Aus Reversed Its Stance On West Jerusalem, But Palestinians Were Left Out Of The Conversation

The Federal Labor Government hastily reversed the previous Morrison Government’s recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Tuesday, a move which it said was in support of Palestinian people in the Israeli-occupied territory. The decision drew criticism from Israeli diplomats and Zionist groups and media organisations were quick to jump on these stories. But Palestinian voices barely featured in the narrative. Palestinian groups have publicly supported

Why is Jerusalem contested?

Indigenous peoplesBritish Mandate for PalestineMore than five times as many Palestinians have died than Israelites, most civilians

The reversal of West Jerusalem’s recognition as Israel’s capital takes us back to square one

Donald TrumpScott Morrison“It’s not a breakthrough because it’s basically taking Australia back to its previous policies,” political analyst and activist with the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network Noura Mansour told PEDESTRIAN.TV.“It’s not a step forward for the Australian government, it’s a step back to its initial and longstanding position of supporting the two-state solution … which wasn’t a good position to be in for Palestinians to be in anyway.“It’s a futile proposal because what’s happening on the ground, there is no prospect for Palestinian statehood to exist.”

The actual lives of Palestinians, and the violence we endure, don’t figure at all in the political calculations of these people. That is why they cling to the hopeless “two-state solution” despite having done nothing to try to keep it viable when settlements started going up.

— Fahad Ali | فهد علي (@fahad_s_ali) October 18, 2022

How have Palestinian groups reacted to the West Jerusalem Reversal?

Palestinian-Australian author and academic Randa Abel Fattah said now’s the time to be discussing the issue more broadly.“When it comes to the reversal, which of course we welcome, the broader implications of this in terms of the settler-colonial project that is being enacted by Israel in Jerusalem are completely missing from the conversation,” she told PEDESTRIAN.TV.“We don’t want the Australian government to be blocking investigations into Israeli war crimes [and] we want it to recognise that Palestinian people have the right to self-determination. “A step forward would be for the government to recognise the right of Palestinian people to return home … for Palestinian people to live safely and freely,” she said.

What has Labor said about the West Jerusalem reversal?

Anthony Albanesestood by his decisionGuardian Australia journalists questionedrevealed the change in a story published at 4pm Monday.

This is the kind of arrogance that the colony of Israel expresses at the most minor of foreign policy changes: deleting a sentence from the DFAT website. pic.twitter.com/LjxXCG2wEe

— Fahad Ali | فهد علي (@fahad_s_ali) October 18, 2022

Penny Wongshe announced the reversal had just been signed off

The media coverage of the reversal has ignored Palestinians

Seeing a lot of “reaction” pieces on Australia’s decision to reverse its decision on West Jerusalem, but few Palestinian voices among them.

Cover this properly. Of course pro-Israel groups are going to be ‘outraged’ … the story doesn’t start and end there. — Antoun Issa (@antissa) October 18, 2022

“If we demand critical media scrutiny of this announcement then we can actually start to hold Labor to account on the idea of this two-state solution [which] neither Israel nor Palestine wants.“It’s again us having to constantly say, ‘can we talk about the bigger issues here?’”

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