Australia, Israel and the charade of Palestinian recognition

0:00This Saturday episode of New Politics was released on 12 September, 2026, and produced on the lands of the Wongal and Gadigal people. Has anything really changed since Australia recognised the independent state of Palestine? And how can the government support Palestinian sovereignty while arming Israel and trading with its illegal settlements? None of this makes sense. Australia is morally and legally compromised on the issue of Palestine and it's running out of places to hide. I'm Eddie Jokovich. I'm David Lewis. All of this is coming up in this big episode of New Politics. And if you're listening in and haven't subscribed to our website at New Politics, you're missing out on half of what we do. There's regular articles and analysis of this strange world of politics. It's all free and you can subscribe at newpolitics.com.au. And of course, if you do

1:00want to support us, it's just five dollars per month of Patreon and Substag. And all of this is a good way to support independent journalism. Recognising the aspirations of the Palestinian people is about more than a seat, a voice and a vote in the councils of the world. It is about real hope for a place to call home. This is the same hope that sustained generations of Jewish people, the same hope that binds us all to our countries and cultures and drives us to want a better life for our children. Working together we can build a future where instead of children and gars are dying in pain, living in fear, they can go to school and build a life in larger freedom. That future depends on recognition being followed by

2:05reconstruction and reform, a credible cooperative peace plan supporting recovery and gaza and security for Israel. This is the next step we must take and we must take it together. I thank you very much. It's almost a year since Australia recognised Palestine as an independent and sovereign state, but even though there was a great deal of cautious optimism at the time, I think we just need to ask what has actually changed in the past year. There's still no sanctions against Israel over the occupation of Palestine. There's still no restrictions on trade between Australia and the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and there's no fundamental change to Australia's military relationship with Israel and if anything has actually become stronger and then there's still that unresolved issue of the Zombing Frankham, the Australian aid worker killed by Israel Defence Forces in 2024 and for any other country in the world something like this would have

3:10created huge diplomatic problems. Australian citizens is killed by an occupying force in an independent state that Australia has recognised. There's about 10 layers of complexity there and about 10 different layers for why Australia should be sanctioning the State of Israel but refuses to do so. So almost a year after recognising Palestine, Australia still faces that basic contradiction. It supports Palestinian sovereignty as an independent state and that's not de facto recognition day, but that's a real recognition. It remains unwilling to take the actions that might actually support this state to flourish and to defend itself. It's extremely upsetting that the Netanyahu government acts like a rogue state and instead of being shunned and instead of being held to account, it's allowed for some reason to more or less get away with it. All to keep Netanyahu out of jail. The awful bit is that the Labour Party finally says yes our policy is to support Palestine

4:14and to be a supportive, to have supportive structures for Palestine to be able to exist as a nation's state. And to their credit, the other easy government says yes we recognise Palestine as a state. Words is easy, actions is hard and all it would take would be trade sanctions against Israel, recalling the Israeli ambassador as they did to the Iranian ambassador for no reason. Again in a complex world, we can't be too judgmental when it comes in terms of international relations about what countries do and don't do. But this isn't Israel's not our biggest trading partner by a long shot. Unlike China where we have to be very careful because if we lose Chinese exports, suddenly we're in a lot of trouble as in Australian exports to China. So as Harry Truman said, you speak softly and carry a big stick. He also said the one that diplomacy is the other telling

5:14someone to go to hell in such a way that not only do they go but they look forward to the journey. And thank you for it as well. Yeah, that's right. And once Zomi Franken was killed, that should have changed things for our government. At that point, she wasn't there as a combatant. She wasn't even there and I say this, there'll be a lot of qualification coming in. She wasn't there as a war correspondent who happened to get caught in the wrong part and was one of the unfortunate effects of war. Having said that, Israel has targeted journalists, which our press has been very quiet about. But Zomi was a aid worker there to give food to people who desperately needed it and aid and comfort to people who desperately needed it. And she was deliberately targeted. I don't think it's personal. Let's get Zomi Franken but there's an aid worker. Let's get them and show them a lesson, which is appalling. And there's been very little if any repercussion for this for those guilty. At what point do you say Israeli ambassador, you're going home. The embassy's closed.

