Australia has hit back at Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu after he branded the country’s prime minister “weak”, with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people.
In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster on Wednesday, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.
Burke’s comments come after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media, claiming he would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
Speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state.
“Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there’s a decision that we know Israel won’t like, he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu,” Burke said.
“He has the conversation, he says exactly what we’re intending to do, and has the chance for the objections to be made person to person. And then having heard them, makes public announcement and then does what needs to be done.”
Relations between Australia and Israel, traditionally close allies, have progressively soured in recent months amid tensions over the war in Gaza, but ties have become especially acrimonious since Canberra’s announcement last week that it would recognise a Palestinian state.
On Monday, Australia announced that it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker with Israel’s far-right Mafdal-Religious Zionism party and a member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that a planned speaking tour in the country aimed to “spread division”.
Hours after that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said he had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority.
Israel has come under growing international pressure, including from many of its traditional allies, over the level of human suffering being inflicted by its war in Gaza.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it launched its military offensive following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli communities, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
