The Australian government has been accused by pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups alike of “gutless” fence-sitting after it abstained on a UN vote on the need to urgently end the Israeli occupation.
The resolution was adopted by a 124-14 margin at the UN general assembly in New York early on Thursday, but the issue splintered western countries as the US joined Israel in outright opposition whereas New Zealand, France and Ireland voted yes.
Australia was among 43 countries to abstain after failing to secure support in negotiations to amend aspects of the resolution that it argued went beyond the scope of a recent landmark ruling by the international court of justice.
The eight-page resolution focused on the need for Israel to comply with the ICJ ruling, but also included much broader demands for “all states” to implement sanctions and take other actions “consistent with their obligations under international law”.
Sources familiar with the diplomatic negotiations said Australia had argued the resolution mischaracterised a “prescriptive list of policy demands” as legal obligations on all countries.
Australia was already taking many of those steps, such as imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers, but argued it was doing so “as a matter of considered policy” and not because it was legally required to do so, the sources said.
During the negotiations, Australia also raised concerns that the resolution included demands on matters that had historically been regarded as final-status issues to be negotiated between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
The resolution demanded that Israel allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the government “should have voted with the United States” to oppose the resolution.
Dutton told 2GB the government was “damaging our relationship very significantly with Israel, with the United States and with like-minded partners”, even though Australia stood with the UK, Germany and South Korea in abstaining.
The president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, said Australia “missed a significant opportunity to take a leadership role in ending the occupation of Palestine and ending the Gaza genocide”.
The deputy leader of the Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, said the Labor government had “shown itself to be gutless fence-sitters” and voters would “not forgive and forget”.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said Israel was “once again under a ferocious multi-front attack” and the UN resolution was “an invitation to endless war and bloodshed”.
“[Australia] should have voted no instead of taking the morally cowardly way out and abstaining,” the ECAJ co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim, said.
The Zionist Federation of Australia said the government should have “stood with Israel in this critical moment”.
But the Jewish Council of Australia, a relatively new group of Jewish Australians who are critical of the Israeli government, said Australia “can and should be doing more to hold Israel accountable for its unlawful presence in Palestinian territories”.
The New Israel Fund Australia, which supports a two-state solution and opposes the occupation, backed Australia’s decision to abstain. It urged Australia to work with allies “towards ending the occupation on a feasible timeline, to help build a viable future for Israelis and Palestinians”.
The Palestinian-drafted resolution demanded that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “do so no later than 12 months” from now.
The UN’s highest judicial body said in an advisory opinion in July that Israel’s “sustained abuse” of its position as an occupying power had rendered its presence in the territories it seized in the six-day war in 1967 – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza – as “unlawful”.
Despite casting an abstain vote, the Australian ambassador to the UN, James Larsen, said Australia “supports many of the principles of this resolution” and was “a resolute defender of international law”.
“That is why we abstained with great disappointment,” Larsen said.
“We are concerned that, by making demands of the entire UN membership that go beyond the scope of the advisory opinion, the resolution distracts from what the world needs Israel to do.”
The wording included a call for all countries to “implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
The resolution also called on countries to cease “the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Larsen said the occupation “must be brought to an end, such that we see security for Palestinians, for Israel, and for the region”.
He said Israel “must cease settlement activity”. Australia, he said, had “sanctioned extremist Israeli settlers because they must be held to account for their violence”.
Larsen said Australia now saw recognition of Palestinian statehood “as an integral part of a peace process”.
“It’s a matter of when, not if.”
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, told ABC Radio National that Australia “would have liked to have been in a position to vote for a resolution that more directly reflected the ICJ advisory opinion”.
When asked about Israel’s claim that the resolution rewarded Hamas for its attacks, Wong said: “Our position is that the October 7 attacks were an atrocity. What we also have said is that we want to see a ceasefire: 10,000 Palestinian children have been killed in this conflict.”
The executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, Rawan Arraf, said the actions listed in the resolution were “incumbent on states in fulfilling their obligations and to ensure compliance with international law”.
Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University, said the government’s comments that it wished it could have supported the resolution were “unusual”.
“They certainly reflect a general Australian position that it wishes to give support to the July ICJ advisory opinion,” he said.
Rothwell said the resolution addressed the advisory opinion, but also went further on sanctions and establishing a UN mechanism for reparations.
