Australia Criticises Israeli War Crimes, But Won’t Do Anything About It

Anthony Albanese finally called out Israel on its close to 22-month-long mass atrocity crimewave in the Gaza Strip. “Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered” the Australian PM told Insiders host David Speers on Sunday 27 July 2025, “which was a decision that Israel made in March.” Although he did then clarify that he’s “not a lawyer” in making this assessment.

The PM suggested on national television that the Netanyahu government might be guilty of the war crimes of starvation and collective punishment, but he also clarified that he supports Israel and its “right to defend itself”, prior to then raising genocidal aid agency, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is shooting starving Gazans as they try to obtain food, and calling it “a tragedy”.

Albanese and Speers circled the point that Israel has “not been abiding by international law” twice, before the PM told the ABC journalist that what this means is unfortunately that nothing can be done about Israel and its mass murder because Palestinian group Hamas is still part of the equation and while this armed and civilian group is still a player, there will be no “moving forward”.

The way forward, according to Albanese, is the creation of two-states, Palestine and Israel, but the recognition of Palestine cannot happen until certain “guarantees” and “security arrangements” are in place, so Australia will not be recognising Palestine “imminently”, as French president Emmanuel Macron has said his nation is about to do, because the circumstances are not right at present.

Albanese has said Israel looks to be breaching international law, especially in terms of the photos of emaciated kids, and while there is a way forward, the two-state solution, this can’t be achieved right now because of Hamas still being involved, which would appear to be a position that the PM has brought us to before, where Israel can continue on in Gaza but should try not to break the law.

“Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them. Sanction Israel.”

“We have been consistent in calling out the terrorists in Hamas and saying that the hostages should be released,” said Albanese, whose been coming under massive pressure from the broader Labor Party base to recognise a Palestinian state. “But we have rules of engagement, and they are there for a reason. They are there to stop innocent lives being lost, and that is what we have seen.”

“What I have said to the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, is that what sometimes friends have to say to their other friends when they are losing support – Israel is, I think, when you look at internationally the statements that have been made… is that they need to recognise the need to operate within international law,” the PM told the ABC on Sunday 27 July 2025.

As for his position, Albanese added he was recycling the October 7 motion or “resolution that was carried by the parliament on a bipartisan basis” on 8 October 2024, which condemned the October 7 attacks, recognised innocent deaths, called for a release of the hostages, decried antisemitism and stressed “the need to break the cycle of violence”, amongst other condemnations.

But there is no talk of substantive sanctions to be applied toward the Israeli government or hints at expelling the Israeli ambassador, rather the nation of Australia is still supporting Israel and its right to defend itself and there is a way forward, which is the two-state solution, which cannot be realised until Hamas is eradicated.

“Hamas are a terrorist organisation who I find, their actions are abhorrent,” the prime minister told Insiders on Sunday. “The fact they have held on to the hostages, they’re not only holding Israeli citizens as hostage, but they’re holding Palestinians hostage as well effectively through their failure to engage in any constructive way.”

The one-state solution

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) president Nasser Mashni outlined that it’s important “not to get sucked into the two-state narrative”, as “what we need to be talking about is stopping the genocide, holding those responsible accountable, ending the occupation, ending the apartheid and ensuring that every Palestinian is afforded their inalienable right to return with compensation”.

Mashni is an advocate of the one-state solution, as are many others figures amongst the movement for Palestinian liberation. The one-state solution points to the facts on the ground in the occupied Palestine territory, which is that the West Bank consists of pockets of actual land controlled and inhabited by Palestinians that are scattered amongst vast illegal Israeli settlements.

The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is likened to the situation in apartheid South Africa, where the white minority government created bantustans, or homelands for the Black majority, who were broken up into scattered populations in different areas reserved for them, which were regions that continued to be ultimately controlled by the white South African government.

The APAN president and other commentators advocate for the creation of one state across historic Palestine that would recognise all people, regardless of religious or ethnic background, as equal. The right to self-determination would be extended to all people living within this political entity, and not like the current situation, which only recognises and upholds the rights of Jewish Israelis.

And as the UN General Assembly is currently holding a three day meeting on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, in July 2024 voted overwhelmingly against the creation of a Palestinian state, while as world leaders, like Albanese, call for an end to the obscene violence and starvation, it too last week passed a nonbinding motion to annex the West Bank.

Nonlethal parts of killing machines

Foreign minister Penny Wong backed in Albanese’s Insiders statement earlier that day, during a press conference in Garramilla-Darwin on 27 July, in which she said she agreed with the PM calling out Israel on its breaching of international law. The minister pointed out that it “is forbidden to withhold aid from civilians”, and she added that it is too “ethically” and “morally the wrong thing to do”.

But the comfortable chastising of Israel with no real consequence didn’t seem to cut it as far as Greens Senator David Shoebridge was concerned, as he raised with the minister on Monday in the Senate, why the government has now repeatedly called out Israel’s breaches of international law but is not moving to join the South African ICJ case, impose sanctions or end military cooperation.

Shoebridge then brought up the fact that Declassified Australia revealed in an 11 July article that “the Royal Australian Air Force earlier this month facilitated the transfer of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel”. Austarlian companies produce parts that go towards the building of F-35 jets that are being used in Gaza and the latest reports showed direct export of parts from Australia to Israel.

“Senator, I again say to you: I have said in this place – and so has the prime minister in the other place – that we are not supplying weapons or ammunition to Israel,” Wong replied. “We have not done so since the Hamas-Israel conflict began and for at least the past five years.”

The Green Senator pressed the recent evidence of direct parts flown to Israel revealed in the Declassified Australia report, and the minister then responded with, “As part of the global F-35 supply chain, we contribute components and parts that are nonlethal in nature”.

Shoebridge later raised Wong’s responses that same day, as he noted that Labor did “finally acknowledge that they are sending F-35 fighter parts into Israel”, yet, as for Wong’s squirming out of questioning with the “nonlethal parts” pitch in regard to the global supply chain creating F-35 flying killing machines used in Gaza, he added, it would be laughable if we weren’t talking about genocide.