The following article has been published on ABC.net by Peter Wertheim.

Israel’s Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (centre left with jacket), with his wife and friends at the Haifa docks, to see the last con­tin­gent of British troops leave Israel, on 4 July 1948.
Today, 29 January 2019, marks the 70^th anniversary of an obscure and long-forgotten event in the history of Aus­trali­a’s inter­na­tion­al relations: the day Australia recog­nised the State of Israel. The issue generated intense behind-the-scenes con­tro­versy, and ulti­mately open dis­agree­ment, between the then Labor gov­ern­ment, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley and Foreign Minister, “Doc” Evatt, and its sister Labour gov­ern­ment in Britain.
Seventy years later, following the passing of a res­ol­u­tion at the recent ALP National Con­fer­ence sup­port­ing recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an State, it is worth recalling what the con­tro­versy was about and under­stand­ing why it still matters.

Recognising Israel ― 1949

In the late 1940s, support for the Zionist cause in Australia came primarily from the Labor side of politics, whereas the con­ser­vat­ives were the source of most of the oppos­i­tion to it. Con­ser­vat­ive views were shaped largely by tra­di­tion­al feelings of loyalty to Britain, which had ruled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. Britain fought a bitter insur­gency by Jewish forces for three years, sparked by its decision to bar entry into Palestine to tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were desperate to escape Europe and leave behind the traumas they had endured.

On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to recommend the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State, giving inter­na­tion­al endorse­ment to the principle of “two States for two peoples.” This was not an act of recog­ni­tion, however; neither State yet existed. The British Mandate gov­ern­ment continued to function.

On 15 May 1948, the new Jewish State of Israel came into being and was imme­di­ately con­fron­ted with a full-scale military invasion by the armed forces of five neigh­bour­ing Arab League states. It was a closely-fought war, with Israel staring defeat in the face at the time of the short-lived armistice in June 1948.
The United States extended de facto recog­ni­tion to Israel within hours of its pro­clam­a­tion of inde­pend­ence. The USSR recog­nised Israel de jure on 17 May. Many other states followed suit. Britain, however, withheld recog­ni­tion, and urged Australia and other Com­mon­wealth countries to do likewise. The British gov­ern­ment sought to avoid any action which might incur the hostility of the Arab nations and imperil Britain’s control of the Suez Canal and access to Middle East oil.

Evatt and officials in Aus­trali­a’s Ministry of External Affairs expressed their dis­ap­prov­al of Britain’s pri­or­it­isa­tion of its strategic interests over imple­ment­ing the UN’s partition res­ol­u­tion. Nev­er­the­less, a key argument that persuaded Australia to delay recog­ni­tion of Israel was that, until the outcome of the Arab military invasion was decided, the capacity of Israel’s pro­vi­sion­al gov­ern­ment to control its territory remained in doubt.

A gov­ern­ment exer­cising control over its territory is both a legal require­ment of statehood under the Mon­tevid­eo Con­ven­tion on the Rights and Duties of States (1933) and a practical imper­at­ive. Although recog­ni­tion of a putative new State is a political decision at the dis­cre­tion of each of the world’s existing States, it would be futile and poten­tially embar­rass­ing to recognise such a State if it is incapable of ruling over its own territory.

Israel’s military position against the invasion was not the only factor that bore on this question. The viability of Israel, as with any State, also depended on its gov­ern­ment being the only source of coercive power within its territory. This too was put to the test early in the war. On 22 June 1948, David Ben-Gurion, as head of Israel’s pro­vi­sion­al gov­ern­ment, ordered the newly-formed Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to fire upon and disarm fighters belonging to a separate Jewish militia, the Irgun, who were unloading weapons for them­selves from a ship off the beach in Tel Aviv, the Altalena. After a short, bitter fight, the Irgun was disbanded and its members were absorbed into the IDF.

By November 1948, as Israel repelled the Arab invasion, the Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment was losing sympathy for Britain’s con­tinu­ing requests that it not recognise Israel. On 19 November 1948, the Aus­trali­an del­eg­a­tion at the UN stated:

By every practical test, whether in respect of its capacity for self-defence, its gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tion, its control of all forms of admin­is­tra­tion within specified areas … the fact that the Gov­ern­ment of Israel is a reality must now be clearly recog­nised by everybody.

More than two months went by before Australia recog­nised Israel. Britain recog­nised Israel de facto on 13 May 1949 but delayed de jure recog­ni­tion until 28 April 1950.

Recognising “Palestine” ― 2019

If Labor today were to apply the same criteria to recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state that it applied to recog­ni­tion of Israel, “Palestine” would fail on all of them. In par­tic­u­lar, due to the schism within the Palestini­an national movement, there is no Palestini­an entity that exercises “control of all forms of admin­is­tra­tion within specified areas” that comprise the territory claimed by the Palestini­ans ― namely, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The internal divide between the secular nation­al­ist movement among Palestini­ans, rep­res­en­ted by the PLO and Palestini­an Authority (PA) which controls parts of the West Bank, and the theo­crat­ic movement, rep­res­en­ted by Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, has resulted in interne­cine violence on many occasions. They are at odds over the most basic questions, not only con­cern­ing peace with Israel and other policy issues, but also on the essential nature of a future Palestini­an State, and the basic rules by which it will be governed.

Hamas refuses to relin­quish its arms to the PA and to place its oper­at­ives under the PA’s command. The PA is too weak to force Hamas to do so. The Palestini­ans have never had their “Altalena” moment.

So for reasons which are entirely internal to Palestini­an society, there is no reas­on­able prospect for the fore­see­able future of any gov­ern­ment being formed which would exercise effective control over both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and possess the capacity to give effect to any agree­ments signed by “Palestine” ― including any peace treaty that might be nego­ti­ated with Israel.

Recog­nising a Palestini­an state in these cir­cum­stances would therefore not help to end the conflict with Israel, but would almost certainly inaug­ur­ate a new and bloodier phase of that conflict, at the likely cost of many more lives than the conflict has claimed thus far.