Weak. Indecisive. A failure to the Jewish community. These are just some of the character appraisals made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against left-wing Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for ignoring his warnings about rising antisemitism ahead of the Bondi Beach massacre.
Netanyahu lashed out during an extraordinary television interview Friday with leading Australian network SKY News. He maintained the terrorist attack was preventable and accused Canberra of detached inaction despite explicit warnings months earlier.
Israel’s leader said lives would have been saved if Jewish community events had been sufficiently protected, describing current restrictions as reckless and outdated.
Asked whether Albanese ignored his calls to take action on antisemitism, Netanyahu replied: “I’m afraid he did.”
“It was bound to reach these tragic outcomes, just as I warned Prime Minister Albanese,” he told Sky News host Sharri Markson.
“In my letter to Prime Minister Albanese a few months ago I stated clearly you’re going to have this uptick, it’s going to happen, there’s no question about it. I say now to the Australian government: damn it, wake up! You don’t need any more warnings, you’ve already received enough.”
WATCH: Netanyahu says Albanese “basically rewarded Hamas” for the “savage murder of Jews”
Netanyahu said the Albanese government’s decision to formally recognise Palestine effectively rewarded Hamas terrorists for the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
The move sent a dangerous signal internationally and domestically, he said.
“The message that was heard by this action was ‘Kill Jews, you’ll get rewarded,” he said.
Netanyahu said the consequences were now being felt in Australia, where he claimed authorities failed to respond to clear warning signs made by him and others in the local community to act rather than meekly submit to Islamism, are being seen around the world.
For his part, an increasingly defensive Albanese rejected any link between Australia’s treatment of Palestine and the Bondi Beach terror attacks after Netanyahu raised the idea in a speech earlier this week.
“No, I don’t,” he told the ABC’s 7.30 program when asked if he accepted any link between the two. “Overwhelmingly, most of the world recognises a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East.”
As Breitbart News reported, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also took aim at the government in Canberra earlier this week, saying while the events at Bondi Beach were tragic, he was “not surprised.”
“The writing was on the wall and we’ve seen a wave of antisemitism in Australia, and we’ve also seen a very feeble response from the Australian leadership,” he said. “We time and again said that this would happen and not much was done. We have to fight antisemitism so this can never happen again.”
Albanese also faced criticism from Bennett for not mentioning Islamism as a motive for the attack on Sunday, saying, “We all know what it is. We all know the Jewish community is under attack.”