Australia is expected to join a US-led resolution today condemning the militant Palestinian organisation Hamas for firing rockets into Israel, in a further demonstration of the hawkish shift in Middle-East policy under Scott Morrison.
It follows the unprecedented move by Australia last week to vote for the first time against a UN resolution that explicitly denies Israel’s claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem.
With cabinet due to decide in the next two weeks whether to move Australia’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the UN vote represents a formal change in position following a history of either abstaining or voting yes on what has become an annual denunciation of Israel by the UN.
The Prime Minister revealed other world leaders had raised the issue of the embassy with him at the G20 meeting last weekend but would not reveal what views any of them had expressed.
Australia last week was one of only 10 countries that voted with Israel against the UN resolution that makes “null and void” any claims by Israel to Jerusalem as its capital. A total of 148 countries voted “yes”, with an increase in the number of countries abstaining to 14. Australia stood with the US, Canada, Nauru, Micronesia, Palau, Guatemala, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Israel.
Read the article by Simon Benson in The Australian.