After Sydney attack, Netanyahu says he warned Albanese that Canberra ‘pours fuel on antisemitic fire’

Speaking hours after a deadly shooting terror attack in Sydney at a Hanukkah celebration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notes that he sent a letter in August to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, charging Canberra with pouring fuel “on this antisemitic fire.”

Paraphrasing his letter, Netanyahu says Albanese’s policies, which include recognizing a Palestinian state, encourage “the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. You must replace weakness with action.”

Netanyahu says the attack was “awful. Cold-blooded murder. The numbers of casualties is unfortunately rising every minute. We saw the depths of evil. We also saw the pinnacle of Jewish heroism,” he says, pointing out a bystander he says was Jewish, who was filmed wrestling a weapon out of the hands of one of the attackers.

“We are in a battle against global antisemitism and the only way to fight it is to denounce it and to fight it,” Netanyahu continues. “There is no other way. That’s what we are doing in Israel. The IDF and our security forces, with our government and our nation, we will continue to do this.”

In an oblique attack on the Australian government, Netanyahu says “we will continue to denounce those who do not denounce, but encourage. We will continue to demand from them to do what is demanded of leaders of free nations. We will not give up, we will not bow our heads, we will continue to fight as our ancestors did.”

Netanyahu makes his comments ahead of a special weekly cabinet meeting in the southern city of Dimona, to mark an agreement between the government and the municipality in which over NIS 100 million ($31 million) will be allocated in the coming year to the city.