Aa
  • Read, Watch, Listen
  • TJI Series
  • Community Action
  • Events
  • Zedi
Follow us and continue the conversation
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • FaceBook
  • X
  • YouTube
Test yourself with the TJI Quiz!

Adjust size of text

Aa

Follow us and continue the conversation

  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • FaceBook
  • X
  • YouTube

Your saved articles

You haven't saved any articles

What are you looking for?

Original reporting, insightful analysis and diverse views, delivered straight to your inbox

  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • FaceBook
  • X
  • YouTube
Your support fuels our mission to inform, entertain and inspire.

The Jewish Independent is bound by the Standards of Practice of the Australian Press Council. If you believe the Standards may have been breached, you may approach The Jewish Independent or make a complaint to the Australian Press Council in writing at www.presscouncil.org.au. The Council may also be contacted on 1800 025 712.

  • Our Story
  • Contact us
  • Our Team
  • Support us
  • Guidelines
  • Pitch your idea
  • Republishing us
  • Community Action
  • Our Awards
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • FaceBook
  • X
  • YouTube
Aboriginal FlagTorres Strait Islanders Flag

The Jewish Independent acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and strive to honour their rich history of storytelling in our work and mission.

© The Jewish Independent 2026All Rights Reserved
Website design and development by Your Creative, MelbourneTerms & ConditionsPrivacy Policy
HomeRead, Watch, ListenAustralia
OpinionAustralia

On recognising Palestine: A response to Gareth Evans

Jamie Hyams
Print this

Published: 20 June 2023

Last updated: 5 March 2024

Former foreign minister GARETH EVANS argues Australia should recognise Palestine for moral, legal, and political reasons. JAMIE HYAMS debates his argument.

Gareth Evans’ The case for recognising Palestine might appear superficially plausible, but closer examination reveals many flaws, including the omission or misstating of fundamental facts.

It is particularly striking that throughout his lengthy piece - which constantly implies that recognising Palestine and supporting the Palestinian right to self-determination are synonymous - Evans never mentions the Israeli offers of statehood to the Palestinians in 2000, 2001 and 2008. The Palestinian leadership summarily rejected these, without even making a counter-offer, despite all these offers meeting the internationally accepted parameters for a two-state peace. Nor does he mention Israel’s subsequent attempts at confidence-building measures, such as a freeze in Israeli settlement building or the release of Palestinians imprisoned for terrorism. He also ignores the 2014 talks when, according to US envoy Martin Indyk, Benjamin Netanyahu was “sweating bullets” to make a deal, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas walked away.

Evans no doubt makes these omissions because they are very damaging to his argument that Israel is the reason there is no two-state peace, and therefore it is necessary to recognise a Palestinian state in order to create the conditions for one to be established.

The reason there has never been a Palestinian state is that from 1948 (as Evans does acknowledge) onwards, Palestinian leaders have refused to make the necessary concessions, such as genuinely accepting Israel’s right to exist in peace as a Jewish homeland.

Since 2014, the Palestinian leadership has rejected all final peace negotiations with Israel. Instead, they have pursued parallel strategies of subjecting Israel to terrorism - termed “resistance” - while consistently demonising it in all international fora. The aim is to achieve their state without having to accept Israel’s right to exist - a formula not for peace, but continued conflict.

This history shows that if a respected democratic middle power such as Australia prematurely recognises a Palestinian state, that would be extremely counterproductive to the cause of peace. It will only encourage the Palestinian leaders to continue with their destructive strategy, making peace ever harder to achieve. The way to contribute to peace is to demonstrate to the Palestinian leaders that their tactics will not bring them closer to their goals, and the only way to achieve statehood is to be genuinely prepared to make peace via negotiations that would entail agreeing to end their conflict with Israel.

Evans claims the evidence is clear that the threat and reality of Palestinian violence diminishes rapidly when the Palestinians see a path towards a just settlement. In fact, history clearly shows the opposite is the case.

Evans also makes the claim that 138 out of the UN’s 193 members have recognised the state of Palestine, but this is misleading as a guide for Australia. Most of them did so in the context of the Cold War, when they were part of the Warsaw Pact or non-aligned caucuses, and at the time many of them recognised “Palestine” instead of Israel, rather than alongside it. Many of those countries, such as the former Warsaw Pact nations, India and numerous African nations, would almost certainly not extend such recognition to “Palestine” today, even if they have never formally renounced their past recognition. Sweden is the only Western democracy to recognise Palestine. It is interesting that Evans suggests Australia’s model should be countries like Indonesia, not Western democracies - because Indonesia of course does not recognise Israel to this day.

