Albanese Must Back His Words with Action by Halting the Supply of Australian F-35 Parts to Israel

As tensions between Australia and Israel rise, with Canberra revoking the visa of an Israeli extremist, Tel Aviv turfing out two Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority in response, and the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu then calling our PM “weak”, there’s one thing Anthony Albanese could do to show his strength and that is to cut off the supply of Australian-made F-35 parts.

Since Israel commenced genociding the Palestinians of Gaza in October 2023, the Albanese government has been at pains to deny involvement in a two-way arms trade with Israel. But by mid-November 2023, lawyer Kellie Tranter had exposed in Declassified Australia that this nation is the sole provider of the F-35 component to open and close weapons doors to drop bombs on Gaza.

This suggestion that the PM take this course would likely see deputy PM Richard Marles reel back, as he did on the ABC’s Insiders on 10 August 2025, and counter that Australia is “an F-35 country”, which is to suggest that this is something prestigious and to protect, and he further asserted that the supply of a part for a plane is a “separate issue”, so “we don’t supply weapons to Israel”.

On the surface, Marles’ suggestion seems slightly plausible, as parts for planes aren’t bullets or bombs, however journalist Michelle Fahy set straight in her recent article that a part belonging to the “most lethal” plane on the planet should likely be considered arms to Israel, especially as our component has facilitated bombs as large as 2,000 pounds being dropped on refugee camps.

Indeed, Fahy reveals in her piece that the Netanyahu government is burning through F-35 parts in its perpetration of blatant mass murder, and considering that our nation of late, has been couriering ‘bomb bay door parts’ to Israel directly, so it can sustain its heightened level of killing, Albanese could easily bring the Israeli PM to his knees by preventing the continued supply of these parts to Israel.

Nonlethal parts of the most lethal plane

From the onset of Israel having turned the 40-kilometre-long walled-in Gaza Strip into an extermination camp, the Albanese government was clear “Israel had a right to defend itself”, and whilst it was, Australians should not concern themselves with contributing to the mass commission of war crimes, because our nation hasn’t partaken in any arms trade with Israel for five years.

But Tranter’s early revelation about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter bomb bay door parts sullied the favoured slogan of foreign minister Penny Wong and defence minister Marles, yet when further evidence regarding armoured steel supplied to the Israeli military by Bisalloy Steel came to light, the pair then ran with the line that Australia only supplies “nonlethal parts” to Israel.

The most recent example occurred in the Senate on 28 July, when Greens Senator David Shoebridge quizzed Wong in regard to new allegations about ongoing supply of bomb bay door devices, to which she responded that “we are not supplying weapons or ammunition to Israel”, and we haven’t for “at least the past five years” and “we contribute components and parts that are nonlethal in nature”.

The new revelations again come from Declassified, with Tranter and journalist Peter Cronau revealing on 11 July that the bomb bay door parts that let the bombs rain down upon the starving and defenceless Gazans are being directly exported – couriered via commercial airlines – in order to urgently replace this part, which the lack of can obviously bring these lethal machines to a halt.

“Declassified Australia has sighted shipping records detailing goods sent on two recent flights from Sydney to Tel Aviv in Israel,” Cronua and Tranter outline. “It’s uncertain whether these documents show just two individual shipments or are a glimpse of a much bigger Australian direct trade of F-35 parts to Israel.”

F-35 countries are war criminals

As for Marles’ attempt to lessen the severity of the Albanese government’s stance on the weapons bay door devices produced by Australian company Rosebank Engineering (RUAG Australia), via the presenting of this nation’s participation in Lockheed Martin’s global supply chain to make F-35s that kill Palestinians in Gaza, like it was some sort of exclusive club with benefits, Fahy pulls out the pin.

The independent researcher points out that former US State Department official Joshua Paul recently told ABC Radio that the couriering of F-35 spare parts straight to Israel amounts to “direct facilitation of war crimes”. And just to clarify, prior to the Declassified revelations the understanding was that these parts are exported to the US not to Israel, and that’s supposed to absolve any complicity.

Fahy further asserts that Marles can’t separate Australia’s F-35 exports “from the overarching question of Australia’s arms exports to Israel” during the time of genocide, and she provides some substantial reasons, including that the UN warned in June 2024 that nations ought to stop supplying components to weapons companies, like Lockheed Martin, or risk being complicit in atrocities.

But the real kicker is what she cites Paul as telling the ABC: F-35s more than any other fighter need “a continuous flow of ‘just-in-time’ spare parts”, as it burns through them so quickly. Every hour of F-35 usage requires five hours of maintenance. And he underscored that the parts are more important than the bombs in many ways, and if supply dried up, Tel Aviv would have some issues on its hands.

The ex-US State Department official, who quit over US weapons to Israel outlined that “if a country was to turn to the consortium and say, ‘We are going to withhold spare parts until or unless you provide an assurance that these will not go to [Israel],’ I think the nature of the consortium is that all the countries would feel the crunch and therefore, feel compelled to accept that agreement”.

A completely viable way forward

Albanese announced that his federal Labor government has determined to recognise the nation of Palestine at the September meeting of the UN General Assembly on 11 August, in line with a handful of other western nations, such as France, the UK and Canada.

This caused local outcries of ‘too little too late’ in respect of recognising Palestine as Israel is trying to wipe its population off the map. And critics, like Senator Shoebridge, have been clear that what is needed during a genocide is at least an end to the two-way arms trade, including F-35 components, and the substantial application of sanctions, as the nation has done to Russia over Ukraine.

But recognition coming from Albanese did play on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind, as he went as far as to post on X midweek this week that “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.” And this has caused diplomatic fallout, despite the fact it’s quite a compliment coming from a wanted war criminal.

But as Fahey further pointed out, Marles told the ABC in June 2024, that it was correct that, as the defence minister, “all potential shipments to Israel” come across his desk, prior to being exported, which tends to suggest that rather than the F-35 parts being directly couriered to Israel out of urgency and somehow having flown under the radar, the actual level of complicity is breathtaking.

So, if everything being exported to Israel is presented to Marles beforehand for his approval, Albanese could have a word in the minister’s ear and tell him to stop okaying the direct supply of bomb bay door devices to Israel. And the prime minister could take this a step further and pass a law to prevent any such devices leaving the country, and he’d have the support in parliament.

As former US State Department official Paul suggests, if the nation of Australia stopped supplying the bomb bay door devices, Palestinian lives would be saved, and the Israeli nation’s fleet of F-35 fighters would immediately be put into jeopardy and decline. 

In the current international political climate, if our PM did this, then other nations would likely take heed and follow his human rights-affirming path.

If Albanese did do this, Netanyahu would hardly be calling him weak. The Butcher of Gaza would likely blow a gasket though. And if our PM did this, it would show that he was a powerful world leader, and while the stain of his past support for the Gaza genocide will never completely wash off, such an action would directly impact the mass slaughter and go a long way to fading that stain.