Australia-Israel relations at new low after Netanyahu attacks Albanese
Relations between the two nations, which have been historic allies since the establishment of Israel after World War II, have been deteriorating for more than a year.
Following the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel had enormous sympathy from the international community. The horrific images of people being attacked, kidnapped and killed drew widespread condemnation.
But Israel's unrelenting, scorched-earth approach to Gaza since then has done enormous damage to that global goodwill, and contributed directly to Albanese's decision to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations next month.
The government's decision to bar far-right Israeli MP Simcha Rothman from entering the country escalated tensions between the two nations to another level.
Home Affairs minister Tony Burke has form in cancelling visas for people he believes could damage social cohesion in Australia. This includes rapper Kanye West, because of his anti-semitic remarks.
Of course, there is a big difference between denying a celebrity rapper a visa and denying a member of another nation's parliament, and Israel's tit-for-tat response to the Rothman decision – revoking visas to Australian diplomats working in the occupied West Bank – was arguably a proportional diplomatic response.
Netanyahu's furious personal attack on Albanese, including calling him a 'weak' politician who had abandoned Australia's Jews, was not.
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7NEWS
an hour ago
- 7NEWS
As Israel begins offensive on Gaza City, an exhausted military may face a manpower problem
As the earliest stages of a massive assault on Gaza City take shape, Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reservists to take part in the impending military operation. The takeover and occupation of the largest city in northern Gaza, which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was one of the last Hamas strongholds, will require the military to bring in 60,000 more reserve troops and extend the service of another 20,000. Those plans have sparked growing condemnation both internationally and domestically over fears that the spiraling humanitarian and hunger crisis in Gaza will worsen — and that the lives of the remaining hostages will be further at risk from an expanded military operation. The Israeli military is already on the outskirts of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Wednesday (US time), in what he described as the first steps of the larger operation. Meanwhile, the Israeli military also said it has begun warning medical officials and international aid organisations in northern Gaza to plan for mass evacuation and displacement of the Palestinian population ahead of the planned Gaza City takeover. The forced evacuation of the healthcare system risks worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis gripping the besieged territory. An Israeli military official told CNN that there will be 'several steps' before Israeli ground forces move into the city. It is partially encircled by Israeli troops, the official said, and some forces are already operating in the area of Zeitoun, west of the city centre. The IDF has begun preparing for the city's evacuation by sending in more tents for displaced Palestinians, but evacuation warnings have not yet been issued. When Israel's security cabinet first approved the takeover of Gaza City, Israeli officials estimated the plan could take five months or more. But on Wednesday, Netanyahu instructed the military to shorten the timeline. After nearly two years of war, and with no end in sight amid the next major operation, Israel's military chief warned of the added burden on the troops, many of whom have been called up multiple times to fight in Gaza. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told the security cabinet earlier this month that the military faced attrition and burnout, but his concerns were dismissed as Netanyahu and his coalition partners pushed ahead with the new war plans. A new survey from the Agam Labs at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested that approximately 40 per cent of soldiers were slightly or significantly less motivated to serve, while a little more than 13 per cent were more motivated. The findings underscore the stark reality facing Israel's military, which could face limits to its manpower, especially as polls have repeatedly shown an overwhelming majority of the country supports an end to the war. Military leaders have called for the government to draft ultra-Orthodox men into service to supplement the beleaguered troops. But the vast majority of the ultra-Orthodox community has refused to serve, and at their demand, the government is pushing a broad exemption to mandatory military service. That this political debate is happening in the midst of war has only stoked the anger of many of those who serve. After the security cabinet approved the new operation, a small reservist organisation in Israel renewed calls for soldiers to decline military orders to serve. 'Your children do not know how to refuse on their own, because it is difficult. It is almost impossible,' Soldiers for Hostages said on social media earlier this month. Other reservist organisations have not publicly advocated for open refusal, which is more likely to be a private decision not to serve. The IDF does not publish the numbers or percentages of reservists who do not show up when called. 'A death sentence for the hostages' Avshalom Zohar Sal has served more than 300 days in Gaza on four different deployments. His last deployment ended only one month ago, and he is no longer willing to return to the front line, especially to an operation in Gaza City. 'I'm a little in shock that we're still talking about this war that was supposed to end a long time ago,' Zohar Sal told CNN. He says the doubts, that began creeping in a year ago, have only grown stronger and other members of his unit have the same worries as him. 'I think this decision is a death sentence for the hostages,' he said. 