In the past month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has criticised a junior Labor senator for speaking out about the Israel-Gaza conflict, claimed pro-Palestine students chanting “from the river to the sea” “wouldn’t have a clue where the Jordan River is on a map”, and promised an inquiry into “hatred and ignorance” on campuses.
The prime minister’s comments are particularly pertinent given Albanese is a former protester himself. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the then-recently elected Labor backbencher frequently used his platform in Parliament to make pro-Palestinian speeches. He also attended, and spoke at, protests — including one where other demonstrators burned Israeli flags and tried storming the US consulate, according to archived news stories unearthed by Crikey.
Unlike other aspects of his younger days that the prime minister tends to highlight — like his childhood in public housing — his time as a vocal supporter of Palestine is not a topic he has talked about at length. Albanese was once one of Labor’s most outspoken MPs on the situation in the Middle East and arguably one of Labor’s most prominent pro-Palestine advocates.
From backbench MP during the Howard years, to frontbencher and now to prime minister, Crikey has charted the evolution of the Labor politician’s public statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“Albanese, as a Left figure, leaned towards the Palestinians when younger but of course now leads the country,” Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno told Crikey. “I imagine his mainstreaming as a politician has led to greater caution on the issue but he may well have also shifted in his judgements and sympathies.”
In response to questions to Albanese from Crikey, a federal government spokesperson issued the following statement: “The prime minister has always advocated for a two-state solution with people having the capacity to live in peace and security side by side, whether they be Israeli or Palestinian. Right now, the government is using Australia’s voice to advocate for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and humanitarian access, the release of hostages, and for the protection of civilians.”
Albanese has indeed held a fairly consistent public position on the conflict through the years, repeatedly emphasising the need for a peaceful solution and the right for “Palestinian self-determination … and the right of Israel to exist within secure borders”. But as an early career politician, he regularly voiced criticism of Israel, sometimes at demonstrations. In the wake of the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, his earlier activism has been highlighted by a wide range of critics for different reasons, from the Greens to Sky News Australia hosts.
The early 2000s
The years during which Albanese attended and spoke at a number of protests were a particularly fraught time for Jewish and Arab communities in Australia. The demonstration on October 15, 2000 in Sydney’s CBD happened in the context of violent protests in Israel in the aftermath of the failure of the Camp David Summit, held a few months earlier between then US president Bill Clinton, then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and then Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat.
The clashes between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel that month, where 13 Arab Israelis were killed by police, became the start of what’s known as the Second Intifada, ushering in a long period of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories. There was violence in Australia as well, including numerous attacks against Jewish people and institutions in Sydney and Canberra.
An article in the Daily Telegraph on Friday, October 15, 2000 reported: “Palestinians will rally in Sydney today and Australian Jews are beefing up security. Thousands of Palestinians and supporters will gather in Hyde Park to march on the US Consulate”.
At Martin Place, where the US Consulate was located at the time, “a group of some 20 men broke from a 2,500-strong crowd of protesters and tried to storm” the building, news agency AFP reported. “Sections of the crowd chanted slogans calling for a pan-Arab jihad, or holy war, to push the Israelis out of disputed lands … despite appeals from their leaders for calm, a group of about 50 protesters set fire to Israeli and US flags,” the story added. “Chants of ‘Free, Free Palestine’ and ‘God is Great’, drowned out several speakers including an Australian member of Parliament.”
That MP, it appears, was Anthony Albanese. In undated news footage aired by Sky News Australia last October, in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel and the resulting Israeli assault on Gaza, Albanese is seen holding a megaphone and addressing a crowd in Martin Place. “The response of Israel has been to meet children throwing rocks with helicopters, with tanks and with missiles,” Albanese, wearing sunglasses and a suit, is heard saying in the clip.
The remarks appear to match a statement Albanese made in Parliament that same week, where he said “Palestinian teenagers should not be throwing rocks, but the fact that they are does not justify an army shooting at unarmed civilians, using snipers, bazookas, grenades, tanks and attack helicopters.”
An article in The Australian Jewish News, published in November 2000, placed Albanese at the flag-burning protest. The story referenced a letter sent by then-Zionist Federation of Australia president Ron Weiser to Albanese: “Earlier, Dr Weiser had written to Labor MP Anthony Albanese, the secretary of the parliamentary friends of Palestine group, who addressed a rally in Sydney last month in which Arab demonstrators burned Israeli and US flags”.
