The case for a secure Israeli future and equal Palestinian rights

When Australia recognised Palestine on 21 September 2025, its joint ministerial statement paired Palestinian statehood with Israel’s security. It also recorded the Palestinian Authority president’s restatement of recognition of Israel’s right to exist, alongside separate undertakings on elections and reform. Recognition was presented as a contribution to a future for both peoples.^[1]

The principle has a concrete expression in the Geneva Accord, an unofficial model peace agreement. Its preamble recognises Jewish and Palestinian rights to statehood while preserving equal rights for each state’s citizens.^[2] The pairing asks a serious political question: how can collective belonging, individual equality and protection against violence be secured together?

The comparison follows selected diplomatic statements and political proposals to examine collective rights, individual equality and security. Their value lies in the institutions and obligations they ask people to consider. A secure Israeli future deserves an affirmative defence, and equal Palestinian rights should be part of its foundation.

Jewish collective life deserves a future

Jewish Israelis should be able to preserve their language, culture, institutions and political community, participate in governing their lives and raise families in safety. That claim rests on the people whose future is at stake. It survives changes of government and disagreement over the acts of those who govern.

Support for that future can be stated plainly. Israelis should be protected against expulsion, violent attack and proposals that erase their collective life. Political arrangements should allow Jews to flourish as Jews. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism articulates that protection in terms of equality while allowing debate over different constitutional forms.^[3] The rights of a people and the design of a state require connected but distinct arguments.

Palestinians deserve the same political seriousness. Their freedom, collective institutions and ability to govern their lives must have practical force. A settlement that protects one national community while leaving the other’s basic choices subject to permanent external permission would fail the standard of reciprocal self-determination.

Recognising both claims changes the question. Instead of asking which people may possess a political future, it asks how authority can be distributed so that each can exercise it. That requires defined borders or jurisdictions, accountable government, enforceable rights and arrangements for the places and resources people share.

Equal citizenship is a test of the design

Collective rights and civic equality operate at different levels. A state may give expression to a national community, while every citizen still requires equal protection, political participation and access to public institutions. The worth of the national project must be judged partly by the rights of the people who live within it.

The 1947 UN partition recommendation envisaged Arab and Jewish states and included provisions for equal, nondiscriminatory rights and protection of minorities.^[4] It put national institutions and safeguards for individuals into the same proposed arrangement. Its historical importance does not turn its map or every provision into an answer to today’s disputes; the relationship between collective and individual rights remains a useful test.

Consider a resident seeking a home, a public service or protection from violence. Their rights should be determined by a fair legal order that they can challenge and help shape. A promise that a community will be safe means little if an individual’s treatment depends on the national identity of the person making the decision. Equality has to reach administration, representation and remedy.

The strongest objection is that a promise of national self-determination can preserve unequal power if its institutions privilege one people’s freedom over another’s. Citizenship, immigration and political authority should be examined directly. A proposal should explain who can become a citizen, who may reside, who votes for the government exercising power over them and how minorities can contest discrimination. Declaring support for two peoples leaves that institutional work to be done.

Security has to become an obligation

An argument for Palestinian freedom must confront Israeli security concerns with practical proposals. An argument for Israeli security must explain how Palestinians can live under authority that respects their rights. Each demand becomes more credible when it specifies the duties of those who would exercise power.

The Geneva model supplies an example. It proposes security cooperation, commitments against violence and terrorism, a joint security committee and international verification. It envisages a non-militarised Palestinian state with a security force and an international monitoring role.^[5] The model makes choices about authority, weapons, enforcement and external guarantees, expressed in an unofficial proposal rather than an implemented agreement.

The model also exposes a difficult question about reciprocity. Equal national dignity does not require identical military institutions, but restrictions on one state’s forces need a defensible purpose, consent and safeguards against indefinite dependency. A proposed guarantee should explain who enforces it, how breaches are investigated and what happens when the parties disagree.

Israeli families need a credible answer to the risk of attack. Palestinian families need a credible answer to the risk of coercion and violence. A security arrangement should be assessed by how it protects people under foreseeable pressure, including political crises. A credible proposal should specify who acts if an armed group attacks civilians, if a government violates the other’s territory or if a guarantor refuses to enforce its mandate. It should provide protection and a remedy in each case.

There is room to argue about the arrangement

Two states can be defended in more than one institutional form. A Land for All, a joint Israeli-Palestinian initiative, proposes sovereign states connected through a confederation, with gradual freedom of movement and residence, shared arrangements for Jerusalem and coordinated security. It distinguishes citizenship from residence, including proposed residency opportunities for Palestinian refugees or returnees in Israel and Israeli settlers in Palestine.^[6] A proposal should explain the political voice, equal treatment and remedies available to those residents.

The proposal is useful because it makes the costs of a political choice visible. Movement requires rules. Residency requires a relationship between the rights of the resident and the authority of the host state. Shared arrangements require institutions able to make decisions and resolve disputes. Its authors offer a model that can be examined, amended or rejected on those terms.

The existence of a joint proposal establishes that Israelis and Palestinians have worked on an institutional alternative; it does not demonstrate that either public has consented to it. Consent, workable guarantees and rights in practice remain demanding tests. Hope becomes politically serious when the proposed arrangement can survive questions about power.

Israeli society also contains organised efforts to build shared political life. Standing Together describes its programme in terms of peace, equality and independence for Israelis and Palestinians and seeks Jewish-Arab partnership.^[7] Its programme belongs in an account of the choices being argued over within Israel. No single government or movement exhausts the political possibilities of the people who live there.

Australia should apply the reciprocal test

Australia’s recognition statement commits it to a political framework that seeks enduring peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.^[1] That commitment should guide the questions asked of any proposed settlement: whose authority it creates, whose rights it protects and how its guarantees can be enforced.

Australian debate should be able to defend Israel’s continued existence and security while scrutinising policies that deny Palestinians equal rights or meaningful self-government. It should be able to support Palestinian statehood while demanding protection for Israeli civilians and credible constraints on armed groups. Each position gains substance when it specifies the rights and responsibilities it would defend.

A useful assessment begins with people and proceeds to institutions. Can each community sustain its collective life? Can individuals participate as equals? Can a person challenge an abuse of authority? Do protection arrangements bind the actors who possess the means of violence? The answers matter more than a proposal’s preferred label.

Australia should defend both peoples’ safety and equal rights in the policies it supports today. A proposed settlement earns support by giving those commitments institutions that can enforce them.