Evans claims the evidence is clear that the threat and reality of Palestinian violence diminishes rapidly when the Palestinians see a path towards a just settlement. In fact, history clearly shows the opposite is the case. Hamas carried out a campaign of bombings of buses inside Israel in the mid-90s, in the wake of the Oslo Accords, when the two sides were working towards a just settlement. The Second Intifada, in which Palestinian terrorists from various groups, including Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, murdered more than 1000 Israelis and seriously injured thousands more, is another example. It commenced barely two months after the Camp David summit in July 2000, when Israel made to the Palestinians an offer of statehood the Saudi ambassador to the US said they would be fools to reject. It continued and worsened after the Taba negotiations in early 2001, when the offer was improved.

Additional concerns about Evans’ argument include:

  • His justification for Israel is based on “the righting of a grievous wrong done to Jewish people”, the Holocaust, while his argument for Palestine is based on the Palestinian right to self-determination. It’s a strange argument that national liberation movements like the Palestinians deserve statehood in their homelands, but Jews do so only because of atrocities committed against them.
  • Also, as demonstrated above, the only reason the Palestinians have no state is the actions of their own leaders, not because of “grievous wrong” done to them, as Evans suggests. There was nothing preventing the Palestinians declaring statehood in 1948 in the areas allocated to them in the UN’s partition plan, just as the Jews did. Yet as Evans admits, they launched a disastrous war instead. Even after that war, a Palestinian state could have been established in the West Bank and Gaza any time between 1949 and 1967.
  • Evans absurdly accuses Israel of apartheid in the West Bank, and marginally less so in Israel itself. There is no distinction between Arab and Jewish rights in Israel and the only distinctions in the West Bank are based on security, as a direct result of the Second Intifada, not on any doctrine of racial superiority.
  • Evans makes an equivalence between Palestinian violence and the actions of Israeli forces in the lead-up to the establishment of the State. This grossly exaggerates the latter, which were not at all comparable with the thousands of suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism directed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians over the past 75 years.
  • Evans claims that if a two-state solution is dead, it is the “Israeli settlement program that has killed it.” However, as admitted by former long-time Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat in 2011, the settlements only occupied approximately 1.1% of the area of the West Bank. They have hardly grown since in terms of area they occupy, and their existence didn’t prevent Israel’s then prime minister Ehud Olmert offering the Palestinians a state on land equivalent in area to the entire West Bank and Gaza in 2008 – an offer PA President Mahmoud Abbas subsequently stated he rejected “out of hand”.
  • Evans unfairly claims Israel support organisations “characterise even the most cautiously expressed critiques of Israel as savouring of unconscionable antisemitism.” In fact, Australian Zionists accept that criticism of Israel is the same as could be made of any other country is not antisemitism, and most support a two-state solution. There are, however, attacks on Israel that do cross the line into antisemitism, and those who cross that line often make the false allegation favoured here by Evans – without ever providing bone fide examples.
  • Evans concludes his article by arguing that recognising a Palestinian state would put at risk traditional sources of party funding but should nonetheless be done to do the “right thing”. This claim, sadly, is reminiscent of the classic antisemitic trope accusing Jews of using their money and power to have governments act in ways that are immoral and against their own interests.

Photo: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba at the UN in May (EPA/Justin Lane)

You might also like
  • Confronting Richard Flanagan and the myth of the Israel lobby
    Mary Garden
  • Facing a new year with the knowledge life can be better
    The Jewish Independent
  • UK’s dramatic policy change on Israel-Palestine
    Colin Shindler
logomark.67a07ee3
We believe in the free flow of information

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, by using our Creative Commons licence

You might also like

    Generation Change: Rachel Moshel
    Generation ChangeInterviewArts & Culture

    Rachel Moshel: Creating a space for Jewish art and joy

    Gideon Cohen
    Royal Commission final
    Royal CommissionNewsAustralia

    Strategies for cohesion final focus of Royal Commission hearings

    Peter Kohn 1
    Beinart Doogue 600
    Israel Hamas WarNewsAustralia

    Beinart takes a wrecking ball to Israel

    Michael Visontay 1

About the author

Jamie Hyams

Jamie Hyams

Jamie Hyams is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.