EDITORIAL: Recognition inserts Australia into Middle East mire
Did terrorist leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef welcome Anthony Albanese’s decision to recognise a state of Palestine or not?
The Sydney Morning Herald says it was provided the widely reported statement from the Hamas co-founder’s political office in the occupied West Bank.
But a social media channel bearing Hamas’ name says it didn’t, and that Yousef is still in an Israeli jail and unable to communicate.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The Prime Minister has leapt on the confusion, using it to lecture the media about falling victim to Hamas “propaganda”.
“What they want is one state and I notice in the statement that’s made today, they say that the alleged statement from the person yesterday (came from) someone who’s been in prison in Israel since October 2023, and has no means of communication,” Mr Albanese said.
“What that should be is a warning to the media of being very careful about the fact that Hamas will engage in propaganda because what is happening is the international community are united about isolating Hamas, about supporting a peaceful way forward.”
What it does show is the incredible difficulty of getting an accurate understanding of what is going on within Gaza.
The fact is there is no such thing as an unbiased official information from within the war zone.
Casualty data, repeated by foreign governments and NGOs, is compiled by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. That data does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Information reported by Israel too, must be treated with scepticism. Access by foreign media to the Gaza strip is tightly controlled, with approved journalists embedded within Israeli military units for brief periods.
The Netanyahu Government routinely dismisses any reporting which is critical of Israel as Hamas propaganda.
The information which does make it out of Gaza is only a snippet of what is really going on.
As Seven Network political editor Mark Riley writes, “the Middle East is a complication wrapped in a complexity, mired in confusion.”
Information received by our leaders is no more reliable, passed to them by one side or the other and then seen through the filter of their own life experiences and beliefs.
In the case of Mr Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, that is their long-time support for a Palestinian state.
One of the PM’s favourite lines on the Middle East is that Australians want two things: for the deaths to stop and for the conflict to stay off our shores.
Yet they insist on dragging Australians further into the mire, despite a lack of true understanding of the situation.
By switching allegiances away from our old ally Israel and coming out in support of Palestinian recognition now, Mr Albanese is picking a side.
Far from “isolating” Hamas, he is joining forces with his left-leaning friends in the UK, Canada and France to isolate Israel from the rest of the Western world.
And he is inviting this conflict home.
