Given Australia has nonetheless decided to proceed with recognition, the question is whether it will translate this step into clear and enforceable measures that alter the cost–benefit calculation sustaining occupation. Without that, it is just another symbolic gesture with no bearing on the realities Palestinians face.
Symbolism has a place in diplomacy. But Palestinians are not being starved in Gaza or displaced from their homes in the West Bank for lack of symbolism. They are suffering because the structural machinery of occupation and genocide, military, economic and legal, continues to operate without obstruction.
Smoke rises following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on Sunday.Credit: AP
International law already imposes binding obligations on states to end the occupation, prevent genocide and dismantle systems of apartheid. These duties, affirmed repeatedly by the UN’s judicial bodies and the Security Council, require more than diplomatic signalling. They demand measures that decisively shift the political and economic balance sustaining occupation and ensure its continuation comes at a cost too high for Israel to bear. Recognition is not necessary to fulfil these obligations. States could act now through sanctions, embargoes and accountability measures.
Australia should bar economic support for the Israeli settlement enterprise. It should thoroughly review, freeze and suspend all trade and investment that enable it. It should end arms and dual-use technology sales and co-operation with Israel, including revising or withdrawing from supply chains that feed Israel’s war machine, and it should support the prosecution of individuals and entities implicated in international crimes. If recognition is to be followed by more than applause, it must dismantle the incentive structure that sustains the status quo.
The Albanese government is misguided if it thinks recognition constitutes a peace plan, and doubly so if it believes recognition can revive a two-state formula long hollowed out by Israeli facts on the ground, created over decades of occupation and colonisation.
The onus is on the Albanese government to clearly state whether its recognition will be a shallow diplomatic display or a genuine policy shift. Israel can withstand a wave of recognition, but Palestinians cannot withstand the continued absence of meaningful action.
Loading
Decades of formal recognition by many states have not slowed settlement expansion or the dispossession of Palestinians, lifted the siege of Gaza or halted the current assault devastating Palestinian society. These gestures, however numerous, have repeatedly failed to translate into material change on the ground.
As the Albanese government prepares to recognise the state of Palestine, it must be prepared to defend that recognition by ensuring it has material consequences.
That means more than a diplomatic statement. It requires a sustained strategy that confronts the occupation, applies legal standards consistently and uses Australia’s economic and political weight to dismantle – and hold to account – an entrenched system of occupation and apartheid.
Without that, recognition will be exactly what Netanyahu predicts: a passing headline that leaves the underlying realities untouched.
Dr Anas Iqtait is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University and the author of Funding and the Quest for Sovereignty in Palestine (Palgrave, 2023). He previously worked in Palestine on economic development and humanitarian programs with the United Nations OCHA, Oxfam, and the Korea International Cooperation Agency.
Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.
