Early this morning, Australian prime minster Anthony Albanese, of the Labor Party, reversed a 2018 decision of Scott Morrison, his conservative predecessor, to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It’s already causing a diplomatic kerfuffle.
Albanese’s decision is an ignoble display of cowardice. The move is a pusillanimous capitulation to those who seek to delegitimize the Jewish State.
Some argue that declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel gratuitously exacerbates hostilities and prejudicates the outcome of a final-status agreement. This fallacy needs to be put to rest once and for all.
The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and despite some minor flareups, the region didn’t devolve into a Hobbesian maelstrom. The Middle East is still the same mess it’s been for decades, and we still got the Abraham Accords and a new maritime border deal with Lebanon.
You also can’t lay the groundwork for a lasting accord between the Israelis and Palestinians on the flimsy foundations of fantasy. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is a simple acknowledgment of reality. While Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, the Holy City is where nearly all Israeli government institutions are. The Palestinians’ administrative headquarters are in Ramallah, not the City of Gold.
Moreover, it’s not like Morrison’s position was particularly extreme. Unlike the Trump-era change in policy, the erstwhile prime minister only recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, not the entirety of the city. The declaration had no prejudicial bearing on the result of future peace negotiations. And it didn’t make Australia an outlier in the international community either. Russia, one of the parties to the Middle East Quartet, considers West Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, too.
Ultimately, this Aussie about-face will do nothing to alleviate the Palestinian people’s plight and serve only to damage Israeli–Australian relations and bolster the anti-Zionist narrative.