Ley blasts Albanese for placing Australia-US alliance in jeopardy over Israel ‘mismanagement’

Anthony Albanese has been accused of putting the nation’s Jewish community at risk by “pouring fuel on an anti-Semitic fire” in Australia, with a war of words breaking out over “mismanaging” of Israel relations.

New letters by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to the Prime Minister and Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu have called for a ceasefire in their “spat”, warning that it would be Jewish Australians who would cop the fallout.

The president of the peak Jewish body in Australia, Daniel Aghion, slammed Mr Albanese’s “clumsy” domestic politics and Prime Minister Netanyahu for “inflammatory and provocative” comments.

“Your statements on August 19 characterising Prime Minister Albanese as ‘a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’ . . . were inflammatory and provocative,” Mr Aghion wrote in a letter to Mr Netanyahu.

The letter claimed it demonstrated “a woeful lack of understanding of social and political conditions in Australia” and “played straight into the hands of opponents”.

In his letter to Mr Albanese, he accused him of “excessive and gratuitously insulting” Mr Netanyahu.

The ECAJ added it was also appalled by remarks from Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on ABC radio on Wednesday, accusing Mr Netanyahu of starving children and “blowing up” civilians.

Mr Burke had said: “Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up, or how many children you can leave hungry.

“Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there’s a decision that we know Israel won’t like; he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Mr Albanese defended his actions and told reporters on Wednesday: “I treat leaders of other countries with respect, I engage with them in a diplomatic way.

“My job is to represent the Australian national interest. What we want to see is peace and an end to conflict,” he said.

“I think very much that Australians want two things to happen. One, they want people to stop killing each other. Whether it be Israelis or Palestinians. The second thing that they want is the conflict to not be brought here.”

The leaders’ dispute comes after Mr Burke revoked the visa of sitting Israeli MP Simcha Rothman — a National Religious Party member in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition — the day before he was due to fly to Australia on a speaking tour.

It prompted Israel’s Foreign Minister to cancel the visas of Australia’s representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

ECAJ’s co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin added that Australia’s Jewish community was “profoundly disturbed” by the rise in tensions.

“Firing off tweets that contain elements of abuse in them, I don’t think that’s the way to operate,” he told Sky.

The reprimand comes after Mr Netanyahu had penned a blistering letter lambasting Mr Albanese’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood and personally attacked him in scathing social media posts.

Mr Netanyahu’s damning letter, dated August 17, slammed Mr Albanese over his Palestinian statehood recognition commitment at the UN General Assembly in New York next month, claiming it was “not diplomacy, it is appeasement”.

“Prime Minister, anti-Semitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve,” he wrote to Mr Albanese.

The letter was similar to one penned to French President Emmanuel Macron in June after he led an international push to recognise Palestine.

The Opposition also slammed the Albanese Government, claiming it was “mismanaging” relations down to a new low and jeopardising the US alliance.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley on Wednesday said the PM’s foreign policy “failures” with Israel were “becoming apparent” — adding “respect goes both ways”. “The series of events that we’ve seen in the relationship between Israel and Australia are regrettable, and that relationship has been and is being mismanaged,” Ms Ley said.

“It’s an enduring relationship. It dates back to 1947 when Australia was the first signatory for a UN resolution that created the State of Israel.

“Of course, along the way, there have been disagreements. There have been robust conversations. That’s normal. But what we are seeing now is something different.

“We are seeing a relationship that has deteriorated and the consequences of that are not good, and they are spilling over into our relationship with the US, our most important ally.”

Other Coalition critics included Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who said Mr Albanese only had himself to blame for Mr Netanyahu’s scathing assessment and accused him of having a lack of urgency to keep the Jewish Australians safe.

“(Mr Albanese) has been slow to act on the abuse of Australians who are Jewish. He has been slow to act on the advice from his own anti-Semitic envoy, who handed her recommendations to him a while ago. I’m looking forward to seeing that,” Senator McKenzie told Sunrise.

“His decision to recognise a Palestinian state without the hostages being returned, without the terror group surrendering, rewards terrorists and makes our world less safe.

“We need to make sure that our country remembers that Israel has been a very good friend to Australia.”

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles refused to be drawn on Mr Netanyahu’s criticism of Mr Albanese, saying he would not “get into tit-for-tat commentary” while adding that Australia still viewed the relationship as important.

“Let me be very clear. We seek to be friends with Israel. We have, throughout Israel’s existence,” Mr Marles said.

He described a decision by Israel to strip the visas of Australia’s envoys to the Palestinian Authority as “unreasonable”.

“We regard (that) as being an unreasonable reaction and an unjustified reaction to the decision that Australia has made. But we continue to move forward on a principled basis,” Mr Marles said.

Israel’s centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Mr Netanyahu of handing Mr Albanese a political “gift” by attacking him.

“The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world,” he said in a post on X.