Just before 7pm in Canberra on Tuesday night, phones lit up with a social media missive from the Israeli prime minister.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, adopting the abrupt digital diplomacy style of Donald Trump, shared its leader’s character assessment of Anthony Albanese.
“History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” Netanyahu’s office posted on X.
It was dramatic, for sure.
But if “Bibi” expected it to unsettle “Albo”, the Israeli leader may well be mistaken — particularly as the tsunami-like wave of global opinion appears to turn further away from Israel.
It’s likely too flippant to describe the frank critique as a badge of honour for Albanese, but it certainly puts him in a growing group of peers who’ve provoked the ire of Netanyahu — a man subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Scepticism abounds as Israel continues to kill journalists in Gaza
The language from Netanyahu is scathing but not surprising, in line with the approach taken to criticising any and every leader of a globally significant country daring to utter phrases or policies that fail to reflect the Israeli government’s worldview.
“Hypocrisy,” the prime minister’s office declared as France, Canada and the United Kingdom announced they would recognise a Palestinian state, each with certain conditions and caveats.
“I say to President Macron, Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer: when mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice,” it posted on social media.
“You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history.”
Netanyahu reportedly sent similarly worded private letters to Albanese and Macron, where he criticised their leadership and accused them of fuelling antisemitism, but saved his strongest rhetoric for a public audience.
The personal vitriol directed at Albanese appears to be something slightly different, other than what Netanyahu’s son had to say about French President Emmanuel Macron.
It’s perhaps indicative that Israel sees Australia as an easier target than others.
Attack months in the making
Australia’s rhetoric about Israel has been changing in recent months, as the scenes of utter devastation, destruction and despair emerging from Gaza pushed even the most strident fence-sitters to take a firmer and far more critical stance.
Australia had earlier joined other nations in sanctioning two of the most controversial members of the Netanyahu Coalition government for their comments about the future of the West Bank and illegal settlements, inciting violence against Palestinians as war raged in Gaza.
Israeli minister announces plans to ‘bury’ Palestinian state
Anthony Albanese used interviews with the ABC to accuse Israel of breaching international law in restricting aid to the strip, and that the alleged involvement of Israeli forces in shooting Palestinians clamouring for aid in Gaza was “completely indefensible“.
He spoke to Netanyahu days before announcing Australia would recognise a Palestinian state, a phone call Albanese described as “long” and “civil”, but which the Israeli government would not comment on.
Days after that call, but before the public announcement of plans to recognise Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu fired a broadside at Australia.
“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that, fall right into it and buy this canard is disappointing, and I think it’s actually shameful,” he said in response to a question from the ABC at a rare press conference in Jerusalem.
Loading…
His outrage was palpable, and his utterance of the word “canard” was preceded by an apparent pause and correction from saying something starting with “sh” — perhaps a four-letter word that better summed up his anger.
A week later, and partly in protest of the statehood announcement, the Israeli Foreign Minister announced he’d kick out Australian diplomats representing Canberra to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — a similar response to how Israel behaved when Norway and Spain took the same step.
Calls for cooler heads
It is telling that moments after the post from Netanyahu, labelling Albanese as a “weak politician” who had “abandoned Australian Jews”, one of the country’s peak Jewish groups was calling for calm.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry was quick out of the blocks to urge restraint, and for the two countries to restrain from “engaging in a diplomatic tit-for-tat” — highlighting the links between Israel and Australia’s economies and its ties with the Jewish population in Australia.
“There are real-life consequences here and we want to see the countries work through any issues before things get out of hand,” its co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said in a statement clearly tinged with concern that the matter has already deteriorated dramatically.
Amir Maimon has criticised Australia’s commitment to a Palestinian state. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
On Israeli television, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, was also trying to right the diplomatic ship.
“What we need to do is calm things down, so the relations don’t continue to deteriorate,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 hours after Netanyahu’s post.
“After all, the relations between Israel and Australia are historical relations that go back to 1947, when Australia supported and helped with the partition plan.
“At the same time, we also have our own interests and it is important that Australia accepts it and respects it.”
Acceptance and respect, it appeared, is demanded by Israel but not offered in return to another country in its foreign policy.
Maimon also wasn’t prepared to downplay the Israeli allegations the Albanese government was fuelling antisemitism.
“The Jewish community is in fear, [others] before me have said that the relationship is friendly, but since the Labor party won, there is an encroachment, and since the 7th of October, there is a dramatic rise in manifestations of antisemitism,” he told public broadcaster KAN.
Loading’Most politically toxic leader’
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid went further than his country’s envoy in Canberra, describing Netanyahu’s critique as a “gift” for Albanese.
“The thing that strengthens a leader in the democratic world today most is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world,” he posted on X.
In slamming Albanese, the Israeli prime minister is playing to a domestic audience — showing he is standing up while Israel is “attacked” by a Western nation with, as he would describe it, no clue about the pressures and threats in the Middle East.
And while that may well resonate in some quarters of the Jewish community in other parts of the world too, including in Australia, it is increasingly hollow in most other quarters.
Palestinians, displaced by the Israeli offensive, shelter in a tent camp in Gaza City. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
The war in Gaza, now in its 22nd month and with a death toll reportedly in excess of 62,000 Palestinians, is fuelling outrage against Israel.
Many analysts of the war and critics of Israel have argued for many months that the military offensive has shifted from an exercise in self-defence by Israel long ago, and is now a vehicle for its territorial ambitions in the Middle East — something Israel has repeatedly denied.
While the humanitarian considerations are clear for all to see, with horrific scenes being broadcast from Gaza each and every day, the political implications are a factor here too.
Albanese only has to see huge crowds marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a stone’s throw from his official residence in Kirribilli, to get a sense of where public debate stands in Australia.
More than 100,000 protesters attended Sydney’s March for Humanity event to protest the war in Gaza. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)
Supporters of Israel often denigrate those protesters as antisemitic, describing any legitimate rebuke of the Israeli government and military’s conduct as an attack on the entire Jewish population — a conflation the prime minister himself has sought to rebut.
“Criticism of Israel is legitimate, as is criticism of the Palestinian Authority,” he said in July.
An outstanding issue
Even with the shift in language, there is something Australia has not done as it ratchets up criticism of Israel.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The warrants were also issued for his former defence minister and for senior Hamas official Mohammed Deif — a man believed to have been killed before the orders were drafted.
Warrants had been sought for another two Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, but weren’t issued because they had been confirmed already killed.
Inside the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu
While Israel (and the United States) doesn’t recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC, Australia is a member state. With that comes obligations under international law to enforce such a warrant — arresting an individual while in their jurisdiction.
A trip down under is unlikely on Netanyahu’s agenda any time soon, particularly as he racks up the frequent flyer miles travelling to the US and friendly European nations.
But the Albanese government has been deliberately vague, to the point of avoiding answering questions on whether it would arrest the prime minister if he arrived in Australia — dismissing it as a hypothetical.
If it were to properly wade into that debate, no doubt the fury from Netanyahu would increase tenfold.
The fact it remains an outstanding issue, even with that obfuscation from Canberra, further underpins why the Israeli leader’s latest intervention is unlikely to worry Australia’s Prime Minister now.