Guardian:

‘Turned inside out with disgust’: Australia must sanction Benjamin Netanyahu, Bob Carr urges

Former Labor foreign affairs minister says Canberra must seek to be a world leader – not wait for the US or UK – and recognise a Palestinian state

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Josh Butler and Ben Doherty

Fri 25 Jul 2025 17.10 AEST

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Bob Carr says Australia should sanction Netanyahu, as ‘he’s directing this operation … subjecting the civilian population to collective punishment, including mass starvation.’ Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

The former Labor foreign affairs minister Bob Carr says the federal government should sanction the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and move quickly to recognise Palestinian statehood, saying it would send “a message that we are turned inside out with disgust by what appears the deliberate starvation” of Gaza.

Carr, the former New South Wales state premier and Labor elder, praised Anthony Albanese’s latest statement condemning Israel, which accused Netanyahu’s government of denying aid and killing civilians – including children – seeking water and food.

But Carr said Australia should seek to be a world leader in responding to the humanitarian disaster and follow the example of France in pledging to recognise a Palestinian state.

“The PM’s instinct is right, but I reckon the Australian public wants him to push further and harder. Any notion in Dfat [the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] that we should wait till the UK moves on recognition is just us being too supine,” Carr told Guardian Australia.

“We should move decisively, now the French have, and get credit in Asia and elsewhere for having a mind of our own, not just waiting for the UK – or, God help us, a signal from Washington.”

Carr’s call was echoed by Labor MP and former cabinet minister Ed Husic, who said: “The time is now.”

Albanese on Friday made his strongest condemnation yet of the starvation in Gaza, where international humanitarian organisations have pleaded for attention on starvation and malnutrition concerns.

At least 45 people have died of hunger in the past four days. The UN and aid groups blame Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory for the lack of food.

But Albanese’s statement did not pledge any new actions or concrete responses.

Noting Australia had imposed travel bans and financial sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers in June, Carr suggested the government take similar action on Netanyahu.

“They need to sanction Netanyahu. He’s directing this operation … subjecting the civilian population to collective punishment, including mass starvation,” he said.

Amir Maimon, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, released a statement on Friday saying his country was “not only entitled but obligated under international law” to defend its citizens.

“To condemn Israel for defending itself is wrong. It deflects attention from the real perpetrators of this horror: Hamas,” Maimon wrote.

“The international community must stop equivocating and start acting. Pressure must be placed where it belongs, on Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for this war and the suffering it continues to inflict.”

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the withholding of vital food aid from Palestinian children was “indefensible”, describing the situation in Gaza as “beyond the world’s worst fears”.

In a press conference in Sydney alongside the defence minister, Richard Marles, and their British ministerial counterparts, Wong said: “Children are starving, civilians are dying.”

She said Australia would continue “to press for a ceasefire, for hostages to be released, for aid to flow and for international humanitarian law to be upheld”.

Wong said Australia remained committed to a two-state solution, and reiterated that Australia no longer saw Palestinian statehood “at the end of a peace process only”.

“It [a two-state solution] is ultimately the only hope of peace and breaking the cycle of violence and assuring the security and aspirations and peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Carr, the NSW premier from 1995 to 2005 and then federal foreign affairs minister from 2012 to 2013 in the Rudd and Gillard governments, said recognition of a Palestinian state had been Labor policy for many years.

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He noted that he had moved such a motion at the 2014 NSW Labor conference. Carr believed the move would have majority support in Australian society.

“Recognition sends a message that we are turned inside out with disgust by what appears the deliberate starvation of the nation, identified as drip feeding,” he said.

“I have not the faintest doubt it has majority support. People are coming up to me regularly and saying, ‘keep up what you’re doing on Palestine’. That’s unusual. The message has gotten out there.

“Israel is seen increasingly as a pariah, due to its sheer indifference of the suffering of babies and children.”

Carr said he believed the Labor party rank-and-file membership were “virtually unanimous on this”.

Husic told the ABC that Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood immediately.

“There will be a number of countries that will do so, and given our party has said we want to do this, it seems right that the time is now for us to step forward and say we will recognise the state of Palestine now,” he said.

Guardian Australia has reported on growing outrage in Labor’s membership ranks about the Gaza crisis.

The Labor Friends of Palestine, an internal pressure group, has written a motion calling for Australia to sanction the Israeli government, which has been adopted by 80 local branches, according to co-convener Peter Moss.

“Labor members fought long and hard through the party’s democratic structures to establish in 2018 recognition as official policy that was to be delivered by the next Labor government,” Moss said.

“We call on the Australian government to implement official platform policy and immediately and unconditionally recognise a Palestinian state on the pre-4 June 1967 borders. There has never been a more urgent time to assert the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, dignity, safety, and equal rights.”

Labor sources say a similar motion may be debated at the Victorian state conference in August.