Palestine Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry Tuesday condemned Fijian Prime Minister of Sitiveni Rabuka’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
It slammed the decision as a violation of international law and the United Nations resolutions on the legal and political status of the city of Jerusalem and the Palestinian people’s just and legitimate rights.
It considered the decision an act of aggression on the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights and as a step that not only demonstrates the fact that Fiji has chosen the wrong side of history, but that also imperils the prospects for peace based on the principle of the two-state solution, amounts to normalisation with Israeli settler-colonialism and occupation and constitutes a blatant defiance of the relevant UN resolutions, at a time when Israel, the occupying state, has stepped up its aggression throughout Palestine to displace Palestinians.
It affirmed that it would take the necessary diplomatic, legal, and political steps to prosecute the countries that opened or relocated their embassies to Jerusalem and demanded that the government of Fiji immediately reverse this decision.
Meanwhile, Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’a has congratulated Fiji for its decision to open an embassy in Israel’s capital Jerusalem.
“I congratulate Fiji on its decision to open an embassy in Israel, in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. I thank Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, a friend of Israel, for passing the decision today in the Fijian government,” he wrote on X.
Rabuka told Sa’ar at the Munich Security Conference last week that his government was about to take a decision on the issue.
The Fijian embassy will join the embassies of the U.S, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay in Jerusalem. The other nations have not recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and are keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv.
“We will continue to work to open and move additional embassies to Jerusalem, our capital,” Sa’ar declared.
The Fijian government had been considering opening an embassy in Jerusalem for some time.
According to the Times of Israel, Rabuka told Roi Rosenblit, Israel’s ambassador to the Pacific island countries, “My personal feeling is that Jerusalem should be the location of our new Fiji embassy, but I will have to sell this to our coalition partners.”
The Fijian people are known as being among the friendliest toward Israel. Last year, Fijian leaders were among a group of representatives from indigenous groups across the globe, including Native Americans, Taiwanese and others, who visited Jerusalem to declare the Jewish people as the first of the “First Nations.”
Shortly before the war broke out, a delegation of over 200 people chartered a special flight from Fiji Airways to join the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, led by Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka.
