Australia suggests it could recognize Palestinian state

SYDNEY — Australia on Tuesday became the latest country to advocate formal recognition of a Palestinian state, further shattering a long-standing diplomatic taboo in the West.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that recognizing a state of Palestine could restart the moribund Middle East peace process and undermine extremist forces in the Middle East.

"Recognizing a Palestinian state—one that can only exist side by side with a secure Israel—doesn't just offer the Palestinian people an opportunity to realize their aspirations," she told an audience in Canberra.

"It also strengthens the forces for peace, and undermines extremism. It undermines Hamas, Iran and Iran's other destructive proxies in the region."

For decades, the formal recognition of a Palestinian state has been seen as the endgame of a peace process between Palestinians and their Israeli neighbors.

The United States, Australia and most Western European nations have said they are willing to one day recognize Palestinian statehood, but not before agreement on thorny issues like the status of Jerusalem and final borders are agreed.

With war raging, Hamas in control of Gaza and Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government installed in Israel, the prospects of a peace process have rarely looked dimmer.

But after Hamas' October 7 attacks and Israel's searing response during six months of attacks on Gaza, diplomats are reconsidering once-contentious ideas.

"The failures of this approach by all parties over decades—as well as the Netanyahu Government's refusal to even engage on the question of a Palestinian state—have caused widespread frustration," Wong said.

"So the international community is now considering the question of Palestinian statehood as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution," she added.

Her comments come after the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Slovenia and Spain have floated the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state.

In 2014, Sweden, which has a large Palestinian community, became the first EU member in western Europe to recognize a Palestinian state.

A state of Palestine had earlier been recognized by six other European countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. — Agence France-Presse