Australia has backed in a United Nations resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty” of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, marking a major departure from its previous position.
At a UN committee vote on Thursday, Australia voted with 158 other countries, including the UK and New Zealand, on a resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”.
Seven, including the US, Israel and Canada, voted against the resolution while 11 others abstained. The vote will now proceed to the UN general assembly.
It is the first time an Australian government has voted in favour of the “permanent sovereignty” resolution since it was introduced in some form two decades prior.
A spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the vote reflected international concern for Israel’s actions, including its “ongoing settlement activity, land dispossession, demolitions and settler violence against Palestinians”.
“We have been clear that such acts undermine stability and prospects for a two-state solution,” the spokesperson said.
“This resolution importantly recalls UN security council resolutions that reaffirm the importance of a two-state solution that has had bipartisan support.”
Guardian Australia understands Australia was disappointed the resolution did not include references to Hezbollah’s actions in Israel.
Australia has not changed its position on final-status issues, such as borders, security and Jerusalem, which will need to be resolved under negotiations toward a two-state solution.
In a separate draft resolution, members voted for Israel to assume responsibility and provide compensation to Lebanon for its role in a 2006 oil spill, which covered large portions of the country’s coastline along with neighbouring countries.
Australia also voted in favour of the resolution, alongside 160 other countries, though Guardian Australia understands it holds reservations with the text.
The US’s mission to the UN released a statement shortly after signifying its disappointment in the “unbalanced resolution that is unfairly critical of Israel, demonstrating a clear and persistent institutional bias directed against one member state”.
“One-sided resolutions will not help advance peace. Not when they ignore the facts on the ground,” Nicholas Koval, the US political diplomat, said.
“One-sided resolutions are purely rhetorical documents that seek to divide us at a time when we should be coming together. And one we must not cling to longstanding lines of division.”
The Albanese government has been making small but significant shifts on Australia’s approach to the issue in the Middle East.
In May, Australia supported a UN vote on Palestinian membership to the assembly. Wong said the vote was about awarding “modest additional rights to participate in United Nations forums”, and that Australia would only recognise Palestine “when we think the time is right”.
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The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council said it was “deeply concerned” about the Albanese government’s shift on the issues.
Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive of Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the vote showed the “widening gulf” between Australia and the US on issues of Israel and Palestine.
“This shift in voting won’t change much in Israel where the nation is concerned with Hamas and Hezbollah and hostages rather than the judgements passed by our government. But it will be noticed in Washington and certainly by Australians with a connection to the conflict, which may well be the point,” he said.
Nasser Mashni, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network’s president, welcomed the change as “long-overdue recognition”.
“Australia’s support marks an acknowledgment of the catastrophic impact of Israel’s relentless appropriation and destruction of Palestinian resources and sends a clear signal that the world is demanding accountability for these injustices,” he said.
“This vote should be a turning point for the Australian government – it must recognise and act upon its legal obligation to use all economic, political and diplomatic tools at its disposal to help end Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation, and apartheid in Palestine.”
The vote comes a day after president-elect, Donald Trump, chose Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel.
It is expected the Trump administration will take a more pro-Israel approach to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, as it did in its last term.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, is known for his pro-Israel views in the conflict and has previously said Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank, which he refers to by its Hebrew and biblical name of Judea and Samaria.
Trump also announced Marco Rubio as his secretary of state. Shortly after the 7 October attacks on southern Israel by the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, Rubio posted on X that Israel “must respond disproportionately” and that there could be “no ceasefire, negotiated solution or peaceful coexistence” while Hamas existed.
