Australia Today

Scott Morrison Has Declared That 'West Jerusalem Is the Capital of Israel'

The Prime Minister confirmed his government's controversial foreign policy shift on Saturday, but said Australia will not immediately move its embassy.
Gavin Butler
Melbourne, AU
Scott Morrison, split with an image of Jerusalem
Image via YouTube/Guardian News (L); Flickr user Dan, CC licence 2.0 (R)

Scott Morrison has confirmed that the Australian government will officially recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The announcement was made during a speech in Sydney on Saturday, and comes just two months after the government first floated the idea of implementing the controversial foreign policy shift and moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Morrison also said the government will not immediately move its embassy to West Jerusalem, but said that a trade and defence office would be established there, the ABC reports.

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"Australia now recognises West Jerusalem, being the seat of the Knesset [Israel's parliament] and many of the institutions of government, is the capital of Israel," Morrison said. "We look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of and after final status determination.” He added that the Government has also “resolved to acknowledge the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a future state with its capital in East Jerusalem" as part of Australia’s commitment to a two-state solution.

Morrison described the government’s position as a “balanced,” “measured,” and “well-considered” on Saturday. But the Government has drawn ire from a number of critics in the months since they first put forward the idea of moving the embassy, with many condemning the move as a cynical and reckless attempt to curry favour among a largely Jewish electorate during a by-election. South East Asian trading partners—most notably Indonesia—voiced concerns that it could easily fuel unrest, SBS reports, and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused the decision of being rooted in “petty domestic politics.” Israel’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, praised it as a step in the right direction.

In the wake of Saturday’s announcement, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Bishop George Browning said that Morrison’s decision to recognise West Jerusalem as the Israeli capital "serves no Australian interest, will weaken our trade and security relations with regional partners, and may irreparably injure our international reputation by aligning Australia with the Trump and Netanyahu [Israel’s prime minister] governments against an overwhelming international consensus regarding the status of Jerusalem."

Australia would be the second country to relocate their embassy from Tel Aviv, after the United States controversially announced in December of last year that it would officially recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and make plans to move its own embassy there. The majority of the United Nations does not accept that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, despite the Israelis claiming it as their own “complete and unified” city.

“At the end of the day it all comes down to what you believe, what we believe in, and I think the Australian people know what I believe in,” Morrison said on Saturday.

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