Israeli President Isaac Herzog has laid a wreath and two stones from Jerusalem at Bondi Beach, the site of a shooting that targeted a Jewish festival in December, at the start of a controversial visit.
“When one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain,” he said, adding he was there to “embrace and console the bereaved families”.
Security has been tight for the four-day visit during which he will also travel to Canberra and Melbourne and meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Senior Jewish leaders have said the trip will comfort a grieving community, but others have said he should not have been invited due to allegations he has incited genocide in Gaza.
The president was invited by Albanese after the shooting at Bondi, in which 15 people were killed, including a 10-year-old girl, at an event celebrating Hanukkah.
The prime minister has said the visit will contribute to social cohesion and a “greater sense of unity” after the Bondi attack but the visit is expected to be met with nationwide protests, including one in central Sydney on Monday evening.
Organisers have said 5,000 people will attend the protest, which is expected to take place despite restrictions on protests brought in by the New South Wales government after the Bondi attack.
The Palestine Action Group was on Monday also challenging a decision by the state government to invoke rarely used “major event” powers during Herzog’s visit, which give police additional powers, including the ability to close specific locations, the right to search people and the imposing of fines of up to $5,500 (£2,839, US$3,862) for non-compliance.
Getty Images
Alex Ryvchin, co-chair executive of Australia’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, on Monday said Herzog’s visit was warmly welcomed.
“For the victim families and for the survivors [of the Bondi attack], it means a great deal,” he said. “His visit will lift the spirits of a pained community and we hope will lead to a much-needed recalibration of bilateral relations between two historic allies,” he said.
But other groups, including the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), set up in 2024 to call out antisemitism and support Palestinian freedom, and the Australian National Imams Council, have said Herzog should not have been invited.
“Inviting a foreign head of state who is implicated in an ongoing genocide as a representative of the Jewish community is deeply offensive and risks entrenching the dangerous and antisemitic conflation between Jewish identity and the actions of the Israeli state,” said JCA executive officer Sarah Schwartz last week. “This does not make Jews safer. It does the opposite.”
On Monday, a letter organised by the JCA and signed by 600 Australian Jews was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age condemning the visit.
Getty
He had stated that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and has also been pictured signing a shell to be dropped on Gaza. His comments formed part of the legal case brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Herzog has condemned the UN report, which he said took his words out of context, while the Israeli foreign minister called it “distorted and false”. Israel denies it has committed genocide in Gaza.
Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer and a member of the UN commission which wrote the report, on Thursday called for Herzog to be arrested, arguing the immunity traditionally granted to heads of state should not apply to “atrocity crimes” such as genocide.
Some federal MPs have also raised objections to the visit, while some state Labor MPs – both the state and federal government are Labor – have said they will join the Sydney march.
Asked about the planned protests on Monday, Herzog said: “I have come here in goodwill and in a message that … Australia and Israel are close friends and allies since the days of old.
“These demonstrations in most cases, what you hear and see, comes to undermine and delegitimise our right, my nation’s right … of its mere existence and it’s contradictory to whatever was said and done by Australia.”
He also said the “current rise in antisemitism around the world is a global emergency”.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Thursday said she understood “the depth of feeling about this visit” but urged its critics to consider the context.
“We have the Australian Jewish community who have been targeted in an overtly antisemitic terrorist attack. We have had 15 Australians die, we have families mourning, and this was a request from the Jewish community for President Herzog to visit.”
She added: “I have said previously that Israel will be judged by the International Court of Justice on its compliance with the genocide convention. And I’ve also said previously that it must accept its responsibility for the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
