Netanyahu’s sharp jab at Australia came at critical moment and will do little to help his cause

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed Australia as “shameful” for a decision he was certain it would make – recognising a Palestinian state.

Speaking to world media overnight, Netanyahu assumed such an outcome in Canberra – that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal cabinet would choose to recognise Palestinian statehood before joining other countries in voting for this position at the United Nations next month.

And his sharp and emotive jab at Australia during the press conference in Jerusalem did nothing to stop it happening.

Netanyahu knew where Albanese was heading – because Albanese had told him last Thursday and Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed this in a call with the Israeli foreign minister on Sunday. So the Israeli prime minister made no attempt to be diplomatic in urging Albanese to take a different path. Instead, he delivered a slap-down.

The context is important. The Israeli leader made his remarks after taking a question from ABC correspondent Matt Doran about calls from Western leaders to recognise a Palestinian state. Netanyahu was pointed about how people in Sydney and Melbourne would feel if they came under attack from terrorists such as Hamas.

“I think we’re actually applying force judiciously, and they know it,” he said of the world leaders who are critical of his conduct of the war after the Hamas attack in October 2023.

‘I think you would do at least what we’re doing.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how Australians would feel if attacked by terrorists

“They know what they would do if, right next to Melbourne or right next to Sydney, you had this horrific attack. I think you would do at least what we’re doing – probably maybe not as efficiently and as precisely as we’re doing it.”

Netanyahu’s critics will debate just how “efficiently” the Israel Defence Forces are killing and wounding civilians in pursuit of Hamas. The point here is that he framed his words with Australia in mind.

“Today, most of the Jewish public is against the Palestinian state for the simple reason that they know it won’t bring peace, it will bring war,” he said.

“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that – fall right into it – and buy this canard, is disappointing. And I think it’s actually shameful.

“But it’s not going to take, it’s not going to change our position. We will not commit national suicide to get a good op-ed for two minutes. We won’t do that.”

His words are like rotten tomatoes for the Liberals and Nationals to throw at Albanese.

Unanswered questions

There are serious arguments against recognising a Palestinian state at this point. What would this state look like? The borders are contested and overrun by war. The leadership is unknown. The dominant fighting force in a large part of the territory, Hamas, is a terrorist group.

The key condition for the existence of this state, at least in Western diplomacy, is that it accepts Israel’s right to exist and does not threaten Israel’s security. This means leaders are choosing to recognise Palestine before they can be sure it meets this condition.

The assumption is that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, could lead a Palestinian state. Several have spoken to him in recent days – including Albanese last Wednesday. Albanese says Abbas has reaffirmed the acceptance of Israel, the demilitarisation of a Palestinian state and the need for elections.

“Australia’s position is predicated on the commitments we have received from the Palestinian Authority,” say Albanese and Wong in their formal statement.

The obvious challenge is that Abbas has authority over the West Bank, as chairman of Fatah, the largest group within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, but he cannot speak for others. Hamas won 44.45 per cent of the vote in the 2006 election that led it to take control of Gaza in violence against Fatah and the Palestinian people. It is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Peaceful co-existence may seem a bitter joke to the people of Gaza after more than 60,000 deaths in less than two years. Witnesses to the war have told this masthead about the indiscriminate casualties, the starvation, the flattening of homes and the restrictions on medical aid.

National leaders have avoided recognising a Palestinian state in the past, but the war is so horrific that this symbolic recognition is presented as urgent and necessary. Now Albanese has joined leaders from Europe and Canada in his call. Leaders use it to apply pressure on Netanyahu over the sheer scale of the suffering. As a road map to peace, however, it is only a sketch.

Netanyahu has been losing support among Western leaders for months because of the ferocity of his military strategy. Some chose not to take a firm stand against him in the earlier stages of the war, but this changed as the full horror grew worse, month after month.

After losing so many national leaders, Netanyahu needed to keep some on side. His remarks on Sunday only pushed Albanese further away.

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