Albanese attended more protests in the weeks that followed. In a November 3, 2000 article in the Australian Jewish News, Albanese was reported to have spoken at a demonstration in Canberra that took place earlier that week. “Pro-Palestinian Labor MP Anthony Albanese … said he would support a United Nations peacekeeping force, including Australians. This would ‘ensure we have an end to the killing which is going on day after day’,” the article stated.
The late 1990s: Question on Notice
A statement in Parliament Albanese made in May 1998 goes some way towards illustrating his thinking about the conflict as a recently elected MP. He cited a question on notice he had put to then foreign minister Alexander Downer, stating: “That question concerned the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967. I think that what we see at the moment with the breakdown and impasse in the Middle East peace process is a tragedy for both Israelis and Palestinians, and indeed for everyone in the region and the world.”
“The expansion of these settlements is against the interests of both the Israeli population and the Palestinian population,” he said. “They have a legitimate aspiration to have a state of Palestine created within the borders which have been occupied since 1967. Whilst there are no doubt legitimate concerns for the security of Israel and I certainly support the right of Israel to exist within those secure borders, the settlement activity is a breach of the prospect for peace in that region.”
In other speeches in the following years, Albanese denounced “extremist” Israeli politicians who tried to prove themselves “tough” and “warlike” in “a fight for political survival in a climate ruled by fanaticism”. Around the first anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, Albanese said that Israeli self-defence against suicide bombings and other terror tactics was not a “blank cheque, and responding to terrorism does not in any way free Israel from its obligations under international law, nor does it justify creating a human rights and humanitarian crisis in Palestine”.
In the same speech, he also said Australia should apply pressure “to oppose the extremists of the Palestinian side who engage in terrorism”. He added: “Israel must be allowed to exist within secure borders and an independent Palestinian state must be established. Terrorism, whether by individuals or states, must be opposed in a consistent manner by all those who support democratic humane values.”
The Parliamentary Friends of Palestine
In 1999, Albanese helped co-found the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, a bipartisan group with Liberal MP Joe Hockey as chairman and Albanese as secretary. According to Karen Middleton’s 2016 book Albanese: Telling it Straight, the founding of the group was partly inspired by a trip the two politicians had made to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 1998.
In an interview for the book, Albanese recalled a scene at a beachside refugee camp in Gaza that affected him deeply: “Seeing the extraordinary conditions that people lived in … seeing the queue to get access into Israel for the workforce in the morning. The extraordinary security that was there — and this was a relatively peaceful time.”
In a 2015 speech marking Hockey’s retirement from Parliament, Albanese reminisced about the Gaza trip: “I think that experience — [looking] at the humiliation which Palestinians were forced to undergo in queuing to try to get across to get work each and every day, and the ongoing extreme poverty and lack of rights that people were subjected to, and also the lack of rights for the Israelis when you saw very young people with guns bigger than they were standing on corners in Jerusalem — made it very clear that you cannot have security in those circumstances.”
Rising through the ranks
While Albanese made at least eight speeches that contained criticism of Israel in his first six years as an MP, he’s been less vocal on the issue since then. In 2011, Albanese wrote an opinion piece for The Australian criticising Greens councillors in Marrickville for seeking to boycott Israeli goods, and in 2015, he used a speech in Parliament to slam a Marrickville theatre group for seeking to ban the Jewish student organisation Hillel from using its premises due to the group’s perceived pro-Israel stance. “I believe there needs to be a Palestinian state, but I also believe that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security. A two-state solution is the way forward,” Albanese said.
Since the current war in Gaza began, Albanese says he’s had a consistent position: “To oppose the terrorist atrocity that occurred from Hamas on October 7. To call for the release of hostages. To express concern at the killing of any innocent life, be it Israeli or Palestinian. To support humanitarian ceasefire. To support humanitarian aid going into Gaza. To support a two-state solution, which is the long-term position that needs to be reached. Israelis and Palestinians have a right to live in peace and security with prosperity.”
“Clearly, Albanese, while of the left Labor faction, is trying to straddle both sides of his political party as PM,” University of Sydney historian Suzanne Rutland, author of the book The Jews in Australia, told Crikey. “[It’s] a difficult challenge. In 2000, when he was in opposition, he did not face this challenge.”
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