Australia’s love affair with Israel is over. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong sneered that Netanyahu’s government was “isolating itself.” Netanyahu roared back, blasting Anthony Albanese as “a weak leader who abandoned the Jews of his country.” The gloves are off, and the fallout is brutal.
Once a paradise for Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees, Australia has rotted into a breeding ground for anti-Jew hate. Synagogues torched, Jewish restaurants defaced, kippahs ripped off the heads of worshippers, families living in fear. The Jewish community that once called this place safe now asks if the dream was ever real. “This country used to embrace the Jewish people,” said Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. “Since Labor came to power under Albanese and Wong, ties with Israel have collapsed and anti-Jew hatred has exploded everywhere.”
On the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, mobs wave ISIS and Hezbollah flags while neo-Nazis march openly. Police whisper to rabbis they can’t guarantee safety. The Combat Antisemitism Movement logged 182 hate incidents since January, arson, vandalism, threats, assaults. One in five young Australians admits they’ve seen anti-Jew abuse with their own eyes. For Shai Levin, an Israeli who’s lived in Bondi since 2013, the country is unrecognizable. “It feels like my grandfather’s Europe before the war,” he said. “We’re thinking of leaving. The government feeds this hate for votes. It’s sick.”
Albanese’s mask has slipped. Old photos of him grinning with a Palestinian flag aren’t curiosities anymore, they’re proof. Labor leans on Muslim voters and bows to the Greens’ anti-Israel pressure. Wong obliges, hammering Israel at every chance. When Interior Minister Tony Burke tore up the visa of Israeli lawmaker Simcha Rothman, Israel retaliated by banning Australian envoys from the Palestinian Authority. The message was clear: relations are in the gutter.
Meanwhile, Jewish students are harassed in universities, Jewish artists are blacklisted from festivals, and everyday Jews hide their Stars of David to avoid being spat on. Some are beaten, some are thrown out of shops with slurs of “baby killer.” Families rip mezuzahs from their doorframes. Kids are trained in krav maga for survival. In the suburbs, Israelis whisper that walking certain streets feels like entering the West Bank.
The government scrambles to hide its shame appointing a token envoy against antisemitism, promising $100 million for “security.” But Jewish leaders aren’t fooled. “When they attack Israel, they’re telling the mob it’s open season on us,” Ryvchin warned. Even Australia’s once-proud Jewish community of 130,000 now lives in fear, fractured and disillusioned.
The land that once welcomed Jews fleeing the camps has become the place where Jews are hunted in the streets. Australia, the country that boasted of tolerance, has turned its back. For many Jews, the question is no longer how to live here. It’s how fast they can get out.