6:18You've lost diplomatic rights here. And we've spoken at length about the ridiculous influence the Zionist movement has here. And that's a part of it. People are scared of what the Zionists will find out about them. I know of cases where people have been removed from the, we all know of cases of people who've been removed from the jobs because they've said things that were unpalatable to the Zionist movement here. Unfortunately, our government seems to support that side rather than the other. So a recognition of Palestine is meaningless without some kind of action. On this also, the material aspect to all of this as well because Australia initially denied that it was providing direct military assistance to Israel. But then we found out that there's a $70 million trade with F-35 production parts and the supporting networks in East and Australia in Western Sydney as well, not far from where we are. And recent Senate estimates revealed at least 68 deliveries of F-35 parts from Australia to Israel between October 2023 and

7:25September 2025. And there's further deliveries reported for this year. And we did have that situation where the foreign minister Penny Wong was trying to explain that supplying weapons parts was not the same as supplying weapons. And she's probably the biggest supporter of the Zionist project within the federal government. And it's a pretty ugly site. And there is that big contradiction with West Bank as well. The British government recently announced that it will ban the trade between the UK and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Here's the British foreign minister Ed Miliband talking about it a few days ago. The situation in Palestine is a moral emergency. Well the National Air Government is doing Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world. And there is increasing evidence war crimes appear to have been committed. And we're witnessing unprecedented settler terrorism in the West Bank. The British government has come to the same conclusion as a former Prime Minister of Israel and others that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists. And too often the Israeli

8:30government has turned a blind eye to this. And worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians. We will not stand by. We're going to be stronger in standing up for what is right. And bolder in the action we take. Today we're calling out the occupation of Palestine as unlawful. We're banning the import of goods from illegal settlements. We're taking action on services to target those who finance, facilitate or construct new settlements. And we're banning advertising of settlement properties and land. We're taking action too on settler terrorism. The action we're taking today is against the government of Israel, not its people. And the Australian government has constantly said that these Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, which is a violent colonization as well, that constantly say, well these are illegal and against international law. Yet it has an imposed trade ban on these settlements. So

9:32that's already immorally and legally compromised position for Penny Wong and for the Australian government. You've got a situation where you've agreed that these settlements are illegal, but you're happy to trade with those illegal settlements. You can't get any more compromised than that. And you've also, the government has recognised the state of Palestine yet arming the occupied force or the occupying force that's using those arms to kill the people of Palestine. So it's not exactly like the year-round country of Gate Deal from the 1980s, though, but it must be getting pretty close. It's so wrong. I just don't understand why you wouldn't say. And I know there's pressure on people and I know that some things can be complex, but at what point does the genocide not be part of your hold on? This is wrong. We live in such a strange time. There's a crackpot theory going around that the large had Ron Collider altered the timeline back in 2012. Sometimes I think that explains a whole lot of

10:35what's happened. It's funny too. Malcolm Fraser ended up getting a large international reputation by being one of the few people to genuinely oppose apartheid in South Africa when his side of politics thought it was an okay thing. And Fraser said no, racism is wrong. Fraser wanted everybody exploited and crushed equally. He didn't mind what you're back with. If you could be exploited and oppressed, that's great. Black, white, Asian. But in all fairness, that humanitarian approach, particularly from a man who was not known for his soft left woke opinions, although that's what they called him in the end. Did you guys look at what he tried to do to the union movement? Again, he didn't care who was a member of the union movement. He just wanted to crash. But his complicated legacy is complicated because of how he looked at racism, how he looked at South Africa, how he looked at the treatment of indigenous people in Australia, he gets a smoking

11:36ceremony. Golf with Lombard are smoking ceremony, but they're exceedingly rare. John Howard won't get one. Scott Morrison won't get one. Malcolm Turnbull won't get one. And you can look at the varying deserved ability from outside of each of those. But Malcolm Fraser got one, which is given his complicated legacy in other areas. Says a lot for how his absolute lack of racism played out in his career. It's almost as if the government is so scared of upsetting Israel. They don't want to do things. So Penny Wong is a supporter, seems to go against the whole thing she stood up for all that time she was in opposition all that time she was and gets into foreign affairs minister. And yeah, it's true. You can't call her the worst foreign affairs minister we've ever had because outside of this policy, she has been very good. Not perfect in every way, but foreign policy is hard and highly capable people get trapped, get caught, get wrong information. And yeah, apart from

12:40the Shissu, Penny Wong would be in at least the top half of foreign ministers and maybe higher. But with this issue, Penny who always defended refugees, everyone was against her best political interest. Penny who marched in demonstrations when she was opposition shadow minister and suddenly has become one of them in regards to this issue. And I just don't understand it. And again, what could she have to hide? This is New Politics, independent analysis of Australian and international politics. For more free articles and analysis, join us at newpolitics.com.au . Nothing we can keep pointing out Australia's double standards on Palestine for the next couple of

