{"id":359462,"date":"2025-08-20T12:59:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/359462\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T12:59:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:59:30","slug":"australias-peak-jewish-group-condemns-netanyahus-clumsy-attack-on-albanese-and-calls-for-end-to-spat-anthony-albanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/359462\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s peak Jewish group condemns Netanyahu\u2019s \u2018clumsy\u2019 attack on Albanese and calls for end to \u2018spat\u2019 | Anthony Albanese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s peak Jewish group has lambasted Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s attack on Anthony Albanese<\/a> as \u201cinflammatory and provocative\u201d, adding that the \u201cclumsy intervention\u201d showed a \u201cwoeful lack of understanding of social and political conditions in Australia\u201d \u2013 notwithstanding what the group describes as \u201cunseemly\u201d conduct from Australia\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n

The concerned intervention by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) came as Australia and Israel entered the third day of a diplomatic tit-for-tat prompted by Australia\u2019s visa cancellation of far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

ECAJ\u2019s president, Daniel Aghion, sent separate letters<\/a> to both leaders on Wednesday afternoon. In the letter to Australia\u2019s prime minister, he criticised Albanese\u2019s previous comments accusing Netanyahu of being \u201cin denial\u201d as \u201cexcessive and gratuitously insulting\u201d. He echoed this criticism in his letter to Israel\u2019s prime minister, saying it was \u201cunseemly for an Australian Prime Minister to depart from diplomatic norms\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he also dressed down Netanyahu for labelling Albanese \u201ca weak politician who betrayed Israel<\/a> and abandoned Australia\u2019s Jews\u201d. \u201cThese comments have played straight into the hands of opponents of Israel and antisemites, to the detriment of the Australian Jewish community,\u201d Aghion wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad we been consulted, we would have warned against such a clumsy intervention into Australia\u2019s domestic politics. The charge of antisemitism, whether made directly or indirectly, is a serious one and never to be made lightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing so only invites scepticism, and undermines the efforts we and the government have been making to combat this pernicious phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Alex Ryvchin, ECAJ\u2019s co-chief executive, also expressed reservations about the wording of Netanyahu\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never used that sort of language, and if we believed it, we would have said it along the way,\u201d he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve expressed concerns for nearly two years now about some of the government\u2019s rhetoric and policies and handling of the antisemitism crisis. We\u2019ve had serious misgivings and we\u2019ve made them known, but we\u2019ve never felt abandoned. We\u2019ve always felt like we can speak to government and speak to the public of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He appealed for \u201cboth governments to remember what\u2019s at stake to ensure that calm heads prevail and to conduct their matters of state privately, diplomatically\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the Wednesday letters, ECAJ warned both leaders that Australia\u2019s Jewish community \u201cwill not be left to deal with the fallout of a spat between two leaders who are playing to their respective domestic audiences\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now calling on both [of] you \u2026 to address the policy differences between the two governments in the usual way through diplomacy rather than public posturing,\u201d Aghion wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf things need to be said publicly, they should be said using measured and seemly language befitting national leaders. Australia and Israel are mature democracies, and their governments need to act accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday, when Albanese was asked to respond to Netanyahu\u2019s latest criticism of him, he told reporters he did not \u201ctake these things personally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI treat leaders of other countries with respect. I engage with them in a diplomatic way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, had earlier accused the Israeli prime minister<\/a> of \u201clashing out\u201d against Australia over its decision to recognise a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry,\u201d Burke told the ABC on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrength is much better measured by exactly what prime minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there\u2019s a decision that we know Israel won\u2019t like, he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n

Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The ECAJ president told both Albanese and Netanyahu he had been appalled by Burke\u2019s \u201cincendiary and irresponsible\u201d comments.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s acting foreign affairs minister, Tim Ayres, told the ABC the government would not retaliate further with public statements against Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

The former science minister, Ed Husic, one of the more outspoken pro-Palestinian supporters within the Albanese government, said Australia should ramp up sanctions against Israelis over the aid and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen prime minister Netanyahu talks about betrayal, the betrayal is of humanitarian law, kids and innocent Palestinians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I would suggest respectfully to prime minister Netanyahu, the bigger focus should be to stop seeing kids being killed or starved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Husic was followed by Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, who claimed to the ABC that Australia\u2019s decision to recognise a Palestinian state had been \u201ca huge reward for Hamas\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact of the matter is that the Australian government is morally bankrupt,\u201d Falk said.<\/p>\n

The Jewish Council of Australia\u2019s spokesperson, Bart Shteinman, told Guardian Australia that Netanyahu\u2019s attack on Albanese \u201cshould be a wake-up call for Australia, that the Israeli government is not interested in a relationship with our government\u201d.<\/p>\n

He pushed for \u201cconcrete responses\u201d from Australia, \u201cincluding broad-based sanctions and ending the two-way arms trade\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Zionist Federation of Australia\u2019s president, Jeremy Leibler, told the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> that Netanyahu\u2019s comments had been \u201centirely unhelpful and unproductive\u201d, and praised Albanese for acting as a \u201cstatesman\u201d and taking the high road.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship is clearly under strain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s peak Jewish group has lambasted Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s attack on Anthony Albanese as \u201cinflammatory and provocative\u201d, adding that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-359462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115061218511809850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}