The Fairweather Friends of Palestine • Lucky For Some

Here’s a fun fact (depending on your definition) you may not know. Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, once proudly co-founded the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine (alongside Joe Hockey and Susan Ley) back when wearing a keffiyeh to a university rally meant you’d likely remain un-pepper-sprayed by the local fuzz. Fast forward to 2025, and these “friends” have spent two morally bankrupt years watching Gaza burn while wringing their hands about process, conditions and appropriate timing. Two years of children buried under rubble, hospitals bombed to dust, and entire bloodlines erased from existence. Brave leaders. Political Rorshack. Winds of change. Emetic rhetoric. But finally we may join the 147 other nations who managed to locate their spines years ago. Not because it’s right. No no no. Because the polling has FINALLY made it politically expedient. Hats off to our fair-weather friends of Palestine.

Like vultures circling Gaza’s corpse, our leaders wait for the perfect moment to swoop and pick clean the emaciated remains for the remaining political leverage. While they dithered, debated, and focus-grouped their way through genocide and starvation, actual leaders in countries with far less to lose stood up and said: this is Palestine, these are human beings, and they deserve recognition. But Australia. Land of the fair-go. The underdog. The perennially egalitarian eagle. Let us grovel and check with Papa Trump first. Let us ensure political special interests won’t get their knickers in a twist. Yes, now, now we speak. Three cheers to the fair-weather friends of Palestine.

What’s most grotesque about this delayed recognition isn’t just the political cowardice. It’s the pretense of bravery. The continued insistence on the morality of the west. The continued imposition of rules, conditions, and holier-than-thou attitude. The “recognise Gaza if…“. The “now is the time for two-state peace but…” The truth is simpler and uglier: they waited until the political cost of silence outweighed the political cost of action. They waited until the images became too horrific to ignore, until the protests too large to dismiss, until their own voter base started asking uncomfortable questions. Now we hear the people. Now we know what is right. Now we join the international community. Hip-hip hooray, to the fair-weather friends of Palestine.

So now we must watch the parade of back-slaps. The faux-humble press conferences where they’ll speak of ‘difficult decisions’ and ‘complex geopolitical realities.’ Watch them collect their humanitarian participation trophies while Palestinian mothers gather the fragments of their children, torn apart by American weapons in an Israeli Conquest. They’ll dress this up as leadership, as diplomacy, as careful statecraft - anything but what it actually is: moral bankruptcy and political expediency. Two years of surgeons amputating children’s legs without anaesthetic wasn’t enough. Two years of parents collecting their children in plastic bags wasn’t enough. It took focus groups and polling data to finally tip the scales. They’ve shown us that in Australia, friendship expires when the polls dip, and conscience only kicks in when the margins demand it. And we’re supposed to applaud this?

Shame. Fucking shame. On the fair-weather friends of Palestine.

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