The Forum > Article Comments > Australia’s Jerusalem embassy move sinks in sea of Islamic threats > Comments
Australia’s Jerusalem embassy move sinks in sea of Islamic threats : Comments
By David Singer, published 28/11/2018Indonesia and Malaysia – two Islamic states – flex their muscles on Islamic claims to Jerusalem - yet pathetically fail to financially support their Islamic brethren.
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It should have been done in support of the USA's push to try to convince the Palestinian leadership that they can't win by simply doing nothing and waiting for the whole thing to fall into their laps. A rush of nations moving their consulates might be the straw that finally causes them to negotiate in good faith.
Instead our position is now a hodgepodge of competing political positioning. Julie Bishop was a mess as Foreign Minister but I suspect she'd have done better than this.
All that said, having screwed up by announcing that they were considering the change they cannot now walk away from it in the face of such open pressuring from the Islamic neighbours.
Mahathir is an anti-semite from way back. The notion that we should style our foreign policy to suit him or to avoid terrorist attacks is ludicrous. IF we give into such threats where will it stop?
Equally we cannot let Indonesia control our policy based on economic threats. One presumes they saw some advantages for them in the Free Trade deal. Call their bluff. If they want to surrender those advantages to protect the Palestinians then let 'em. Cancel the free trade deal and then quietly advise them that we are reconsidering our foreign aid budget to favour those in the region with whom we have growing trade. Oh, "so sorry but your budget might be cut".
The Libs have caved on almost every issue since 2013. I suspect we won't see anyone suddenly growing a backbone on this issue either.