Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has offered a withering assessment of Scott Morrison’s decision to float the idea of moving the Australian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Mr Morrison proposed the idea of moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during the October 2018 Wentworth by-election campaign.
It followed US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US’s embassy in Israel would move to to Jerusalem, effectively recognising the historically disputed Middle Eastern city as Israel’s capital.
However, Mr Turnbull told a charity event on Sunday this was “a really dumb thing” that showed a “a patronising insensitivity” and a “complete misunderstanding” of the Australian Jewish community, according to the Jewish News.
“Whatever your views on the merits of that, I thought the timing was just calculated to win support … It showed a patronising insensitivity to the Jewish community,” he said.
“We all do dumb things in our lives, so do governments and politicians.
“Personally, I think the government’s position on that, to leave the embassy where it was, and not change the position, was the right one.”
Read the article by Carley Olley in The New Daily.