Australian Foreign Minister Announces Change to Recognition of Jerusalem

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong speaks during the Labor Party election campaign launch at Optus Stadium in Perth, Australia, on May 1, 2022. Paul Kane/Getty Images

Australia’s Labor government has announced that they will be walking back the previous government’s policy of recognising West Jerusalem as the capital of the country.

This comes after a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, on Oct. 18, told The Guardian that  “no decision to change” had been made by the government after the Australian media reported that key sentences on its website related to Australia-Israel relations had been altered.

The removed sentences included:

“In December 2018, Australia recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, being the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of the Israeli government.

“Australia looks forward to moving its embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after the final status determination of, a two-state solution.” However, hours later, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong issued a statement that the federal government had reaffirmed Australia’s “previous and longstanding position that Jerusalem is a final status issue that should be resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people.”

“This reverses the Morrison Government’s recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” she said.

“Australia is committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognised borders.

“We will not support an approach that undermines this prospect.”

Wong blamed the reversal of the decision on the actions of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and said that she regretted that Morrison’s “decision to play politics” had caused distress to many people in the Australian community.

“Australia will always be a steadfast friend of Israel. We were among the first countries to formally recognise Israel under Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley. This Government will not waver in its support of Israel and the Jewish community in Australia,” she said. “We are equally unwavering supporters of the Palestinian people, providing humanitarian support every year since 1951 and advocating for resumed peace negotiations.”

Wong has been vocal in her criticism of the December 2018 decision by the Morrison government to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which followed the same decision by the U.S. Trump administration.

“Labor does not support unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and in government would reverse this decision. The status of Jerusalem can only be resolved as part of any peace negotiations and two-state solution,” Wong wrote on Twitter at the time.

Jerusalem's Western Wall with the golden Dome of the Rock near Al-Aqsa mosque in the background. Genevieve Long/The Epoch Times

Labor Party’s History of Support for Palestine

Last year, the centre-left Labor Party pledged to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state if it won government.

Arthur Tane, executive director of The Council of Middle East Relations in Canberra, said the Labor Party’s announcement “came out of nowhere.”

“The state of Palestine is not known for its democracy. You have a limited number of parties, all with the same kind of platform. They are very anti-Israeli, and very much in support of the destruction of Israel,” he previously told The Epoch Times.

“Is Albanese trying to strengthen his position among the left? Is a challenge coming his way? Because it is really unusual that it should have occurred at this time.”

One major challenge to normalising relations in the Middle East has been the refusal of certain Arab leaders to entertain the possibility of Israel being a sovereign nation.

This stance has underpinned decades-long aggression, conflict, and instability in the region.