Morrison called a press conference to say he was “open-minded” to proposals to formally recognise\u00a0Jerusalem<\/a>\u00a0as the capital of\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0and move his nation’s embassy to the holy city, a sharp break with the policy of successive Australian governments for decades.<\/p>\n “We’re committed to a two-state solution, but frankly it hasn’t been going that well, not a lot of progress has been made, and you don’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results,” Morrison said.<\/p>\n He described proposals to recognise Jerusalem and move Australia’s embassy as “sensible” and “persuasive” and would be considered by government.<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying he had discussed the possible embassy move with Morrison.<\/p>\n “He informed me that he is considering officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel & moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem. I’m very thankful to him for this,” Netanyahu tweeted.<\/p>\n The surprise announcement came just days before a crucial parliamentary byelection in a heavily Jewish Sydney constituency where the candidate for Morrison’s Liberal party, a former ambassador to Israel, is trailing in opinion polls.<\/p>\n A loss in the election would wipe out Morrison’s one-seat majority in parliament.<\/p>\n “Scott Morrison is now so desperate to hang on to his job, he is prepared to say anything if he thinks it will win him a few more votes — even at the cost of Australia’s national interest,” said the opposition Labour party foreign policy spokeswoman Penny Wong.<\/p>\n Morrison came to power last month after a revolt by hardline conservatives in the Liberal party\u00a0ousted<\/a>his more moderate predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull.<\/p>\n Turnbull’s government had explicitly distanced itself from the decision by Trump to\u00a0move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem<\/a>\u00a0as “unhelpful” to the peace process.<\/p>\n Morrison rejected suggestions that his decision to consider following Trump’s lead was a result of US pressure or related to the byelection in Sydney’s Wentworth district on Saturday.<\/p>\n “I have made this decision without any reference to the United States,” he said. “It has not come up in any discussion that I have had with the president or officials.”<\/p>\n Trump’s move ruptured decades of international consensus that Jerusalem’s status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20181016-australia-pm-morrison-says-may-move-israel-embassy-jerusalem<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia is considering moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Tuesday, following the lead of US President Donald Trump. Morrison called a press conference to say he was “open-minded” to proposals to formally recognise\u00a0Jerusalem\u00a0as the capital of\u00a0Israel\u00a0and move his nation’s embassy to the holy city, a sharp break with the policy of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2155,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions\/2155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}