Leaders increase pressure as PM Scott Morrison set to reveal if Australia will move Israel embassy from Tel Aviv

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Palestinian leaders are lobbying Arab and other Muslim states to drop Australian exports and withdraw their ambassadors from Canberra in the event the Coalition moves Australia’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

On Saturday Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is expected to announce in an address to the Sydney Institute whether the country will move its embassy from Tel Aviv.

Morrison announced the possible embassy move in October before the Wentworth byelection, and has struggled to contain a backlash from Indonesia and other majority Muslim states before cabinet consideration of the embassy move, understood to have been completed this week.

On Friday Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian Authority official, told the website Plus 61J it was asking Arab nations to apply “boycott measures” to Australia.

“Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of live meat from Australia,” he reportedly said. “Immediately after that Morrison decision, I talked to the Saudis and said that ‘you should at least tell the Australians that means we are going to look for other [suppliers]’.”

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Shaath reportedly said that if Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries “really react negatively in their import policy from Australia then that would hurt Australia”.

“Australia is not the monopolist of the world in producing beef, corn and wheat. There are a lot of other competitors. It’s not a unique producer that no one else can substitute for.”

The threat against Australian exports echoes former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s warning that many importers of Australian agricultural products, including Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan, had “lots of sensitivities” around the embassy issue.

The embassy’s location has divided the Morrison government, with former trade minister Steve Ciobo privately suggesting there was “less than a 5% chance” of the move going ahead. The defence minister, Christopher Pyne, has suggested Australia could have two diplomatic presences in the fraught territory of Jerusalem, while the deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg, rebuked him for those comments.

Frydenberg has also lashed out at the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, over the embassy issue, accusing him of having “form” of making antisemitic remarks.

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Reports have suggested the Morrison government is eyeing a range of compromise positions, including deciding against immediately moving the embassy from Jerusalem but formally recognising it as Israel’s capital.

The head of the Palestinian delegation in Australia, Izzat Salah Abdulhadi, told the Australian that in 1980 a conference of Arab nations had resolved to cut relations with any country that moved its embassy or recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“I call upon all Arab and Muslim countries to sever all relations with Australia, if it recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” he reportedly said. “It should be noted that Arab and Muslim countries’ summits have adopted this resolution, to sever relations with any country that may do so.

“I think there are different scenarios – one … is that West Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem would be the capital of Palestine. This would be OK because we’re talking about two capitals for two states.”

In October Australia’s spy agency warned the government the proposed embassy move may “provoke protest, unrest and possibly some violence in Gaza and the West Bank”.