Israel cool on Australia move
THROUGHOUT THE year since Donald Trump’s big Jerusalem announcement, Israel’s Prime Minister was desperate to see another important Western democracy follow suit. He got his wish — but has responded with a shrug.
Australia has decided to open a trade and defence office in Jerusalem and recognise that the city — or rather part of the city — is the capital of Israel.
It is also starting to search for a suitable site in Jerusalem for its embassy, currently in Tel Aviv.
There was jubilation when Mr Trump recognised Jerusalem as capital and Mr Netanyahu has not stopped talking about it.
By contrast, when he started a cabinet meeting a few hours after his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, made his announcement, Mr Netanyahu did not even bother to mention it.
What is more, when reporters asked him about it, he curtly said that he had “nothing to add” to the Foreign Ministry’s statement.
That statement was hardly a warm welcome. It failed to trumpet the
move, and simply said that Australia has taken a “step in the right direction.”
It would go against the grain of Australia-Israel mateship for the PM to actually speak out against the recognition, but he came pretty close. His confidant Tzachi Hanegbi, a minister, was critical — and it is assumed that this would not have happened unless Mr Netanyahu tacitly permitted it.
“Our sovereignty will not be partitioned nor undermined,” he said.
So how did we end up with two moves to recognise Jerusalem by two Western democracies and two vastly different reactions?
Australia thought that it was making an important overture to Israel. Its leaders did not feel they could go the whole hog like America did in recognising all of Jerusalem — including parts conquered in the Six Day War — as Israel’s capital. Yet they felt that recognising the western part of the city, where the main political institutions including Knesset are located, was significant.
However, Israel’s leaders abhor the idea of any division of Jerusalem — whether physical division or uttering the words east and west and suggesting they are distinct areas — even more than they love the idea of recognition.
Mr Hanegbi said that there is simply “no such thing as West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem”, and suggested that as Australia based its announcement on the premise that there is, it made a “mistake” that it needs to “fix”.
In other words, if Australia wants to make a meaningful declaration on Israel’s capital, it must cover the whole of Jerusalem not part of it.
Israeli leaders also shudder at Mr Morrison’s declared desire to see a Palestinian state with a capital in eastern Jerusalem, which would require dividing the city.
Mr Hanegbi and others in government seem to think that the affront to Israel’s doctrine that Jerusalem is and should remain the unified capital is more important than recognition for Jerusalem.
To some, they are principled people sticking to their guns; to others they are behaving greedily and biting the hand that feeds them.