Australia votes in favour of Gaza ceasefire at UN: Community response

Australia has voted in favour of a UN resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for a “sustainable ceasefire” with his Canadian and New Zealand counterparts.

The 193-member United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday (AEDT) passed a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza with 153 members in favour, 10 against – including the United States and Israel – and 23 abstaining.

Australia has historically abstained or voted in lockstep with the US on resolutions relating to Israel, but Wednesday’s vote represents a rare break.

Australia’s UN representative, James Larsen, told the General Assembly the nation was “gravely concerned” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“Human suffering is widespread and unacceptable,” he said.

“This must not continue.”

However, he said the resolution should have gone further to unequivocally condemn Hamas as the perpetrator of the attack that precipitated this crisis.

A similar resolution proposed in October called for a humanitarian “truce” with 120 countries voting in favour but Australia was not one of them – choosing to abstain because it did not mention Hamas.

US President Joe Biden warned Israel it is losing international support because of its “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians in its war against Hamas militants.

The resolution is not binding but carries political weight, reflecting a global view on the war.

The United States vetoed a similar call in the 15-member Security Council last week. This week’s vote:

According to Hamas, more than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, many more have been pushed to starvation, and most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes as Israel’s bombing campaign on the besieged enclave stretches into its third month.

In response, pro-Palestine rallies across the world calling for a ceasefire have pressured elected officials to do the same.

A joint statement released by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Luxon and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed support for “urgent international efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire”.

“We remain deeply concerned by the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ongoing risks to all Palestinian civilians,” the statement said on Wednesday.

“The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.”

However, they emphasised that any ceasefire “cannot be one-sided”, saying Hamas must release all hostages, stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields and lay down its arms.

“There is no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza,” they said.

I’ve joined @AlboMP and @JustinTrudeau to express our views on the tragic and ongoing loss of life in the Israel-Hamas conflict.https://t.co/VFJEJ3Ig6a

— Christopher Luxon (@chrisluxonmp) December 12, 2023

The three leaders reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defence and prefaced their ceasefire calls with a condemnation of Hamas, whose October 7 invasion killed 1200 Israelis, took more than 200 hostages and sparked the latest upsurge in violence in a long history of conflict.

The Australian and Canadian governments consider Hamas a terrorist organisation, while New Zealand has designated the entity’s military wing a terrorist group.

They also affirmed support for a two-state solution and Palestinians’ right to self-determination, specifically opposing “the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, the re-occupation of Gaza, any reduction in territory, and any use of siege or blockade”.

The three leaders also addressed the impact of the war in their own countries, condemning rising anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong welcomed the UN resolution as a “next step towards a sustainable ceasefire”.

“We think it’s important that very close allies and like-minded countries speak together in support of the position that we’ve articulated,” she told reporters in Adelaide.

The statement comes as an opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Simon Birmingham, leads a cross-party delegation to Israel.

“There is no point … in a premature situation that would enable Hamas to rearm, to regroup, and ultimately pose the threat of conducting the same type of terrorist atrocities as they did on the seventh of October,” he told Sky News.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgan welcomed the resolution and statement, but urged the prime minister to “continue to do all in his power to ensure this ceasefire happens, and that these issues aren’t forgotten once the fighting ends”.

Senator Wong is expected to visit Israel and other Middle East countries in January.

Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon tweeted on X: “I find it difficult to understand how Australia can support Israel’s right to defend its people from terrorist aggression while also voting in support of a ceasefire that will embolden Hamas and enable it to resume its attacks on Israelis. Australia‘s vote comes a day after Israel returned the remains of two murdered hostages from Gaza, and rocket fire continued to rain down on southern Israel. This war can only end with Hamas being totally defeated and the liberation of all our hostages.

The Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), are deeply concerned by the inconsistency in Australia’s decision to vote in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution.

The joint statement condemned Hamas’ heinous acts of violence, including sexual violence, the unacceptable treatment of hostages, and Hamas’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. It called for Hamas to lay down its arms and stipulated that there is no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza.

The statement reads: “However, the UN General Assembly resolution demands an immediate ceasefire and does not call for Hamas to surrender or disarm.  It also implies that Hamas can somehow be defeated without there being any large-scale impact on the civilian population, behind which Hamas deliberately hides.

