Andrew Bolt: Australia has turned its back on Israel, to our shame

The most disgusting foreign policy decision in decades is now being praised by killers throughout the Middle East.

Australia has been shamed. Thanks to the Albanese Government, we’re applauded by the world’s worst Jew-hating terrorists.

Judged by that, Foreign Minister Penny Wong has just made the most disgusting foreign policy decision in decades by cancelling our official recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Wong says she’s done this to encourage a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians, but is now praised by killers throughout the Middle East – including two organisations on Australia’s official list of terrorists.

Hamas, the terrorist ruler of Gaza, praised Wong for a “step in the right direction” – which the Hamas Charter defines as the total destruction of “racist, aggressive, colonial” Israel.

Penny Wong has received praise from Hamas, the terrorist ruler of Gaza. Picture: Gary Ramage

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad likewise praised Wong for this “victory” in its cause.

Also singing Wong’s praises is the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which pays the families of dead terrorists a pension through its “Martyrs’ Fund”.

Throughout terrorist havens in the Middle East, the word has gone out that Australia has turned its back on Israel, the region’s only true democracy.

Wong’s U-turn has been reported by, for instance, the official newsagency of the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, and by news outlets in Iran which preach “death to Israel”. No wonder Israel is so appalled that Prime Minister Yair Lapid said he could only “hope that the Australian government manages other matters more seriously and professionally”.

How could the Albanese Government have caused terrorists to cheer, and a democracy to despair?

Wong excused this by claiming on Tuesday the Morrison Government originally recognised West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2018 just to “play politics”, but the politics I smell here are the stinking ethnic politics of Labor.

Hamas described Wong’s decision as a step in the right direction. Picture: AFP

The maths tell the story. Australia has more than 800,000 Muslims, and just 100,000 Jews. Many Muslims are in Labor seats, particularly marginal seats in Sydney’s west.

Indeed, in 2012, former NSW Premier Bob Carr led Labor MPs in a successful revolt against then prime minister Julia Gillard when she wanted Australia to abstain from a vote to give Palestine observer status at the United Nations.

As The Australian revealed: “Cabinet ministers began to complain … many Labor seats were affected by Middle Eastern populations.”

Mind you, the Left also has a hangup with capitalist countries like Israel, particularly ones hated by “oppressed” people who aren’t white.

Wong tried on Tuesday to give this poisonous politicking some intellectual gloss. Morrison’s decision, she said, had caused “distress … to many people in the Australian community” – as in Muslims.

So that’s why we change a policy? To soothe the hurt feelings of an ethnic minority?

She tried again. Recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “put Australia out of step with the majority of the international community”.

Like who? Iran? China? Yemen? Syria?

In fact, recognising Jerusalem put Australia in step with reality. Jerusalem is the city which has Israel’s parliament. As long as Israel lives, Jerusalem will be its capital.

But no, said Wong, that’s to be “resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian peoples”, and the Albanese Government “will not support an approach that undermines this prospect”.

In fact, Wong is undermining any peace by rewarding extremists.

For decades Palestinian “leaders” rejected peace deals, knowing that as long as they held out they’d get millions – even billions – of dollars of aid, which they could then loot.

Holding out on recognising Jerusalem was just one more blackmail card.

It was US president Donald Trump who exposed the hoax, first by offering the Palestinians massive aid for a peace deal, and then – when he got the usual cold shoulder – announcing the US would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a decision President Joe Biden has not revoked.

Arab countries realised Palestinian leaders were dead-end warriors. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco all signed Trump-backed peace deals with Israel. The terrorists lost. Peace grew.

But now the Albanese Government is giving the extremists an extra bargaining chip – the status of Jerusalem. This is not to help peace, but to hurt Israel.

You see, the official policy of the Labor Party is not to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but “to recognise Palestine as a state”.

But which state would Labor recognise? Gaza, ruled by the Hamas terrorist group, or the West Bank, under a Fatah president who’s refused to call a second election since the one 15 years ago?

These are the people Labor is pandering to, while weakening the Israeli democracy,

To our shame. No wonder terrorists are cheering.