CAMERON MILNER: Pause or play? Labor’s fence-sitting on Israel lays bare party divide

Anthony Albanese’s lack of a rush to follow France in recognising a Palestinian state is much more about a policy lethargy than a political Damascene conversion.

Albanese’s Government will continue to talk out of both sides of its mouth on Israel.

While now-permanent backbencher Ed Husic is free to express his anti-Israel views, it’s been his former colleagues in Cabinet, Penny Wong and Tony Burke, who continue to represent the United Affront to Israel.

The Prime Minister’s closest supporters continue to use the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a proxy to attack Israel rather than redouble efforts to remove Hamas from the region.

The suffering and starvation of Gazans is truly awful. But the inconvenient truth is that October 7 was a terrorist assault by Hamas on innocent Israelis and others for which Israel has a right to self-defence.

Equally, the Wong/Burke cabal struggles with the fact that Hamas regularly intercepts aid deliveries in Gaza and uses the scarce food supply to exact further punishment on people living in Gaza as well as payment for their ongoing terrorist operations.

Gaza is a humanitarian crisis entirely of Hamas’s making. Calling on Israel to no longer defend its citizens and indeed, Gazans getting aid would simply return the entire region to the control once again of the terrorist organisation.

Yet Albo couldn’t help but chase himself some more likes on social media by blaming Israel last week.

No doubt his failure to follow Macron in proposing to recognise Palestine as a state would’ve been galling for all the anti-Israel members in the ALP branches, along with Wong and Burke, who thought their leader was with them this time.

However, having been in parliament almost his entire adult life, Albanese would recognise France’s backing of Palestinian statehood as a continuation of its wider Middle East foreign policy.

France, since President Charles De Gaulle in the 1960s, has focused on Middle Eastern diplomacy as a source of diplomatic power.

Initially focusing on countries including Egypt, and more recently Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, French foreign policy influence efforts have centred on building their own power alongside regional heavy hitters US and Russia.

France has a long history of selling armaments in the region, including those used by the UAE and Saudi forces in Yemen. France’s Total Energies is a key partner of the Qataris in exploiting oil reserves in the region.

France is very close to Qatar, all while Qatar provides luxury villas and Western luxuries to Hamas’s most senior leadership. There’s a lot more at play in Macron’s virtue signalling than the plight of Gazans tugging at his heartstrings.

France, being lauded by Saudi Arabia and others for supporting Palestinian statehood, is so totally predictable as it is entirely consistent with decades of French foreign policy in the Middle East.

Palestinians are once again just pawns in a much wider Franco charm offensive in the Middle East. For Macron, it’s far more about oil and gun sales than chasing a Nobel Peace prize.

Though many supporters of Israel would rather any other PM than Benjamin Netanyahu, he nailed it when criticising Macron’s move, saying that rather than bringing peace to the region, immediate Palestinian statehood would create “a launch pad to annihilate Israel, not live in peace beside it”.

He went on to state that any such move right now “rewards terror”.

The problem for Wong et al is that Hamas is very much still in control of Gaza in the absence of Israeli troops. Hamas, through violent revolution, purged Gaza of the ruling members of the Palestinian Authority and has ruled Gaza as a terrorist state for almost two decades.

Despite all the hand-wringing, no one in the Left has yet to enunciate a plan for a future Palestinian state beyond wishful thinking. Hamas won’t just be sending terrorist leaders as their UN representatives.

A two-state solution can only be delivered with absolute security and stability for Israel, but also with a Palestinian Authority that can demonstrate internal control over terrorist organisations like Hamas.

Hamas and its continued presence have to be a red line deal-breaker, just as there could be no peace in Northern Ireland without the IRA being disbanded.

However, credit where credit is due. Albanese is making the right decision not to recognise Palestinian statehood while Hamas is still in charge in Gaza.

However, Australians should never mistake his acquiescence on Palestine with active support for Israel.

See, Albanese craves the easy life.

Any day that doesn’t involve making a decision is a good day for Albo.

His great character weakness isn’t laziness — it’s that he can’t tolerate not being liked.

By never deciding or doing, he rolls onto the next day he’s hoping to never offend. It’s a cycle of just being PM rather than the leader of our great nation.

Wong and Burke’s presence at the Cabinet table poses a problem for the PM on Israel.

Richard Marles likes to have plenty of quiet meetings with ambassadors in which he professes his love for Israel, but he isn’t a voice of reason in Cabinet.

Albanese certainly isn’t a Bob Hawke either. He kept playing tennis while a synagogue lay smouldering, such was his concern for Jewish Australians.

The Albanese Government is walking both sides of the street on Israel and should take heed of the warning that straddling the fence risks getting caught on the barbed wire.

The pause on Palestinian statehood is welcome.

However, Australians should remain alarmed at the crab walk away from our democratic ally in Israel and the succour for Hamas flowing from Penny Wong with joint letters and support of UN motions seeking to blame Israel and not Hamas for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.