Netanyahu slams Australian PM: ‘A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’

By Sam Sokol 19 August 2025, 12:02 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Left to right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in Jerusalem, August 11, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO); Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference in Canberra on August 11, 2025. (Hilary Wardhaugh / AFP)

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” his country’s Jewish community, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares.

In a statement posted on his official account on X, Netanyahu writes that “history will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician
who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 19, 2025

Netanyahu’s statement comes less than a day after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the revocation of residency visas for Australia’s diplomatic representatives to the Palestinian Authority. That step was in retaliation to Canberra’s decision to bar far-right Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman from visiting the country.

Australia also recently barred entry to former justice minister Ayelet Shaked and pro-Israel activist and influencer Hillel Fuld. Canberra has announced that it will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said earlier on Tuesday that revoking the diplomats’ visas was an “unjustified reaction” by Israel.

“At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution,” she says in a statement.

In a social media post, Sa’ar accused the Australian government of fanning the flames of antisemitism, which has hit the country’s 120,000-strong Jewish community hard since the Hamas-led massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023.

In recent months, Jews there have seen their synagogues, schools, and homes firebombed. In addition, two nurses threatened to kill Israeli patients in their hospital, and authorities discovered a trailer filled with explosives that was said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Jewish institution.