Israeli President Isaac Herzog says he hopes his visit to Australia will help rekindle the historically close bonds between the two countries after years of tension and that it will also offer solace to Jewish Australians mourning the victims of the Bondi terror attack.
Herzog said he was aware his visit was opposed by many Australians angry at Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, but he rejected accusations he had encouraged the killing of innocent civilians in controversial remarks made in the days following the October 7 attacks of 2023.
He said he hoped his four-day trip would help Australians better understand Israel’s perspective on its fight against the hardline Islamic regime in Iran and terror groups it sponsors, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, while highlighting the need to tackle the rise of antisemitism in Australia and globally.
“I think it’s about time that the good relations between Israel and Australia will flourish and not be taken hostage by radical forces in Australia who have been undermining these relations,” he said in an interview with this masthead before his departure.
“I’m here to express a message of bipartisanship and friendship, and find a way to reignite this passion and love between our nations.”
Herzog is head of state, with no role in policymaking, and he likens himself to Australia’s governor-general. A former leader of the Israeli Labor Party, he has known Anthony Albanese for decades and is the son of former president Chaim Herzog, who in 1986 became the first sitting Israeli leader to visit Australia.
Asked to respond to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s condemnation of Albanese as a “weak” leader who bore responsibility for the Bondi massacre, Herzog declined to criticise either Netanyahu or Albanese.
“I won’t go into it because I think it’s unfair,” he said.
“It is true that we alerted about the situation of antisemitism in Australia, even when the [Adass Israel] synagogue was burned in Melbourne … But I don’t intend to go into this argument because I want my visit to be a visit of goodwill.”
The purpose of his visit was to “express our bond, our connection, our love, our affection, our condolences”, and that it was “very important to a community which has been harassed and devastated by this terrible, terrible attack and by the ongoing onslaught of antisemitism against the community all over Australia”.
He is due to arrive in Sydney on Monday morning, before travelling to Canberra and Melbourne.
He will meet Albanese, Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, premiers and members of the Jewish community, including families of victims and survivors of the Bondi attack.
Herzog acknowledged the criticism of his visit and said his much-discussed decision to sign his name to an artillery shell, which he described as a smoke screen shell, at an army base in 2023 was “something that was lacking taste. I agree that I may have made an error”.
Federal Labor backbencher and former minister Ed Husic this week said it was “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”.
Herzog said his heart skipped a beat when he heard that two gunmen had opened fire on December 14 at a Hanukkah festival at Bondi Beach, a place he had associated with beauty and peace.
He said he was alarmed by the “frightening” surge of antisemitism in Australia over recent years, a nation he believed “has always been very moderate and tolerant”.
“And it is a nation that has received the highest amount of Holocaust survivors outside Israel, and it is a nation that has always been extremely accommodating to the Jewish community,” he said.
“I think that Bondi Beach was a culmination of a whole process of attacks all over for years, in campuses, in streets, on encampments and, following October 7, very disturbing phenomena that covered religious institutions, synagogues and Jewish schools.”
The nation’s peak Jewish groups have welcomed Herzog’s trip, but some independent MPs, the Greens, pro-Palestinian groups and the left-wing Jewish Council of Australia have labelled the visit inflammatory and divisive.
NSW Police on Friday said 3000 police officers would be deployed during Herzog’s visit, reflecting the large protests expected to accompany his trip.
A Sydney teenager was granted bail this week after allegedly threatening to kill Herzog and calling for the extinction of the Jewish community in social media posts.
Herzog defended himself as someone who had long sought a peaceful resolution with the Palestinian people.
“Believe me, I care for the people of Gaza. All I want is for them to have a better life,” he said.
“I’m a staunch advocate for years and years of peace with our Palestinian neighbours and peace with the Arab world.”
He said he was “quite shocked” to see “how many people in Australia who don’t know the facts buy in on so many lies and false information”.
He said Israel faced an enemy in Hamas that had launched brutal attacks on Israeli civilians, embedded itself among civilians in Gaza and had taken hundreds of Israeli hostages captive.
“And let’s not be naive. Had any Australian been attacked like that in Australia, you would act the same,” he said.
“I say to all those who kept on demonstrating and will demonstrate, where are you when tens of thousands of Iranian citizens are butchered?” he asked.
“Where is everybody? Where are all these demonstrators? Why don’t they raise their voices?”
An estimated 1200 civilians were killed when Hamas, a listed terror group in Australia, launched the October 7 attacks.
Israel last week accepted as accurate the death toll of the subsequent war in Gaza published by the Hamas-run health ministry, which stands at more than 70,000, and that more people were buried under the rubble.
Israel’s conduct in the war sparked widespread protests across the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was issued with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged war crimes, charges he has denied.
Human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti this week called for the Australian Federal Police to arrest Herzog while he is in Australia, a move police quickly ruled out because Herzog has immunity as a visiting head of state.
Sidoti co-led a United Nations-sponsored inquiry that last year accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and found Herzog had “incited the commission of genocide” by saying “an entire nation” of Palestinians bore responsibility for the October 7 attacks in a 2023 press conference.
Herzog dismissed this accusation as “another lie and another distortion of the facts”, saying it ignored remarks from the same press conference in which he said he supported international law and opposed the killing of innocent people.
“I made an example of the celebrations and the joy that was exposed from Gaza, including by so many civilians who broke into Israel and kidnapped and took civilians from Israel, the hostages,” he said.
“But I made an explicit comment that there are many innocent Palestinians and this, of course, is not mentioned by those criticisers. We are a nation of the rule of law and international law, and we abide by it, but we were attacked by the most barbaric terrorist organisation, and the world order must confront these terror organisations.”
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