state, in a policy shift as the international community seeks a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Foreign Secretary Penny Wong said today that this recognition can help restart the stalled peace process and fight extremist forces in the Middle East.
“The recognition of a Palestinian state – which can only exist side by side with an Israeli state living in security – will not only offer the Palestinians an opportunity to realize their aspirations.”
“This might also strengthen peacekeeping forces and undermine extremism. It will be able to weaken Hamas, Iran and its other allies in the region,” she added in a speech at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Formal recognition of a Palestinian state has long been seen by Western countries as the result of a peace process with Israel.
The United States, Australia and most European Union countries have said they want to see a Palestinian state one day recognized, but not before thorny issues such as the status of Jerusalem and a final border deal are resolved.
However, following the attacks of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Israel on October 7 last year, when the Israeli military attack on Gaza began, the diplomats of some countries are reconsidering this possibility.
“The failures of this approach by everyone for decades – such as the refusal even by the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government to consider the issue of a Palestinian state – is a cause of great disappointment,” said Wong.
“The international community is therefore now looking at the issue of a Palestinian state as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution,” the Australian diplomat added.
Wong backed statements by her British counterpart David Cameron, who said recognition of a Palestinian state, including by the United Nations, would make the two-state solution irreversible.
“A two-state solution is the only hope to break this endless cycle of violence,” Wong said, ruling out any role for Hamas, which holds power in Gaza. “There is no role for Hamas in a future Palestinian state,” he stressed.
Wong said that “those who claim that recognition rewards an enemy” are wrong because Israel’s very security depends on the two-state solution. “There is no long-term security for Israel unless it is recognized by the countries in its region.”
Britain, Ireland, Malta, Slovenia and Spain have already raised the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state.
In 2014, Sweden, which has a large Palestinian community, was the first European Union country to recognize the state of Palestine.
Six other European countries had done so before Sweden and before they became EU members themselves: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
Sources: APE-MPE, AFP, Reuters
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