By any reasonable standard, when a terrorist organisation publicly praises a democratic leader, that leader should stop and ask: Where did I go wrong?

But not Anthony Albanese.

Last week, a senior Hamas media official commended the Australian Prime Minister for his ‘political courage’ in pledging to recognise a Palestinian state. Hamas also stated this recognition vindicates them for committing the October 7 attacks. In most cases, receiving thanks from a designated terrorist organisation would send shockwaves through a government. In this case, it was waved off as ‘just propaganda’.

But there’s no brushing this off. A line has been crossed. And if Australians are not paying attention, they should be.

Let’s be absolutely clear: Hamas is not a voice for peace. It is not a misunderstood liberation movement. It is a theocratic, fascistic death cult that exists for one reason – to destroy Israel and establish an Islamist state in its place. When Hamas praises Albanese, it is not praising human rights, it is recognising a strategic victory.

Despite the Prime Minister’s insistence that his push for Palestinian statehood is about peace and diplomacy, the political optics suggest that bloodshed on October 7 has been rewarded.

Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have repeatedly positioned themselves as principled actors, standing up for international law and a ‘rules-based order’. Let’s see if that’s true.

October 7 was the worst day of violence against Jews since the Holocaust and since then there has been a steady moral drift in Canberra. While Jewish communities have been harassed, assaulted, and driven into hiding, the Labor government has appeased, enabled, and even legitimised pro-Palestinian rallies that openly call for Israel’s destruction.

Sympathy for the Palestinian cause isn’t new behaviour. Somewhere around October 15, 2000, Albanese attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney’s CBD amid a wave of upheaval in Israel that marked the beginning of the Second Intifada. That day, a rogue group of protesters broke from the crowd and attempted to storm the US Consulate. Israeli and American flags were burned. Chants of ‘jihad’ rang through Martin Place.

News footage aired in 2023 shows Albanese at that rally, megaphone in hand, accusing Israel of using tanks and missiles against ‘children throwing rocks’.

It was a gross oversimplification then, and it remains one now.

That protest coincided with the collapse of the Camp David Summit, where Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a peace deal few thought possible: 96 per cent of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and joint control over East Jerusalem. Arafat walked away without so much as a counteroffer. What followed was not a diplomatic campaign but a campaign of suicide bombings, shootings, and stabbings targeting Israeli civilians.

Australia, too, felt the effects. Synagogues were vandalised in Sydney and Canberra. Jewish families were advised to avoid public displays of faith.

Fast forward to today and not much has changed – except that young Albanese is our Prime Minister.

The government’s pledge to recognise a Palestinian state alongside France, Canada, and the UK might sound reasonable to the uninitiated, but to anyone paying attention to the details, the timing is deeply disturbing. It comes while Israeli hostages are still held in Gaza. It comes as Hamas embeds itself among civilians, hoards humanitarian aid, and fires rockets from hospitals and schools. It comes while the Palestinian Authority – a supposed ‘moderate’ partner – refuses to hold elections, refuses to condemn terror, and is still led by Mahmoud Abbas, a man who wrote his doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust.

This is the man Albanese spoke to in recent days. Abbas, who hasn’t honoured the terms of the Oslo Accords, reportedly told Albanese that Australia could play an ‘important role’ in peace efforts by recognising Palestinian statehood. That comment alone should ring alarm bells. Abbas knows any future elections would hand Gaza and the West Bank straight to Hamas.

The Oslo framework was clear: recognition and statehood would follow a clear commitment to peace, renunciation of terror, and recognition of Israel’s right to exist. None of that has happened. Not in the textbooks. Not in the mosques. Not in the streets.

So, what is the Australian government recognising?

Are we recognising a failed, corrupt, autocratic regime that hasn’t held elections since 2006? Are we recognising the slogan ‘From the river to the sea!’ now heard weekly on Australian streets? Are we recognising a people held hostage not just by Israel’s security concerns but by their own leadership – split between a terror group and a failed authority?

Let’s not forget the repeated falsehoods the government has eagerly embraced. On October 17, 2023, when a rocket misfired near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza and Hamas propaganda immediately blamed Israel for the deaths of 500 civilians, both Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong rushed to condemn the Jewish state. No apology followed when it was confirmed that the rocket had been fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, landing in a hospital car park and causing far fewer casualties than initially claimed.

Meanwhile, Israel has provided credible evidence that up to 89 per cent of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is stolen by Hamas and sold back to desperate civilians at inflated prices. Yet the government persists with its one-sided humanitarian narrative, ignoring the blatant weaponisation of civilian suffering by terrorist actors.

When Israel presented further evidence showing that a significant portion of international aid – particularly through UNRWA – ends up in the hands of Hamas, the government offered only a brief pause before resuming funding. Incredibly, during Wong’s trip to Israel, she failed to visit the sites of the October 7 Hamas atrocities, yet met with Mahmoud Abbas, who has not held democratic elections in nearly two decades and presides over a deeply corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority. There, she pledged to reinstate funding, despite knowing it would likely benefit terrorist groups.

And now we learn that some 3,000 Gazans have been brought to Australia without rigorous security vetting.

Let’s be honest: this isn’t a foreign policy. In my opinion, it’s electoral calculus. It’s identity politics at the expense of national integrity. The Labor government appears to be pandering to parts of its base that cheer the delegitimisation of Israel while accusing Australia of colonialism – ironically, while refusing to acknowledge the Jewish people’s deep and indigenous connection to the land of Israel.

There is a reason that every time Israel offers peace, it gets war. And there’s a reason that every time the West rewards violence, it gets more of it.

If the Prime Minister of Australia wants to be on the right side of history, he should take Hamas’s praise as a wake-up call – not a compliment.