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Israeli person claims Australian premier minister’s bequest ‘tarnished’ by determination to recognise a Palestinian state.
Published On 21 Aug 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his government’s bitter diplomatic quality with Australia, claiming that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s bequest has been irrevocably blackened by his “weakness” towards Hamas.
In an interrogation with Sky News Australia scheduled to aerial connected Thursday night, Netanyahu said Albanese’s grounds would “forever beryllium tarnished” by his determination to recognise a Palestinian state.
“When the worst violent organisation connected earth, these savages who murdered women, raped them, beheaded men, burnt babies live successful beforehand of their parents, took hundreds of hostages, erstwhile these radical congratulate the Prime Minister of Australia, you cognize thing is wrong,” Netanyahu said successful the interview, portions of which were posted online by Sky News earlier the broadcast.
Netanyahu’s accusation appeared to notation to a disputed connection that appeared past week successful the Sydney Morning Herald, successful which Hamas cofounder Sheikh Hassan Yousef was quoted praising Albanese for his “political courage”.
Following the report, Hamas publically denied that immoderate connection had been issued by Yousef. The Palestinian equipped group, which governs Gaza, said Yousef had been successful Israeli custody for astir 2 years without means of communicating with the extracurricular world.
Netanyahu’s broadside against Albanese follows an bonzer missive earlier this week successful which helium claimed the Australian person would beryllium remembered by past arsenic a “weak person who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
On Wednesday, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke deed backmost astatine the Israeli leader, saying spot was “not measured by however galore radical you tin stroke up oregon however galore children you tin permission hungry”, though Albanese attempted to play down the spat by saying helium did not instrumentality it personally.
Relations betwixt Australia and Israel, traditionally adjacent allies, person sunk to their lowest ebb successful decades pursuing Canberra’s determination to recognise Palestine.
On Monday, Australia said it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a far-right subordinate of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that a speaking circuit helium had scheduled successful the state aimed to “spread division”.
Hours aft that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said helium had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority.
Expressing dismay astatine the tensions, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said connected Wednesday that it had written to some premier ministers to impulse them to code their differences “in the accustomed mode done diplomacy alternatively than nationalist posturing”.
“The sum full of quality contented would not person been diminished successful the slightest if nary of these nationalist comments had been made,” the highest assemblage for Jewish Australians said successful its missive to Albanese.
“The Australian Jewish assemblage volition not beryllium near to woody with the fallout of a spat betwixt 2 leaders who are playing to their respective home audiences.”
Israel has travel nether mounting planetary pressure, including from immoderate of its closest allies, implicit the standard of quality suffering being inflicted by its warfare successful Gaza.
More than 62,000 Palestinians person been killed by Israel since it launched its warfare connected Gaza pursuing Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Hamas killed astir 1,200 radical and took 251 radical captive during its incursion into confederate Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
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