Published: 16 December 2025
Last updated: 16 December 2025
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to the Bondi Beach terror attack by blaming Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for allowing antisemitism to spread.
“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” Netanyahu said in a media conference on Monday.
Netanyahu has previously claimed that Australia's decision to recognise a Palestinian state would fuel antisemitism. In August, at the time of the recognition, he called Albanese "a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews".
Albanese has rejected any connection between Australia's Israel-Palestine policy and the worst antisemitic attack in Australian history.
In an interview with national broadcasters, the Australian prime minister was asked if he accepted “any link between that recognition and the massacre in Bondi”.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “Overwhelmingly, most of the world recognises a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East.”
Domestic politics at play?
Veteran analysts say Netanyahu's attack on Albanese is motivated by scoring political points at home and deterring foreign leaders from criticising Israel.
Comments1
Steve Holstein16 December at 08:18 am
The current Australian government certainly needs to do some serious soul searching on antisemitism and security. Netanyahu’s biggest priority, however, is avoiding his multiple corruption charges, an endeavour that has him trying to destroy Israel’s court system. His govt is stitched together with generous handouts and dangerous concessions to Ultra-Orthodox and extreme right-wing politicians. Polls show that his govt is very unlikely to survive the next election, (Likud may win around 27 seats of 120). Israeli opposition politicians and analysts describe his criticism of Australia as a political stunt. MK Gilad Kariv expressed it best when, before the Knesset he said: “How can you all so readily point blame at the govt of Australia, while at the same time refusing to accept any responsibility for Oct 7”