Political controversy broke out immediately after the massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the forefront.
For the politician incapable of defending Israel from the terrible attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023, in the end the responsibility for the devastating massacre that occurred during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah in Bondi lies with only one man: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Netanyahu does not forgive Albanese for having announced the recognition of the State of Palestine. “History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australian Jews,” Netanyahu thundered in August. A very serious accusation, which had pushed the leader of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, to define Netanyhau as “the most politically toxic leader in the Western world”. Anthony Albanese then recognized the State of Palestine in September, at the United Nations General Assembly.
Yesterday Netanyahu returned to office. Albanese has “replaced weakness with even more weakness”, the Israeli prime minister denounced on Sunday, recalling a letter he had sent to him and deploring that the Australian government had “done nothing to stop the spread of anti-Semitism” in the country.
“This is a time for Australians to unite. And that’s what we’re going to do,” Albanese replied. “We must hold in our arms,” he added, “the members of the Jewish community who are going through an extraordinarily difficult time, not just those who are mourning their loved ones and friends, but every member of the Jewish community in Australia. It has been an extraordinarily traumatic 24 hours. My job is to provide support to the Jewish community, it is to make clear that Australians are overwhelmingly on the side of the Jewish community in this difficult time.”
Between October 2023 and October 2024, the Australian Jewish Community Executive Council recorded 2,062 reports nationally, followed by 1,654 in the following twelve months, according to its annual reports.
Among the most serious acts: the fire of a kosher café in the Bondi district, in October 2024, and that of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, in December 2024. According to the authorities, both attacks were ordered by Tehran, hence the decision to expel four Iranian diplomats in August, including Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi.
Asked during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation whether he saw a link between Palestinian state recognition and the terrorist attack on Bondi Beach, Albanese replied: “No, I don’t.”. “And overwhelmingly, most of the world recognizes that a two-state solution is the way forward in the Middle East,” he added.
As a note Matthew DoranJerusalem correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the political clash between Netanyahu and Albanese demonstrates “the inherent difficulty for world leaders to recognize and address the concerns of the Jewish community, while balancing the responsibility to question Israel’s conduct when presented with allegations and evidence of serious misconduct in the war on Gaza. All this while addressing genuine concerns related to the humanitarian crisis affecting the Palestinian population.”
