Australia recognises West Jerusalem as Israeli capital
Australia’s plan for Jerusalem only serves to bolster an ever-more bellicose Israel
Australia now recognises West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian youth was shot dead by Israeli soldiers who were looking in Ramallah for those responsible for an attack on Jewish settlers on Thursday.
Canberra became one of just a few governments around the world to follow US President Donald Trump’s lead and recognise the contested city as Israel’s capital.
But Mr Morrison also committed to recognising a future state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
He said Australia would not move its embassy until a final peace settlement was reached.
“Australia now recognises West Jerusalem, being the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of government, is the capital of Israel,” Mr Morrison said.
Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.
“We look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of and after the final status of determination,” Mr Morrison said.
He said work on a new site for the embassy was under way.
In Ramallah, the Palestinian teenager was shot dead in raids by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, as troops searched for the man who killed two soldiers on Thursday.
The youth was identified by the ministry as Mahmoud Nakhla, 17, who authorities said died after being shot in the stomach by Israelis near the Jalazone refugee camp in central West Bank.
The Israeli army did not comment on the death, which occurred as soldiers clashed with stone-throwing protesters across the occupied area.
Soldiers again entered Al Bireh neighbourhood of the West Bank city of Ramallah where they carried out raids on Thursday.
The Israeli military only ventures into Ramallah in large numbers because of the fierce response from residents. It usually relies on Palestinian security, with whom it co-operates.
The army was searching for the perpetrator of Thursday’s shooting in the West Bank, where 400,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements alongside more than 2.5 million Palestinians.
It was the third deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank in two months, and prompted demonstrations by settler groups against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government depends on their support.
On Friday, Israeli media speculated about the possibility of a new Palestinian “intifada” against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
PM Scott Morrison also committed to recognising a future state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital
an Foreign Minister, on Friday criticised “the continuation of the occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories” and the lack of prospects for peace.
The situation “constitutes a great threat to stability in the whole region”, Mr Safadi said.
In Thursday’s attack, a gunman left his car and fired on soldiers and others outside a settlement in central West Bank, killing two and seriously wounding another two Israelis before fleeing.
After the attack, the army locked down Ramallah, home to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and called in reinforcements.
Settlers shouting for revenge threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, while an Arab bus driver was beaten by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Modiin Illit settlement.
The army said that in overnight raids it arrested 40 Palestinians, most of them affiliated with Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for two recent shootings.
The army did not say it had made arrests linked directly to the latest attack.
Arough consensus has emerged in the intractable Palestine-Israel conflict that a peace settlement must be agreed before the future of Jerusalem is determined. Addressing the latter before the former makes peace unworkable. But that is precisely what the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has done this week, by formally recognising west Jerusalem as Israel’s. Australia will, after a peace settlement has been reached, move its embassy from Tel Aviv. The Gaza protests that followed US President Donald Trump’s decision to do exactly that that in May saw 58 Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire. In what he no doubt viewed as a smart compromise, Mr Morrison also pledged to recognise a future state of Palestine, with its capital in east Jerusalem. But given the ruthlessness of an Israeli state that is changing the realities on the ground with rampant settlement, and that will never relinquish power or land to the Palestinians, Mr Morrison has made a bad situation worse. Israel’s divisive nation-state law, which cleared the Knesset in July, proclaimed Jerusalem to be Israel’s eternal and undivided capital. Against that backdrop, Mr Morrison’s decision looks at best extremely naive and at worst coldly culpable.
As is so often the case in the world’s dealings with Palestine, there is another side to this story – this time concerning Australian domestic politics and Mr Morrison’s instinct for self-preservation. Despite its profound implications for millions of Palestinians, this decision can be traced back to an October by-election in an affluent suburb of Sydney, in which Mr Morrison’s one-seat parliamentary majority was at stake. His Liberal party ultimately lost the election, but just days before the voters of Wentworth, which contains a large Jewish population, headed to the polls, Mr Morrison announced he was considering the landmark embassy move. In doing so, he failed to consider the security and trade implications for Australia, the considerable regional dynamics and the rights and safety of Palestine’s occupied millions. Accused of a cynical political gambit, and facing a backlash from the Palestinian leadership and Muslim nations – chiefly Indonesia – Mr Morrison has doubled down on his comments, accusing the United Nations of antisemitism “cloaked in the language of human rights”. His clumsy handling of this delicate situation was summed up by Richard Di Natale, leader of the Australian Greens as “Trumpesque”.
These are tense times for Palestine. Brazil’s far-right president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced that he, too, will move his nation’s embassy to Jerusalem, while several nations, from the Philippines to Romania, are mulling the same. Guatemala has already done so. These countries might not seem diplomatically significant, but each relocation further erodes the dream of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. Mr Morrison has not saved face by quietly endorsing a future Palestinian state. Instead, he has handed an important victory to an increasingly belligerent Israel.