We acknowledge the statement issued by the Australian Ambassador to the UN, James Larsen that refers to the call for a humanitarian ceasefire as a call for more humanitarian pauses and the fact that Australia supported the United States’ attempt to unequivocally condemn Hamas for the 7 October terrorist attacks.

However, the fact that the resolution omitted these critical issues and appears to call for a ceasefire should have been enough of a reason to vote with Australia’s closest ally, the United States and oppose this resolution.

The decision to vote in favour of this resolution has created uncertainty and confusion. It is a departure from the clearly principled position that Australia adopted following Hamas’ attack on 7 October.

The Australian Government cannot have it both ways. Either it stands by its position in the joint statement that recognises that Hamas must be removed from power and return all the hostages or it supports  a ceasefire which would allow Hamas to remain in power and deliver on its promise to repeat the attacks of 7 October at the earliest possible opportunity.

AIJAC says it supports effective steps towards a ceasefire that is genuinely sustainable, meaning it achieves all the goals laid out in the otherwise somewhat confusing and contradictory statement released by Australia, Canada and New Zealand overnight – ‘release of all hostages, the end of the use of Gaza civilians as human shields, and Hamas being disarmed’. However, it should be obvious that the only way to achieve any such outcome is for the military pressure on Hamas to continue until that barbaric terror organisation is prepared to concede these terms.

In a statement, AIJAC remarked: “This is why it is so disappointing that Australia then followed up the above statement by voting in favour of a UN  General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that contradicted any efforts to achieve an end to the Israel-Gaza conflict that is genuinely sustainable – making no call for Hamas to either lay down its arms or end its appalling practice of misusing Gaza civilians as human shields. By effectively calling for an end to the military pressure on Hamas, but not demanding Hamas be disarmed, this resolution makes it much less likely that the “sustainable ceasefire” Australia appropriately supports will ever be achieved.

Given our call for such a ceasefire and the explanation of the vote given by our UN Ambassador James Larsen calling for Hamas to be ‘be defeated and dismantled’, Australia should have joined our many allies amongst the ten countries which took a principled stance against this resolution or at least the 23 which abstained.

While everyone is concerned about the humanitarian situation of Gaza civilians and wants to see their plight ameliorated, the best way to end that suffering is to bring the war to a sustainable conclusion as rapidly as possible – meaning Hamas must be disarmed – even while stepping up efforts to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, something Israel has promised to facilitate.

A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza and able to rebuild its military capabilities guarantees two things. Firstly, war will soon resume, causing even more suffering to both the civilian residents of Gaza, as well as Israelis – with Hamas having repeatedly expressed its determination to repeat the unprovoked massacre of October 7 “again and again”. And secondly, advancing the negotiated two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace that Australia has long supported will be completely impossible.”

Liberal MP Julian Leeser penned a statement commending a statement by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, saying, “Peter Dutton is right. This is a time for moral courage and moral clarity.

Unfortunately, the Australian Government is showing neither courage nor clarity when it comes to supporting the State of Israel.

Today’s call by Australia for a ceasefire is another example of the Wong doctrine of moral equivalence that continues to weaken Australia’s place in the world.

For many months, the Foreign Minister has been half-hearted in her defence of democratic values and the rights of a free people to defend themselves. Today’s announcement is further proof of that.

Hamas is as ruthless as the Nazis and in its cruelties as worse as ISIS.

They terrorise the people of Israel as well as the people of Gaza.

Australia has no place supporting the calls of Hamas.

It is impossible to have a ceasefire with an organisation that is committed to the genocide of a nation of people. Nor is it possible to treat as legitimate, any group that holds hundreds of civilian hostages.

The ceasefire supported by Anthony Albanese simply allows the Hamas terrorist organisation time to re-arm themselves. This will cost even more lives.

This support for a ceasefire will harm Australia’s reputation with its allies.

This is a decision about Grayndler, not Gaza, it’s about Labor’s tussle with the Greens rather than Australia’s support of free people. That’s how tawdry this call for a ceasefire is.”

AAP/J-Wire