13:43months, but we haven't got that much time available to us. For example, the Pratt family, they've got substantial interest in the Israeli settlement areas. And they're also a major donor to the Australian Labour Party. Not saying anything David, but maybe there's a connection there. There's a very strong connection there. But we had another example with Israel's far right minister Ben Gavir promoting what he calls the voluntary evacuation of Gaza, initially involving 250,000 Palestinians and ultimately the removal of the entire Palestinian population altogether. Now, this is pretty much a Zionist wet dream for people like Ben Gavir. It's glossed over as a voluntary evacuation, but essentially it's ethnic cleansing. That's what it was called in Bosnia. That's what it was called in Rwanda. This is clearly ethnic cleansing. It's not just Ben Gavir. Israel's got its elections towards the end of October, another six weeks away. And it's a little bit like John Howard and his asylum seeker policy. The more draconian it becomes, the more

14:48vote you get in it, then you get other political parties wanting to join the gang as well, like Kim Beasley tried to do all those years ago. And the attitudes of Ben Gavir in that process about removing Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing from Gaza has become supported by the political mainstream. Now, it's not a case of everyone in Israel supporting this, but I think it's something like close to 80% or thereabouts according to their opinion polling. This draconian measure has got a lot of support within Israel. And I think this is just another test of Australia's diplomacy and a test of that recognition of Palestine. So self-determination, which is what was agreed to with the declaration of this independence, self-determination includes the right of Palestinians to remain on Palestinian land. That's what it means. That's what was promised with the recognition of Palestine. And that will not mean very much if you don't have any Palestinians there. Yeah, it seems that they think self-determination is the ability to run from the bombs without

15:52being told to. Australia has to not just speak, but to set up a Palestinian embassy here. Allow Palestinians the same rights of immigration and citizenship, etc. as they do everybody else. Push for it to be recognized as a full member of the United Nations, not a not the lesser membership it is now. Helper develops economy and its industries and all of that, whether financially or whether through sending people over to help or whether just through not making sure that it's not being bombed through diplomatic means. It's not that hard. And given that I think 79% of people in Australia are opposed to current Israeli policy, this will be a vote winner. So again, Labor is at very little risk of losing the next election, but you don't want to frighten burger chances. And by that I mean get one of the safest seats in Australia and over the course of three elections, lose it. Labor has the opportunity to be in for a long time. Okay, but if you're not

16:58going to do anything substantial with that, it's just numbers. You don't want numbers, you want results. And in an international relations term, changing the temperature in the Middle East by allowing Palestine to peacefully coexist with Israel. If that's the way you want to do it, and I know that there are calls to dismantle the state of Israel, but it's to the point where the words have to match the action. Otherwise, what is the point? But domestically, there's also a massive difference between how the Australian government deals with issues as they relate to Israel and how the government deals with issues as they relate to Palestine. And since the bond by attacking the December last year, the Australian government has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-Semitism programs towards education programs or re-education programs and this idea of social cohesion. And they have been demand from the pro-Israel and Zionist lobby groups to extend the term of the anti-Semitism on Vigilian Seagal, beyond July 2027, which was the

18:07initial duration of the terms. She still got another nine months ago or ten months or whatever as far as I'm concerned, David, she's already created enough damage on these issues, but they want that term to be extended so that all of those outrageous policies or proposals that she's got, that will affect university funding if they're deemed to be anti-Semitic according to the IHRA definition. And then will affect every cultural institution in Australia and enable them to monitor the news coverage of the ABC and SBS and be able to censor that if they don't approve of that. Based on what we know about Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, we know that he'll just roll over and say, yes, yes, Gillian Seagal, have what you want and take it. Even though this is essentially a Zionist fascist project that will override the democratic rights of all Australians. And we can see that Anthony Albanese will more than likely agree to that if it is being pushed for at the moment because he's absolutely weak, spineless and pathetic when he comes to standing up to these sort of vested interests and he doesn't want to affect the flow of money that's coming into the

19:12Labor Party from these vested interests. I agree with you, David, I think eventually that there will be a blowback on the government because when you've got the situation, there's so incredibly one-sided. We do get electoral consequences from that. You can't just keep supporting one group in Australia that is essentially supporting a terror estate of Israel and not supporting another state that you formally recognise. And that's Palestine. And that's what the British government is beginning to realise that the blind supporter of Israel at the expense of everyone else is starting to have electoral consequences. And I think that's what the British government is doing. Maybe it's time for the Australian government to finally wake up to this as well. Yeah, it will probably take a massive change in America to have that happen. But Britain and Australia don't need that massive change. The governing parties both have Palestine as part of their policy. So it's just a matter of starting to be a bit consistent. Now Andy Burnham has made

