“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire,” the Israeli premier wrote in a letter to his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.

By David Isaac, JNS

In a sharply worded letter dated Aug. 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu castigated Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his government’s failure to counter Australia’s surging antisemitism.

In the letter, described by Australian media as “blistering” and “explosive,” Netanyahu expressed his concern at the “alarming rise” in antisemitism in Australia and the “lack of decisive action by your government to confront it.”

Netanyahu reproved Albanese for contributing to antisemitism by signaling his readiness to recognize a Palestinian state. (Australia says it will do so at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September.)

Listing several recent attacks on Jews in Australia, including a July arson attack on an East Melbourne Hebrew congregation during Shabbat dinner, which forced 20 worshipers to flee, Netanyahu said, “Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.”

Describing Albanese’s actions not as diplomacy but appeasement, Israel’s prime minister wrote: “It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace Australian Jews, and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”

Likening antisemitism to “a cancer,” Netanyahu warned Albanese that “it spreads when leaders stay silent, it retreats when leaders act.”

He called on Albanese to take a page from U.S. President Donald Trump’s book, noting the president has protected the civil rights of American Jews. He urged Albanese to “replace weakness with action,” and to do so within a month, suggesting Sept. 23 2025, the start of the Jewish new year, as an appropriate deadline.

“History will not forgive hesitation. It will honor action,” Netanyahu concluded.

The Israeli prime minister’s letter comes on the background of a diplomatic altercation between Australia and Israel brought on by the Albanese government’s revocation of a Knesset member’s visa on Monday, the day before he was due to visit Melbourne.

Australia denied entry to MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism Party ahead of what was to have been a solidarity visit to the Jewish community. Attempting to justify the decision, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke argued Rothman would “spread a message of hate and division.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu tweeted, “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Other countries which have vowed to recognize a Palestinian state in September include France, Canada and the United Kingdom.