One in all Scott Morrison’s first acts as prime minister was to announce an as but unfulfilled plan to maneuver Australia’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. 

It was terrible geopolitics. The embassy transfer is a large flashpoint in Muslim-majority international locations, and had the potential to poison relations with neighbours like Indonesia and Malaysia. However, simply months earlier than, the Trump administration had moved its embassy, a long-term aim of each highly effective pro-Israel foyer teams and Evangelical Christians, triggering mass protests throughout the Center East. And proper after Morrison’s announcement there was a byelection in Wentworth, a seat with a excessive Jewish inhabitants. 

Whether or not the choice was a thought bubble, an opportunistic little bit of home politicking, or an try and curry favour with the Trump administration, wanting again, it nonetheless bears lots of the hallmarks of what “the ScoMo doctrine” has been about.