When Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently canvassed the possibility of Australia recognising Palestinian statehood, it predictably provoked a vigorous public debate. So great was the ensuing furore that virtually nothing else Wong said, in a wide-ranging address to the National Security College’s Securing Our Future conference, was picked up by the media.

But there was much more to Wong’s speech than what she had to say about the Middle East. She addressed the many foreign policy challenges Australia faces. There is no arena in which the subtleties of emphasis – or the lack of emphasis – is more revealing than in diplomacy.

Wong gave us a glimpse of where her priorities lie, not from her words alone, but from the issues on which she chose to concentrate – and those she failed to emphasise.

One particular global challenge notable for the lack of attention it received was the Ukraine War, dealt with in a single sentence. Wong’s failure to have more to say about the subject in her tour d’horizon of global issues was both revealing and symptomatic of the way in which Ukraine has slipped down the list of Australia’s priorities.

Yet the Ukraine War remains by far the world’s most important conflict. Serious though the Israel-Hamas war is – made even more so now by kinetic exchanges between Israel and Iran – it is essentially a localised and regional conflict.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine, by contrast, poses a direct threat to European peace, and thereby a confrontation with NATO. The nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltic, in particular, see Putin’s aggression as an existential threat, the necessity of defeating him as vital to their own security. In the words of Swedish Foreign Minister Pal Jonson: “Ukraine is the shield of Europe. Putin will not stop until somebody stops him. That is Ukraine right now. In fighting for their freedom, they are fighting for our freedom.”

The public has become bored by the seemingly endless stalemate. Credit: AP

When Russia’s tanks rolled across the border on the night of February 23-24, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s brave defiance inspired the world. He was frequently – and not implausibly – compared to Winston Churchill. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, captured the mood of the democratic world when, channelling John F. Kennedy’s speech at the Berlin Wall in June 1963 (“Ich bin ein Berliner”), he told the Parliament in Kyiv “Today we are all Ukrainian” – a phrase that emblazoned banners and T-shirts across Europe.

That was two years and two months ago. With the passage of time, the outrage has dissipated. The world’s attention has shifted to other issues, the Israel-Hamas war in particular. The public has become bored with the seemingly endless stalemate.