US Israeli Lobby Failed to Change the Australian Government Position on Jerusalem

The Guardian newspaper published a report by its correspondent for foreign affairs and defense, Daniel Hurst, entitled US group campaigning against Australia's reversal of recognition of West Jerusalem as Israeli capital. The report indicated that a US-based pro-Israeli group is campaigning against the Australian government's decision to cancel the recognition of occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds) as the capital of the Israeli Occupation state.

The campaign sparked accusations that the Los Angeles-based organization was trying to deceive the Australian government into believing that the only way to be pro-Israeli is to follow Trump's policies.

StandWithUs published a half-page advertisement in the Weekend Australian magazine claiming that Jerusalem was originally the capital of the Jewish people.

The organization urged readers to email Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Secretary of State Penny Wong via a form, urging them to reconsider their "unjustified" and poorly executed decision to reverse the Australian government's recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli Occupation.

StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein said the organization has run programs in Australia for more than a decade but is now planning to officially open an Australian office, just as they recently opened new offices in South Africa and the Netherlands.

 

Reversing the Decision

Australia announced, on October 18, that it will no longer recognize Jerusalem as the capital of "Israel," reversing a controversial decision taken by the previous conservative government. While the Palestinian Authority welcomed this decision, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that it had summoned the Australian ambassador to protest against this decision.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong stressed that the status of Jerusalem should be decided through peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians and not through unilateral decisions.

She said in a statement that the Australian embassy has always been, and still is, in Tel Aviv.

In 2018, the former conservative Australian government led by Scott Morrison followed the lead of then-US President Donald Trump, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of "Israel," in a decision that sparked widespread internal criticism.

In her statement, Wong said that she knows that the decision has caused conflict and crisis in a part of Australian society.

The minister accused the Morrison government that its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital was motivated by a desire to win a crucial by-election in a Sydney suburb that has a large Jewish community.

In her statement, Wong stressed that the decision to reverse the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of "Israel" does not entail any hostility to "Israel." However, she emphasized: "We will not waver in our support of Israel and the Jewish community in Australia. We are equally unwavering in our support of the Palestinian people, including humanitarian support."

 

Unfruitful Pressure

StandWithUs, founded in 2001, states that its goals are to "defend Israel" and fight anti-Semitism. But Rothstein has been criticized in the past for urging supporters of "Israel" to support her government's policies.

The campaign drew accusations that the Los Angeles-based organization was "trying to trick the Australian government into thinking that the only way to be pro-Israel was to follow the Trump playbook."

The StandWithUs campaign has drawn criticism from  Australia's New Israel Fund, which promotes the vision of "Israel" as a home for Jews and a democracy for all its citizens.

StandWithUs is trying to deceive the Australian government into believing that the only way to be pro-Israeli is to follow Trump's policy, said Liam Getreu, executive director of the New Israel Fund in Australia.

Getreu explained that there was a reason that not one country recognized the de facto annexation of united Jerusalem in 1967 by "Israel," and only three countries followed Trump's move of the embassy in 2017—"it's just bad foreign policy."

This follows the Australian Cabinet's decision nearly two weeks after former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's decision in 2018 to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

The Australian Advocacy Network for Palestine previously welcomed the Australian government's decision, saying Morrison's 2018 stance was a "flawed political ploy" and "shouldn't have happened in the first place."

On the other hand, the Guardian indicated that Assistant Secretary of State, Tim Watts, said in a speech to the Zionist Federation in Australia last Saturday that Australia's commitment to "Israel" has not been shaken at all.

It reported that Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, thanked Watts for taking the time to honestly listen to our concerns but emphasized that the Australian Jewish community was deeply disappointed by the reversal of Australian government policy.

 

Big Fallacies

In an interview with Al-Estiklal, the political activist Khalida said: "The fallacies used by the Israelis and their supporters to overturn the facts are many and varied. To begin with, any criticism of their attacks on the Palestinians is considered a form of anti-Semitism. Moreover, they regularly repeat that Palestine is a historical land inhabited by the Jews for centuries. They are trying to obliterate the fact that they migrated to it after the Balfour Declaration while displacing Palestine's indigenous population."

During speeches at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which represents the Israeli pressure groups in the United States, the speakers used words and vocabulary in devious ways and methods that distorted their meaning.

On the opening day, for example, both the new chairman of the Mort Friedman Committee and former Democratic Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm tampered with the word "progressive." Motivated by the results of recent opinion polls that showed that "Israel" has lost support among left-wing Americans, Friedman appealed to American progressives to recognize that "the progressive discourse of Israel is convincing."

As for the thing that the speaker deliberately and insistently neglected, it is related to the existing fact that this "progressive state" has turned into an entity that practices "apartheid" racial discrimination and occupies the lands of the Palestinians, oppresses them, and denies them all their rights. It confiscated their lands until their daily lives became hell on earth. With the Israeli government turning more to the right, it mired in corruption and banned religious freedoms.

Fortunately, the story did not end there because opinion polls suggest a new movement in public opinion about the attitude towards "Israel" and the Palestinians. Although Republicans, including neo-conservatives, are still on the side of "Israel," Democrats are divided on this issue. There is no doubt that the deadly debate between truth and hypocrisy will continue at the AIPAC conference.