AUSTRALIA CONSIDERS MOVING ITS EMBASSY FROM TEL AVIV TO JERUSALEM

CANBERRA: Australia has raised the prospect of following the United States by relocating its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a policy shift that critics described Tuesday as a desperate grab for domestic political gain to win a crucial by-election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the idea was suggested to him by a former ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, a candidate for the ruling conservative Liberal Party in a by-election Saturday in a Sydney electorate with a large Jewish population. At stake is the government’s single-seat majority in the House of Representatives and Morrison’s ability to retain power without doing deals with independent lawmakers. Any political gain could come at the cost of strained ties with Muslim-majority countries, including neighboring Indonesia, whose foreign minister expressed strong concern.