The brouhaha that followed the federal government’s announcement that
Australia will consider moving Australia’s Israeli embassy to Jerusalem
continues to sputter along. Immediately following the announcement the ABC
reported, correctly, that Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi had
expressed concerns about the announcement to Marise Payne. But the ABC also jumped
the gun and reported, incorrectly, that Indonesia was considering putting the
proposed Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership on hold. The
latter proposition was swiftly and emphatically denied by Indonesian Trade
Minister Enggartiasto Lukito who confirmed that the deal remains on track to be
signed this year. The deal is as much in Indonesia’s interests as Australia’s.
Whilst the Palestinian cause is a highly emotive one within the 56
states of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, including Indonesia and
Malaysia, none of these states has a record of putting its concerns for the
Palestinians ahead of its own national interests. States rarely place sentiment
above their national interests. The Indonesian Trade Minister’s
statements should not have come as a surprise.
A second tack taken by critics of the announcement was given voice by
the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, who claimed
that moving the Australian Embassy to Jerusalem would be ‘contrary to
international law’ and would thus make Australia ‘an international pariah’. To
support the claim, Palestinian spokespeople frequently cite UN Security Council
Resolution 478 which they say is a decision binding on all States under Article
25 of the UN Charter. However, 478 only applies to action taken by Israel to
assert its sovereignty ‘in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied
since June 1967, including Jerusalem’. Israel’s government precinct is located
in the western part of the city, which has been part of Israel’s sovereign
territory since 1948. It is not located in the part of Jerusalem ‘occupied [by
Israel] since June 1967’. The US Embassy is located in the western part of the
city, as would any other embassy, including ours.
A third criticism was the assertion that most
Australians are opposed to moving our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. A Roy
Morgan SMS survey undertaken on December 14-15, 2017 was dusted off to support
this claim. It asked the question: Do you support or oppose President
Trump’s recent decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel? The
survey found 76 per cent of Australians opposed the Trump announcement and 24
per cent supported it. Implausibly, there were no ‘Don’t know’s.
The wording of the question suffered from several
defects. It linked recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with Trump, who on
any view is a polarising personality. It also mis-characterised Trump’s
decision. Trump did not ‘declare’ Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel; the US
recognised it as already being Israel’s capital.
There is no way of knowing which of those who answered ‘No’ did so
because they did not like Trump personally, or were put off by the controversy,
or were misled into believing that Trump was ‘declaring’ Jerusalem to be
Israel’s capital, rather than because they were opposed in principle to
recognising the reality that Israel’s seat of government has for decades been
in Jerusalem.
Israel’s parliament, ministerial offices, Supreme Court, President’s
residence and PM’s residence have all been located in the western part of
Jerusalem since the early days of the state. This is not part of the area that
Israel captured during the 1967 war and is not designated by the UN as
‘Occupied Palestinian Territory’. It is not a part of the city that has been
the subject of negotiations for a two-state outcome. Locating an embassy in the
uncontested western part of Jerusalem would in no way pre-judge the future
status of the contested eastern part of the city captured by Israel in 1967. It
is ironic that some of those who argue against a unilateral embassy move on the
false premise that it would pre-judge a permanent status issue in the
Israel-Palestinian conflict, namely the future status of the eastern part of
Jerusalem, are the very people seeking to commit Labor at its National
Conference in December to extend unilateral recognition to a Palestinian state.
That move would necessarily pre-judge a whole raft of issues, including east
Jerusalem.
My organisation, the Executive Council of
Australian Jewry, was keen to test the veracity of the Roy Morgan survey. We
commissioned YouGov/Galaxy to conduct a poll asking: In 1949, Israel
designated Jerusalem to be its capital city, and has its parliament there. Do
you think Australia should recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? The
survey was conducted in February among 1,205 Australians. The demographic
distribution of the sample as between age, gender, marital/parental status,
geographical location, income level and educational attainment reflected the
results of the 2016 census as published by the ABS. The margin of error was
plus or minus 2.9 per cent.
The results paint a very different picture to the published Roy Morgan
findings. A key finding of the YouGov survey was that when the question of
Jerusalem was framed as one of whether to ‘recognise’ (rather than ‘declare’)
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and was asked without mentioning Trump or the
US, Australians supported recognition by a margin of almost two to one (40 to
21 per cent). Based on party preference, those supporting recognition
outnumbered those against in every group except the Greens.
My organisation, the peak representative body of the Jewish community,
has long supported recognising the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital
and moving the embassy there. Of course Jerusalem strikes an emotional chord
for all Jews. It has been our people’s spiritual and political capital since
the dawn of the Iron Age 3,000 years ago.
But we also believe it is in
Australia’s interests, and the interests of peoples of the Middle East, for
western nations to back the region’s only real democracy, instead of cravenly
yielding to threats of retaliation or, worse still, conjuring up the spectre of
threats which don’t exist.
The announcement of the Australian government that
it is open to considering whether Australia’s embassy in Israel should be moved
to Jerusalem was made four days before the highly-significant by-election for
the Federal seat of Wentworth. The timing of the announcement led to a storm of
criticism.
Yet when the issue of recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is
considered on its merits, without being accompanied by the hoopla of Australian
(or US) domestic politics, the idea enjoys far more support than opposition.
Its time will come.
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