Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was called “weak,” and an Australian minister accused the Israeli leader of confusing strength with killing people.
Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not “measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry” in an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster on Wednesday.
Burke’s remarks come after Netanyahu blisteringly attacked Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media on Tuesday, claiming that he would be remembered as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”
Burke characterized Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” against nations that have ratified the establishment of a Palestinian state during an interview on ABC’s Radio National Breakfast program.
When there is a decision that we know Israel won’t like, he directs it to Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Burke. “Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done,” he said.
He has the opportunity for person-to-person objections, and he has the conversation going, and he says exactly what we intend to do. And after they’ve been heard, announces them in a public manner before proceeding.
In recent months, tensions between Australia and Israel, who have traditionally been close allies, have become increasingly antagonistic, but ties have deteriorated since Canberra announced last week that it will grant a Palestinian state.
In response to concerns that a planned speaking tour in the nation was intended to “spread division,” Australia announced on Monday that it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker with Israel’s far-right Mafdal-Religious Zionism party and a member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
Gideon Saar, the Israeli minister of foreign affairs, announced shortly after that statement that he had suspended Australian diplomats’ visas for the Palestinian Authority.
Israel is increasingly being pressured by international relations, including many of its traditional allies, over the magnitude of the suffering caused by its conflict in Gaza.
Source: Aljazeera
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