Following France, Britain and Canada's announcements in recent days, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it will recognize the Palestinian state at next month's U.N. General Assembly.
Albanese told reporters after a Cabinet meeting Monday that Australia's decision to recognize a Palestinian state will be formalized at the United Nations General Assembly in September. The acknowledgement was "predicated on commitments Australia has received from the Palestinian Authority," Albanese said.
Included are unlikely stipulations that make clear that it's all about appearances (how will it be "demilitarized"? Is Australia sending peacekeepers?) but the pose is striking all the same. It comes after emerging evidence of mass starvation and Israel announcing plans to take indefinite control of Gaza itself.
There are no excuses for how bad things got before Western leaders acknowledged the consequences. Just a year ago, the New York Times was telling staff not to even use the word "Palestine" in its coverage of the conflict. Now it can move on to the new thing: admitting that those critical from the outset were right, but for the wrong reasons.
Beyond Israel, the map of countries still averse to recognizing a Palestinian state includes the United States, Japan, Italy, Finland and Germany, where unconditional support is a constitutional issue.
2028 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, asked about Palestinian statehood, summed things up with this masterclass in panic: "I think that that's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's right to survival in the diplomatic scene."
