![\"Australia](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2018-09\/7rv63bv8_australia-flag-pixabay-650_625x300_12_September_18.jpg\"\/ "\\"Australia")
<\/div>\nAustralian Foreign minister Penny Wong said the city’s status should be decided through peace talks<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sydney: <\/b><\/p>\n
Australia said Tuesday it would no longer recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reversing a contentious decision by the previous conservative government.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the city’s status should be decided through peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and not through unilateral decisions.<\/p>\n
“We will not support an approach that undermines” a two-state solution, she said, adding: “Australia’s embassy has always been, and remains, in Tel Aviv”.<\/p>\n
In 2018 a conservative government led by Scott Morrison followed former US president Donald Trump’s lead in naming West Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.<\/p>\n
The move caused a domestic backlash in Australia and caused friction with neighbouring Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation — temporarily derailing a free trade deal.<\/p>\n
Jerusalem is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians, and most foreign governments avoid formally declaring it the capital of any state.<\/p>\n
“I know this has caused conflict and distress in part of the Australian community, and today the government seeks to resolve that,” Wong said.<\/p>\n
She accused the Morrison government of being motivated by a by-election in a beach-side Sydney suburb with a sizable Jewish community.<\/p>\n
“You know what this was? This was a cynical play, unsuccessful, to win the seat of Wentworth and a by-election.”<\/p>\n
The centre-left Labor party, with Anthony Albanese as prime minister and Wong as foreign minister, came to power in May 2022.<\/p>\n
Wong insisted that the decision did not signal any hostility to Israel.<\/p>\n
“Australia will always be a steadfast friend of Israel. We were amongst the first countries to formally recognise Israel,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We will not waver in our support of Israel and the Jewish community in Australia. We are equally unwavering in our support of the Palestinian people, including humanitarian support.”<\/p>\n
Israel occupied Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it, declaring the entire city its “eternal and indivisible capital”.<\/p>\n
Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of a future Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Symbolism<\/strong><\/p>\n Canberra’s decision is unlikely to come as a shock to the Israeli government.<\/p>\n The policy reversal was foreshadowed by the removal of language on the Israeli capital on the website of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.<\/p>\n But it will likely cause unease, according to Ran Porat, a historian and researcher at Melbourne’s Monash University.<\/p>\n Even though Australia is not a major player in peace talks, he said: “In the Middle East in general symbolism is very much at the centre of many conflicts. Symbolism is not negligible, it’s not unimportant.”<\/p>\n The move could be seized on Israel’s opposition Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu as evidence of the government’s failings ahead of November 1 elections.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Yair Lapid will be disappointed, Porat added, but the response “has to be walking between the disagreement and not souring relations with Canberra.”<\/p>\n (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n