Labor MP Ed Husic has “deep concerns” about the impending visit of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, saying it is hard to reconcile concepts of social cohesion with the 2023 image of the leader signing an artillery shell about to be dropped on Gaza.
Husic said he did not believe it was a good decision for his Labor government to issue an invitation for Herzog to visit Australia, which was done in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
He also said he backed the right of Australians to peacefully protest against the actions of the Israeli government over its bombardment of Gaza, calling it a “slur” to link major protests against the war to the Bondi shooting at a Jewish festival.
“I’m obviously very uncomfortable about this visit, largely because president Herzog has said some things that have attempted to sheet home responsibility for October 7 to an entire population,” Husic told Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast.
“This had attracted the attention of the international court of justice. And you’ve got, obviously, indictments from the international criminal court that are at play.
“It’s really hard for me to reconcile the vision of him signing bombs that went on to be dropped on Palestinian homes … with the notion of social cohesion. So from that perspective, I’ve obviously got deep concerns.”
A charge of genocide against Israel has been brought before the international court of justice by South Africa, but the court has yet to issue its judgment.
Separately, the international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defence secretary Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes.
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No warrant has been issued for Herzog.
Herzog will visit Australia next week at the invitation of the governor general, Sam Mostyn, to meet Jewish communities after the Bondi terror attack, where 15 people were killed at a Hanukah festival in December 2025.
Herzog is Israel’s head of state, as opposed to Netanyahu, who wields executive power as the nation’s prime minister.
Asked whether it was a mistake for the government to invite Herzog to visit, Husic said: “I’m entitled to have a differing view and my view is I don’t think that this was a good decision, but it’s going to happen. Nothing I can say about that is going to stop that.”
Albanese has said it is “entirely appropriate for the head of state to visit” Australia after the Bondi attack, but Herzog’s visit will be met by protests from pro-Palestine groups as a growing number of politicians – both inside and outside Labor – raise concern about Israel’s war on Gaza and resulting civilian death toll.
Critics of Herzog’s visit have pointed to the United Nations commission of inquiry’s conclusion in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. That commission, which does not speak on behalf of the UN, stated Herzog, Netanyahu and Gallant “incited the commission of genocide”.
The report quoted Herzog in October 2023 saying about Gaza: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true.”
Israel’s foreign ministry has previously rejected the report, calling it “distorted and false” and claiming it “relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods”.
Herzog has denied the incitement allegations and has called the separate genocide case against Israel in the international court of justice a “form of blood libel”. He pushed back on criticism of his comments about the Gaza war, saying they were taken out of context and noting he had said Israel would respect international law and there was no excuse for the killing of innocent civilians.
Husic said he understood that Herzog had claimed to have been misrepresented by the criticisms against him, and suggested the president could use his visit to discuss a lasting peace in the Middle East and Palestinian statehood.
“But in the absence of that, I just don’t see how his visit would add, given the concerns that exist around his positioning,” Husic said. “He’s part of the leadership of a nation that has undertaken, or its conduct has failed to distinguish between civilian and combatants in devastating ways when you see the number of people that have been killed.
“The hardest thing for me has been the impact on children, that they should not be shouldering the burden for what happened on October 7. And we should have leaders be able to say, ‘that’s not the way to go’.”
Three state Labor MPs have said they would join demonstrations against Herzog, while concerns about the visit have been raised by federal MP Sophie Scamps and the federal Greens. The Labor Friends of Palestine group has also asked the government to rescind Herzog’s invitation.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Gaza war has surpassed 70,000, Gaza’s health ministry said in November, after 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas terror attack of 7 October 2023. Israel’s military recently accepted that death toll was broadly accurate.
Husic said international bodies should be allowed to investigate the conflict in Gaza, and that decisions made through that campaign required “accountability”. He went on to say that protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – one of which he attended at the Sydney Harbour Bridge – had been unfairly maligned.
“I do think it’s a massive slight against Australians who had genuine concern about what they were seeing in Gaza and who came out in record numbers, who have marched peacefully week in, week out to show the depth of their concern – that that be linked to that horrific event we saw in Bondi,” he said.
“The ability for people to suggest that the March for Humanity led to the horror of Bondi is simply wrong, and is a slur … in particular, when I marched, I saw a lot of middle Australia on that bridge.”