'The government talked and said all the time that we're talking about two missions for this war: to return the hostages and to defeat Hamas. Now it's like telling us, there's only one goal, which I believe is not achievable: to destroy Hamas. And even this won't destroy Hamas.' The Israeli military has a relatively small active-duty force, comprised mostly of conscripts. To continue fighting what has become the country's longest war ever, Israel has to rely on reservists. But it's not clear what percentage will answer a new round of calls to serve inside Gaza once again, especially after the military chief warned the operation could endanger the soldiers and the hostages. Defrin, the military spokesman, tried to address those concerns Wednesday, saying at a press conference that the IDF uses 'intelligence and many other capabilities' to protect the lives of the hostages. But all he could promise was that 'we'll do our best not to harm the hostages.' Reserve call-up notices are mandatory for many, but after sending numerous reservists into Gaza multiple times, the military has shown little willingness to punish or prosecute those who decline or otherwise avoid the call. Former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, who led the military during the 2006 war with Lebanon, predicted not all the reservists would show up for duty. 'I believe that some of them will stay home,' he told CNN at a protest by Air Force reservists earlier this month. 'The war is over a year ago,' said Halutz, describing the current plan as having 'no logic.' The retired general was careful not to call on Israelis to refuse to serve, but he encouraged reservists to 'act according to his conscience, to his set of rules.' Netanyahu promised more than a year ago that the worst of the fighting would be over by now. He told CBS in an interview in February of last year that once Israel invaded Rafah in southern Gaza, 'the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion, not months, weeks away from completion.' Now, 18 months later, Netanyahu says a new operation is the fastest way to end Israel's longest war. But that operation also targets a city that is home to more than a million people, many of them already displaced from other parts of Gaza. More than 22 months since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, over 2 million people in Gaza have been struggling with severe hunger, disease and displacement amid Israel's siege. Cases of child malnutrition have tripled across Gaza in 'less than six months,' according to the United Nations, as humanitarian workers urged Israel to lift severe restrictions on aid entering the besieged enclave. Nearly one in three children are malnourished in Gaza City, said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN's agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in what he called 'a man-made, preventable starvation'. Netanyahu's government have repeatedly denied that starvation is rife in the enclave.


7NEWS
2 hours ago
- 7NEWS
South Korea blocks 95-year-old former North Korean soldier's wish to head home
A 95-year-old former North Korean soldier who spent decades imprisoned in the South will continue his campaign to return to the North, an activist says, after South Korean troops stopped his symbolic border march. Flanked by activists and holding a North Korean flag, Ahn Hak-sop walked towards an inter-Korean bridge in the border town of Paju on Wednesday, demanding that South Korean authorities arrange his repatriation to the North, when soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint. Ahn, who complained of knee pain during the incident, was taken to a hospital and was recovering at his home in Gimpo, near the capital city of Seoul, activist Cha Eun-jeong said. Cha said she expected Ahn to join a weekend protest in Seoul calling for his return to North Korea. 'He said it felt good to have an opportunity to speak his mind in front of journalists', even though he was turned back by the soldiers, Cha said. Ahn was born in what is now South Korea's border island of Ganghwa in 1930, when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. Japan's defeat in World War II liberated Korea, but the peninsula was then divided into a US -backed, capitalist South and a Soviet -supported, socialist North — a separation cemented by the devastating 1950-53 Korean War. Ahn volunteered to fight for the North Korean army in 1952 but was captured by South Korean soldiers in April 1953, months before the fighting stopped with the armistice. He was imprisoned for 42 years before receiving a special presidential pardon in 1995. He had a chance to go to North Korea in 2000, when former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung repatriated 63 long-term unconverted prisoners following a historic summit with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Ahn then chose to stay, vowing to campaign until US troops were withdrawn from the South. Ahn expressed a desire to go to North Korea in July, a decision that was influenced by his fragile health and concern that his time was running out, Cha said. South Korea's government said earlier in August it had no immediate plans to push for the repatriation of the few remaining prisoners who desire to be sent to North Korea, and it's unclear whether the North would accept them.

Sky News AU
2 hours ago
- Sky News AU
General Jack Keane praises Netanyahu as an ‘effective wartime commander'
Former US Army vice chief of staff General Jack Keane has described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an 'effective wartime commander'. Israel's Defence Force has begun the first steps of its invasion of Gaza City, with troops already reaching the city's outskirts. 'Despite all the distractions, the political and international isolation, as well as condemnation, the growing and disturbing antisemitism that we see in free, democratic countries like the United States of America,' Gen Keane told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. 'Despite all of that, he is focused like a laser ... he wants to end this so that there is not going to be a repeat of October the 7th.'