Australian PM rejects Netanyahu’s linking of Palestine recognition to Bondi attack
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that his government’s recognition of Palestinian statehood earlier this year “pours fuel” on an “antisemitic fire.”
Asked during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation if he sees a link between that action and the deadly Bondi Beach Hanukkah terror attack, in which at least 15 people were killed when a father and son opened fire on a Hanukkah event, Albanese responded: “No, I don’t.”
“And overwhelmingly, most of the world recognizes a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East,” he added.
Albanese was also asked about comments Netanyahu made Sunday in which he referenced a letter he wrote to the Australian prime minister in August urging him to “replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve.” Instead, Netanyahu said following the terror attack, “You replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement.”
Asked to respond, Albanese said only that his role “at this time is to bring the nation together, is to promote unity” and that the terrorists seek “to divide us as a nation, to pitch Australian against Australian.”
“We need to wrap our arms around members of the Jewish community who are going through an extraordinarily difficult period, not just those who are grieving loved ones and friends, but every member of the Jewish community in Australia,” he continued. “This has been an extraordinarily traumatic 24 hours. My job is to provide support for the Jewish community, is to make it clear that Australians overwhelmingly stand with the Jewish community at this difficult time.”
Albanese was asked a similar question at a press conference early Monday morning local time, and dodged it entirely, saying only that it was a time for “national unity.”
Questioned on whether Australian security authorities had failed to protect the Jewish community, Albanese said during the press conference that “our authorities do an extraordinary job,” and “will conduct a thorough investigation.”
The Australian prime minister also declined to take any responsibility for ignoring months of warnings from the Jewish community.
Asked if he had failed Jewish Australians, Albanese said that “my government will continue to stand with Jewish Australians and will continue to stamp out antisemitism in all its forms.”
The head of the Australian Jewish Association said the Bondi shooting was a “tragedy but entirely foreseeable.” The government has “failed to take adequate actions to protect the Jewish community,” Robert Gregory told AFP.
The government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, said Monday that antisemitism has been “seeping into society for many years and we have not come out strongly enough against it.”
The Bondi shooting was “an attack on Australia, not just on the Jewish community,” she told public broadcaster ABC.
Segal issued a 16-page report in July, which made a broad set of recommendations, including strengthening hate and intimidation laws, improving education about the Holocaust and other issues, and holding universities accountable for antisemitism.
In his comments on Sunday, Netanyahu said Albanese’s “government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
Albanese on Monday rejected accusations that he had failed to act on Segal’s recommendations.
“We have acted and will continue to act on the implementation of the plan,” he told reporters, listing steps such as criminalizing hate speech, banning the Nazi salute and hate symbols, and creating a student ombudsman with investigative powers.
Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said Monday that Australia’s Jewish community has felt “very alone these last few years, very alone, very abandoned, very isolated, very forgotten.”
Speaking to ABC News, Morrison, who led the country from 2018 to 2022, said that “at this moment, the country is putting their arms around them, and I’m very pleased for them.”
But the local Jewish community has had a “hard road since October 7,” he said.
“As each day has passed, we have just seen antisemitism in this country just unleashed in a vacuum — where evil has occupied that vacuum,” said Morrison. “And it’s just gone from worse to worse to worse, and it’s now been manifested in this most despicable and appalling attack.”
The former prime minister said that Australia’s Jews “have sought to combat it, they have sought to stand up against it… to overcome their fear. But the fear is real, and their safety has not been secured. That’s very clear with what we’ve seen tragically occur here.”
Gun laws to be strengthened
Albanese also said Monday that his cabinet has agreed to strengthen gun laws and work on a national firearms register to tackle aspects such as the number of weapons permitted by gun licenses, and how long the latter are valid.
“People’s circumstances can change,” he had told reporters before the cabinet met. “People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity.”
The prime minister’s office said they had agreed to look into ways to improve background checks for firearm owners, bar non-nationals from obtaining gun licenses and limit the types of weapons that are legal.
