(MENAFN- The Conversation) The Albanese Labor government's to reverse its predecessor's recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital has elicited a predictable reaction from Israel and its supporters in Australia.
Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid what he described as a“hasty response” to indications in the Australian media Canberra was about to shift ground on recognition of West Jerusalem.
Guardian Australia had a change on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.
In Australia, Colin Rubenstein, spokesman for the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the reversal a“pointless own goal”.
Is this true?
The short answer is that it is unlikely Australia's“credibility” will be harmed by a decision that reinstates what has been, until recently, a status quo policy under successive Labor and Coalition governments.
Rather, the decision announced by Foreign Minister Penny Wong will likely reinforce Canberra's reputation as a middle power seeking to navigate its way in the shifting sands of Middle East politics.
Importantly, Australia's neighbours in the region, including principally , have welcomed the decision.
The simple fact is Australia has now realigned itself with all its friends and allies, with the exception of the United States, in its decision to again recognise Tel Aviv as Israel's capital.
Under US President Donald Trump, Washington had from the policy of his predecessors and recognised West Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2017. The following year, the US embassy was moved there.
The Morrison government then , without moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This was a half, or three-quarter, step towards all-out recognition.
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Circumstances surrounding Canberra's precipitate decision in 2018 to recognise west Jerusalem as Israel's capital are relevant.
That decision coincided with the lead-up to a in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, where there is a significant Jewish population. The byelection was called to fill a casual vacancy caused by the resignation from parliament of former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull.
As it turned out, the Morrison government's decision to overturn what had been settled Australian policy did not yield the desired result. The independent Kerryn Phelps won the seat.
The decision to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital came in the lead-up to the hotly contested 2018 Wentworth byelection. Dean Lewins/AAP In all of this, history is important.
In the years since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, successive Australian governments, Coalition and Labor, had adhered to a policy of not recognising West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. This decision was made pending final status negotiations on the future of the city.
Until the 1967 , following Israel's in 1948, Jerusalem was a divided city between its west, which is the seat of the Israeli government, and east, then under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
That ended with Israel's smashing victory over the Arabs in 1967. Israel occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank, Syria's Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip until then under Egyptian mandate, and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
In six days, Israel had turned the map of the Middle East upside down.
This was followed by the , in which Egypt sought to wrest back the Sinai from its Israeli occupiers. After making initial inroads along the Suez Canal, Egypt was on the verge of a heavy defeat when America brokered a ceasefire and laid the ground for what became the .
This ushered in a cold peace between Israel and Egypt, with Israel withdrawing from virtually all of the Sinai.
In the years since Camp David, repeated attempted by successive American administrations to between Israel and the Palestinians under a two-state formula have failed, even as Israel has continued to settle territory seized in 1967.
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This is the background to Wong's that Australia had“reaffirmed'' its
There was a sting in the tail to Wong's announcement.
Labor's own political interests are not absent from this statement. The government holds a swag of seats in western Sydney and north and west of Melbourne where the issue of Palestine is among voter concerns.
Much has been made of the messy way in which the Wong announcement was made. Due to diligent reporting by Guardian Australia, Labor's pending shift was revealed.
Wong was then put in a position of first denying there had been a change without a cabinet decision, and then making her announcement. This clumsiness should not have happened on such an important policy shift, given the domestic political sensitivities involved.
All of this brings into focus Labor's on the Israel-Palestine dispute.
At its 2018 National Conference and reaffirmed at its 2021 conference, its policy states that a Labor government:
This does not mean Labor will be in any rush to recognise Palestine as a state separate from a full-blown peace process in which a two-state solution becomes a reality. Since there is little chance of that happening in the foreseeable future, Labor's national conference policy will remain 'on the books” as a potential irritant to Israel's supporters in Australia, but no more than that for the time being.