Newsman: Australia’s center-left Labor Party government agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel as it has reversed a previous government’s recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the foreign minister Penny Wong said in a briefing on Tuesday, prompting consternation from Israel. The Cabinet also reaffirmed that Jerusalem’s status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Wong said.
“Australia is committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders,” Wong said. “We will not support an approach that undermines this prospect. ”
Morrison’s decision to follow Trump’s lead also prompted outrage, and on Tuesday Wong apologized for any distress caused.
“I regret that Mr. Morrison’s decision to play politics resulted in Australia’s shifting position, and the distress these shifts have caused to many people in the Australian community who care deeply about this issue,” Wong said.
Foreign Minister Wong described Morrison’s move as out of step internationally and a “cynical play” to win a by election in a Sydney locale with a large Jewish population.
Morrison’s Liberal Party ran Jewish candidate Dave Sharma who was defeated in the by election but won the seat in the next general election. Morrison’s government was elected out of office in May after nine years in power.
Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed disappointment in Australia’s changed position.
“Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel and nothing will change that,” Lapid said in a statement.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it will summon the Australian ambassador over the issue.
Senior Palestinian official Hussein Al-Sheikh said he welcomed Australia’s decision “and its affirmation that the future of sovereignty over Jerusalem depends on the permanent solution based on international legitimacy.”
Former conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally recognized west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2018, although the Australian Embassy remained in Tel Aviv.
The change followed then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. in 2017, Trump upended seven decades of US foreign policy by declaring the United States considered Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. The following year, the US relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
President Joe Biden has kept the embassy in Jerusalem as the U.S. steps back from its once-intense mediation between the Israelis and Palestinians, who have not held substantive peace talks in more than a decade.
West Jerusalem was in the hands of Israel and East Jerusalem controlled by Jordan. A 1947 United Nations plan to divide Palestine in two, creating a Jewish state and an Arab state, had envisaged Jerusalem as an internationally run “corpus separatum,” apart from the two states.
In the 1967 Mideast war, Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites of three faiths, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. It expanded the municipal boundaries of the city and declared all of it to be the unified capital of Israel.
The status of Jerusalem remains one of the thorniest issues in the decadeslong conflict and has precipitated numerous rounds of violence. Only a handful of countries, including Kosovo and Guatemala, have joined the U.S. in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Until Trump’s announcement, the international community was largely united in not formally recognizing Israel’s position, stating instead that only a negotiated agreement between the two sides could determine the city’s final status.
The city is home to deeply holy sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians. The issue has been so thorny that negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians had left the question of Jerusalem to the final stages of any peace deal.
