Coalition divided over Benjamin Netanyahu's ‘incendiary' letter attacking Anthony Albanese for 'weakness' on antisemitism

Sky News AU

a day ago

Two senior Coalition MPs have provided starkly different responses to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's extraordinary letter attacking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Relations between Israel and Australia plunged to a new low on Wednesday after it emerged Mr Netanyahu had written to Mr Albanese accusing him of pouring fuel on the fire of antisemitism and claiming the decision to recognise a Palestinian state 'rewards Hamas terror' and 'emboldens those who menace Australian Jews'.
While the Australian Prime Minister has stressed the need for 'respect' among world leaders, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke hit back, telling ABC RN: 'Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up, or how many children you can leave hungry'.
The war of words has also unearthed division among the Coalition, with two front bench Liberal Senators providing completely different answers about who they thought was to blame for the state of the relationship.
Liberal Senator Dave Sharma, Australia's former ambassador to Israel, said the relationship between the two countries was 'in the worst shape' he had ever seen.
'I think when you've got leaders trading blows and insults and criticisms in public, I think that shows you the depths to which we've plunged,' he told Sky News Australia.
However, the New South Wales Liberal Senator said 'both sides are to blame' for the situation.
'Both sides carry some amount of the blame. I don't think this is the right way for Prime Minister Netanyahu to express himself, to write a letter which is intended to be made public, and to throw around some quite incendiary charges, as he has,' he said.
'But by the same token, Australian Ministers, including Tony Burke just this morning, have been far too ill-disciplined in their use of language and the sort of charges that they've levelled against Israel as well.
'I think what we're seeing is a consequence of actions from both sides.'
Senator Sharma's comments came in stark contrast to the position of shadow foreign minister Michaelia Cash, who just minutes earlier had doubled down on Mr Netanyahu's claim Mr Albanese was a weak politician who is appeasing terrorists.
'The direct evidence is there. Mr Albanese has indeed rewarded the terrorist Hamas who butchered and slaughtered Israelis on October the 7th, 2023. In fact, he's given them what they themselves have described as the fruits of October 7,' Senator Cash told Sky News Australia.
'Israel is a democratic nation that is fighting for its very existence against terrorists whose sole aim is to wipe them off the planet, and yet, the same terrorists are actually delighting in what our Prime Minister is saying."
The shadow foreign minister said there was a very simple principle: 'You don't reward terrorists, and that is exactly what our Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, has done. It is a disgrace'.
Senator Cash then went further, adding that Hamas would 'certainly welcome the comments by the Home Affairs Minister (Tony Burke)'.
'They were disgusting, they were deplorable, they were reckless and quite frankly, they have done nothing to calm the fears of the Jewish community in Australia in relation to the rising antisemitism," she said.
'He has said, on the record now, that Israel, a democratic ally that it's fighting for its life against terrorists whose one objective in life is to wipe them off the face of this earth… measure their strength by the number of people that they kill and the number children that they starve. That is just an absolute disgrace.'
Sky News host Sharri Markson strongly pushed back on Senator Sharma's claim both the Australian and Israeli governments were to blame for the state of the relationship, but the former ambassador turned Liberal Senator said the Albanese government had not tried to interfere in Israel's domestic politics in the way Mr Netanyahu was attempting to do.
'I think certainly this government has changed our policy approach towards Israel in ways that I fundamentally disagree with and ways that I think are not in the national interest,' he said.
'But by the same token, I don't think they have gone out of their way to intervene, if you like, in Israeli domestic politics. This is a pretty clear attempt by Netanyahu to intervene in Australian domestic politics.
'You've already seen the reaction from organised parts of the Australian Jewish community, saying they find this incredibly unhelpful, and I think it's going to make the position of the Jewish community – it's going to compromise that position further.
'I don't think that's Netanyahu's intention, but I think it's certainly going to be the result.'