Australian PM Nixes Proposal to Move Embassy to Yerushalayim

YERUSHALAYIM

The Trump administration may move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, but at least one country will not be jumping on that bandwagon.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Australia “does not have any plans to move the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.

Bishop was responding to a call from former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to move the embassy and to cut Australian funding to Palestinians.

Abbott argued in an opinion piece that “Australia should cut our $40 million a year aid to the Palestinian Authority while it keeps paying pensions to terrorists and their families,” adding that Australia should demonstrate its “support for Israel” by mirroring Trump’s plan to “move its embassy…”

Bishop nixed both recommendations, and explained that Australian assistance to the Palestinian Authority is based on a “zero tolerance policy” for fraud and corruption.

Head of the Palestinian delegation in Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, threatened financial reprisals from Muslim countries if Australia were to change its policy.

Relocation of the Australian embassy “would be met with widespread condemnation and potentially sanctions.”

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