Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is reportedly pursuing a phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the historic pro-Palestine march in Sydney on Sunday.
Per The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s Assistant Minister for Immigration, Matt Thistlethwaite, confirmed that Albanese is seeking an over-the-phone meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister amid calls for Australia to recognise Palestine as a state, following similar moves made by other countries last month.
“A phone call [with Netanyahu] is being pursued,” Thistlethwaite told Sky News.
He also said he was supportive of Australians’ “right to protest” after the march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge yesterday.
While NSW Premier Chris Minns was opposed to the event — attempting to block it last week before a Supreme Court decision ruled in favour of it going ahead — other Labor politicians like Ed Husic, Alison Byrnes and Tony Sheldon were spotted among the 90,000 protestors who turned out for the march.
SMH reports that the presence of politicians at the march has built pressure around Albanese to make a call on Palestinian statehood, which his government has said in recent weeks is a matter of timing.
“What we’re looking at is the circumstances where recognition will advance the objective of the creation of two states,” the PM said last month, while Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said recognising Palestine as a state is a matter of “when, not if”.
More specific details about the phone call between Albanese and Netanyahu are not yet known.
It comes after the UK, France and Canada all made the move of recognising a Palestinian state within the span of a few weeks.
“Consistent with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the state of Palestine,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
It’s estimated that around 90,000 protestors attended the march, which was organised by Palestine Action Group and marked one of Sydney’s biggest-ever protests.
The crowds were so big that NSW Police was forced to adjust the original route, telling protestors to double back across the bridge amid concerns of a crowd crush at North Sydney train station.
A concurrent protest took the streets of Melbourne, where a police barricade blocked marchers from entering the King Street Bridge.
Speaking of the protests on ABC Radio National, Husic said “Australian politics has underestimated how strongly Australians feel about this issue”.
“I think this is a moment, a sort of wake-up call for Australian politics.”
Lead images: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images and Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images
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