SYDNEY - The anti-Israel demonstrators aiming to disrupt President Isaac Herzog’s state visit to Australia, and who are garnering much of the headlines with unlawful protests, are a minority and not representative of the silent majority of Australians who want to see ties with Israel return to what they once were, Herzog said on Tuesday.
Herzog made his comments to an auditorium full of Jewish students at Moriah College, where, before he took questions from students in the upper grades, he was greeted by hundreds of grade school children waving Israeli flags to the sound of Am Yisrael Chai over the loudspeakers.
Addressing the current state of Israeli-Australian relations, Herzog recalled his 2008 visit to the country, when he was met warmly by both sides of the aisle in parliament, a time of deep bipartisan support for Israel.
'Something happened in the last generation'
“Clearly something has happened in the last generation, and it has set in deep, and it has to be met,” he said, referring to Israel’s current standing in the country.
Herzog said he was well aware that the “demonstrators and protesters who are criticizing us, saying the biggest lies and defamation against our nation,” are not going to listen.” But, he said, “I believe that in the silent majority of Australians, there are many who definitely want to hear,” and to move the ties back to what they once were.
Herzog, who will meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Wednesday, acknowledged the “ups and downs” Israel has had with the current government, but said that one of the goals of his current visit is to put the relations “back on track, upgrade them, and improve them.”
In a brief question-and-answer session with the students, Herzog acknowledged that they were facing a “huge wave of antisemitism,” something that “we never expected to see in Australia, which is also the land of the free, and was also a safe haven to so many Jews who had come under the most horrific of circumstances.”
Herzog gave a recommendation to the students: “Stand up, look them in the eye, don’t be afraid,” and to be proud of their Jewish and Zionist identity.
Asked by a teacher who identified herself as a Lebanese Christian whether he could ever imagine a day of peace between Israel and Lebanon, Herzog replied: “Absolutely, yes.”
“I know that the majority of Lebanese would love to live in peace with us,” he said. “Lebanon is a multicultural society, and I think now there is an opportunity after Israel hit Hezbollah hard that there is an opening for political change as well.”