Morrison must show strength in his Israel decision

If seeming to move an embassy for domestic political gain was bad, seeming not to move an embassy due to foreign political pressure would be far, far worse, writes Peta Credlin.

Despite its good intentions, the Morrison government has got itself in to a dreadful bind with its review into whether we should shift our embassy in Israel.

Of course, there’s strong arguments for doing just that.

Since 1950, West Jerusalem — and not Tel Aviv where our embassy is now — has been Israel’s capital. That’s where the parliament sits, the administration resides, and the prime minister and ministers have their offices.

And West Jerusalem, where all this takes place, and where our embassy would go, is in the internationally recognised territory of Israel. It’s East Jerusalem that’s contentious. That’s the territory that Israel seized from Jordan during the Six Days War in 1967 and that would become the capital of Palestine in any two-state solution that the Arab and Muslim world might finally agree to.

How would we feel, for instance, if other countries refused to recognise Canberra as capital of Australia and refused to put their embassies in the ACT because, say, indigenous groups objected?

Quite rightly, we would regard it as highly disrespectful; after all a sovereign nation gets to choose its own capital surely? Yet for Israel it seems different rules apply.

The Morrison government has got itself in to a dreadful bind with its review into whether we should shift our embassy in Israel. Picture: David Moir/AFP

Unlike Australia, Israel has always had to live with neighbours questioning its right to exist and arming themselves accordingly.

Moving our embassy to Jerusalem would be an act of solidarity with the only functioning liberal democracy in the Middle East; doing what we can to bolster their sovereignty is in our national interest, and the security of the wider West.

Of course, this has only become an issue because, unlike all of his recent predecessors, who promised to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but reneged once in office, Donald Trump has actually honoured his pre-election commitment. There was the usual outrage and some token riots in the Middle East but otherwise, everyone has taken in their stride shifting the US embassy to Israel’s capital. That was the background to the proposal from our highly-regarded former ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, that Australia should consider moving its embassy too; and announce that, should the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist behind secure borders, we’d put our embassy to any Palestinian state in East Jerusalem.

Moving our embassy in other words, would be a way of moving forward the stalled peace process by offering the same thing to both sides. The Prime Minister’s problem was not that he agreed with Sharma’s sensible advice but that he announced that he was considering it in the midst of a hard-fought by-election campaign.

The PM’s problem was not that he agreed with Sharma’s advice but that he announced that he was considering it in the midst of a by-election campaign. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

It made what was an assertion of common sense and decency look like a cynical electoral ploy, like Labor scaling back its support for Israel to shore up Muslim votes in Western Sydney.

There was also another problem. By announcing a review rather than a decision, the government has allowed space for the kind of international bullying that we’re now seeing from Indonesia and Malaysia. The trouble with policy-on-the-run is that it’s more prone than usual to fall foul of unintended consequences.

No one it seemed, had thought of the potential impact on the Indonesian trade deal that otherwise would have been signed by now.

And no one seemed to have considered the potential for both our large Muslim neighbours to ostracise us on behalf of their religious brothers in the Middle East. (Of course, to be fair, if he had decided on a move first up, Morrison would have been condemned for failing to consult; my issue is less the review, more the timing). Relations with both these prickly neighbours have been in the deep freeze before. In 2014, allegations that Kevin Rudd’s government had spied on the then-Indonesian president’s wife interrupted official co-operation on anti-people smuggling operations, making Abbott’s job much harder.

President Trump has honoured his pre-election commitment to move the US embassy. Picture: AP/Evan Vucci

Our history with Dr Mahathir goes back to his last stint as PM when Malaysia supposedly blackballed Australia from official dialogue partner status with ASEAN. At one level it would be a pity to lose the Indonesian FTA because its economic importance will surely grow over time.

But good government is about the tough decisions, not the easy ones and Australia must be able to weigh up decisions based on defending what’s right, and our values, as carefully as we might any economic wins.

If seeming to move an embassy for domestic political gain was bad, seeming not to move an embassy due to foreign political pressure would be far, far worse.

Now that both our Muslim neighbours have piled on, Scott Morrison is damned if he does and even more damned if he doesn’t. Comments from Malaysia about possible Islamic terrorist reprisals here are the very reason we don’t take foreign policy dictation from others. What kind of country fails to pursue its interests or its values because it might upset a prickly neighbour?

Only one that had better get used to being pushed around.