Palestinian leaders calling for a trade boycott against Australia following Scott Morrison’s Jerusalem announcement are being disingenuous. Those such as Nabil Shaath, one of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s closest advisers, who has demanded Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states ban our meat imports, would do well to read the full text of Mr Morrison’s carefully balanced statement and consider also the restrained response from Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim nation.
Mr Morrison went out of his way to insist that while Australia had decided to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (something it incontrovertibly has been since 1949), it would not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv until there was a two-state peace accord that included recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.
Jakarta acknowledged this clear commitment in its response. But it was not good enough for Palestinian hotheads like Mr Shaath and his colleague, the senior Palestinian leader Saeb Erekat, who declared Australia’s move “contradicts world peace and security”. Such hyperventilating reflects poorly on the Palestinian leadership.
Read the editorial in The Australian.