20:12encouraging noises, but Burnham has a tendency to speak rather than act. So we'll see what happens there. I'm not saying he's not going to do it, but he has in the past suggested he do stuff and then has done the opposite, not in regards to Israel, but in when he was mayor of Manchester. He disappointed many people by not being as consistent as people would have preferred him to be. So it becomes a moral choice. And this isn't about do you support the notion of Israel? Do you support the notion of a Jewish state? Do you support Jewish people in Australia? Of course we do. This is in terms of supporting Jewish people in Australia. This is about do you support a genocide? Do you support a criminal road government who is destabilizing crucial areas in the world for petty and pathetic reasons? Because the internal forces in that country are either too scared or have been blocked from doing the right thing. And this is where even Australia can help by saying

21:17we send you ambassador home. We bring in trade sanctions. We agitate until things are working properly there. And it doesn't have to be a government we agree with. Just one that allows the peaceful and lawful right for its next door neighbor to exist. So I think despite the lack of action, like obviously we are very unhappy about, there are lack of action on behalf of the Australian government. I think there's a lot of people within the Australian community that are also unhappy about this lack of action or direction from the Australian government. But I think that Australia's recognition of Palestine a year ago, I think it did achieve something important. Even though the action hasn't been there to support that independence. And I think the important factor is that Australia stopped that inertia that it's had for a long, long time on Palestine and joined the other 157 UN members that recognised Palestinian statehood. Now, it should have been a lot more than that, but I think

22:21that's an important principle, which obviously hasn't been supported by meaningful action. It should have been the beginning and not the end of the process. And we've been calling this for a long, long time as a knocked directly related to the recognition of Palestine. But I think Australia just needs to reconsider what being an ally of Israel actually means. And so far we can see that the likes of Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese, they're only too happy to support this criminal state of Israel. And I know people are going to say, don't say that, that's anti-Semitic, but that's exactly what it is when we look at all the evidence of the way that it's behaving, the way that it's behaving in West Banking, Gaza and what it has done in Gaza. I don't think there's any other way to describe it. And Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong and the pre-must the rest of the cabinet and the Australian government, I think they just have to work out at what point there's an illegal occupation and an illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank, the continuing killing of civilians

23:22and the ethnic cleansing at what point does that become incompatible with Australian values? As far as the Australian government is concerned, because it's the public decided a long, long time ago that it doesn't equate to our values, whether it's Australian values or universal international values. And that's reflected in the number of 79% of Australians that have an unfavorable view of the state of Israel. But I don't know David, I don't know what it is, but the government it just seems to be made up of slow learners, they can't say the word through the trees, but all of these contradictions and double standards of the government, I think it's just becoming more and more difficult to hide and they've got nowhere else to run. This is all out in the open now and people can see it for what it is and it's just becoming more difficult for the Australian government to hide behind this fig leaf of whatever it is that they think is going on in Israel. There's a couple of key figures allegedly outside of the envoy, I won't name names because we're heading into speculation and rumor. Oh, that's right, and you better be careful with that

24:28pager of yours as well. Yeah, yes, exactly. But there's been one person in particular who's turned up on all kinds of committees and subcommittees and parliamentary inquiries with no obvious qualification except that he is a out and proud Zionist and it becomes a question of curiosity as to why he's turning up on all these committees. It's almost as if he wants to make sure that the Zionist policy is kept front and center in every single decision the government makes. Now, I will be fair and I haven't named him and I won't name him. There may be qualifications and skills and resume experience he has that I'm not aware of and that's fine but he's a fairly public figure. We know what his professional career is so it becomes quite curious as to what qualifies him to be on such a wide ranging bunch of government committees and it's a matter of quietly looking at

25:32everyone who's on these committees as we should do and making sure that they are the most appropriate people to be on it otherwise get them off because seat warmers are no good. People pushing agendas outside of the committees are no good. People who aren't there for the absolute best interests of Australia are no good and I think it's time we started looking at what is good. That's it for this episode of New Politics. Thanks for listening in and if you value independent journalism without the influence of corporate backing, join New Politics at newpolitics.com.au and support us directly. It's just five dollars per month and we always try to keep it very simple. If you like what we do please send some support out way. It keeps our commitment to independent journalism ticking along. I'm Eddie Jockovich thanks for listening in and it's goodbye to our listeners. I'm David Lewis we'll see you next time.

26:51Yeah.