SYDNEY — “We are one big family, and when one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain,” President Isaac Herzog said at a wreath-laying ceremony Monday morning at the site of the Bondi Beach massacre, where Islamic terrorists killed 15 people in December.
The ceremony took place just hours after Herzog arrived in Australia earlier in the day for a four-day visit at the invitation of Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and the Australian Jewish community. Speaking at the ceremony, he said he had come to embrace and console the bereaved families following the “horrific antisemitic terror attack.”
Herzog welcomed what he called the “positive steps already taken by the Australian government to tackle antisemitism since the Bondi attack,” but stressed that he — along with others — had warned leaders in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States for years about the rising tide of antisemitism in their societies, long before the massacre occurred.
Herzog is scheduled to meet Albanese on Wednesday, a meeting seen as part of an effort to put bilateral relations back on firmer footing after a period of strain. Australia was one of a number of Western countries that recognized a Palestinian state over the summer, a move that drew angry responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Following the Bondi attack, Netanyahu said Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state had “poured fuel on an antisemitic fire.”
When Australia denied a visa to Religious Zionist Party MK Simcha Rothman. In response in August, Netanyahu wrote on X/ Twitter: “History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”
While Herzog’s visit is seen as an opportunity to improve ties, one official noted the irony that Albanese would likely not have extended the invitation were it not for the terror attack itself.
Much of the local media coverage has focused less on the visit’s symbolic significance and more on whether it was morally appropriate or politically wise for Albanese to invite Herzog, given the vocal anti-Israel element within the Labor Party and the intensity of public opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.
That strain surfaced even at the ceremony itself, during one of the questions posed by an Australian reporter.
“Standing here at this solemn site where 15 people were killed indiscriminately,” the reporter asked, “there are protests planned today by people mourning 70,000 killed in Gaza, including 20,000 children. Can you reflect on what message you have, if any, for those protesters?”
Herzog, no stranger to hostile anti-Israel protests during visits abroad, responded that Israel and Australia have been close allies for decades and that support for Israel has traditionally been bipartisan in Australia.
In many cases, he said, what is heard at such demonstrations comes from people who “seek to undermine and delegitimize” the very right of Israel to exist at all.
Herzog visit triggers massive Sydney security operation
The visit has prompted a massive security operation in Sydney, with some 3,500 police officers deployed to protect the president. Herzog’s heavily guarded motorcade traveled from downtown Sydney to Bondi Beach as a police helicopter hovered overhead.
Efforts by authorities to keep protesters away from the president have led to legal challenges, amid allegations that the government is employing draconian measures to quell freedom of speech.
This has led to much of the media focusing on the protests, police powers and court battlers rather than on the symbolism of the visit or even on broader Israeli-Australian ties.