Australia-Israel: A Relationship at the Crossroads
For decades, Australia and Israel shared a bond that was more than diplomacy. It was a friendship born of shared values, democratic ideals, and a recognition of each other’s struggles and triumphs.
Australia, through Labor’s Herbert “Doc” Evatt, played a defining role in Israel’s birth. As chair of the UN General Assembly in 1947–48, Evatt helped steer through the partition plan and then cast the first vote for Israel’s independence. It was an act of moral clarity that Australians rightly took pride in. For years, our nation wore it as a badge of honour: we were Israel’s first friend.
That history has mattered. It shaped how Jewish Australians saw their place in this country and how Israel saw Australia’s role in the wider world. We were never the United States, but we were more than a bystander. We were family.
But in recent weeks and days, something has changed. With words spoken in Canberra and in Jerusalem, the friendship feels as if it is unravelling before our eyes.
The Albanese government’s announcement that it would recognise a Palestinian state “as a matter of principle” — absent any roadmap for how such a state might exclude Hamas, secure peace, or guarantee Israel’s borders— has been received as a profound shift. It comes while Israeli hostages are still held underground in Gaza and communities still grieving from the horrors of October 7. In that context, Israel looked for reassurance from old allies. Instead, it heard increasing distance.
More surprisingly, it came just two weeks after the Prime Minister had enunciated a thoughtful policy articulating that Palestinian statehood was contingent on capability. The underlying framing of that policy was we wanted Palestinian Statehood to realistically succeed rather than be a performance gesture that led to a failed state and another war.
For the Jewish community in Australia, already facing antisemitism on a scale never before seen in this country, the policy flip was deeply wounding. At a time when a rally on the Sydney Harbour Bridge can fly the flags of terrorist organisations and Iran’s Mullahs, when Jews in Melbourne and Sydney wonder about their safety in schools and synagogues, the symbolism of Australia’s step back is nothing short of abandonment.
And then, from Israel’s side, came words that made the fracture worse. Rather than responding with dignity and care, Israeli ministers chose the path of insult — petty, personal attacks on Australian leaders. Prime Minister Netanyahu led the pack with, “History will remember (Australian Prime Minister Anthony) Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.” “These remarks were not only unnecessary, they were reckless and self-defeating. They did nothing to restore what has been broken. They only drove the wedge deeper.
And in doing so, they handed a gift to those who actively seek to unravel Australia’s relationship with Israel. They played straight into the hands of those who want to tear it down.
Witness Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s riposte on radio during the week, “Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry,” invoking the image of children starving in Gaza while ignoring the massacres that caused this war. In playing to the gallery, Burke is recklessly driving the wedge deeper. He is making it inevitable that the Australian Jewish community will be singled out and punished because no other minority in this country is ever held collectively responsible for the actions of a foreign government. But for Jews, it has become open season.
What we are witnessing is more than a policy disagreement. It is the fracturing of a friendship that has stood for three-quarters of a century. Disagreements between allies are inevitable — Australia strikes its own path in international affairs. But what has been so unnerving in this moment is the lack of grace.
From Canberra, a willingness to reverse a principled position and gesture toward Palestinian statehood without any credible conditions. From Jerusalem, a childish unwillingness to treat Australia as a serious partner capable of honest disagreement. Each has wounded the other.
For Jewish Australians, the heartbreak is sharper still. We are the living bridge between these two nations. We carry the pride of previous Labor leaders embrace of Israel and the Jewish Community include Evatt’s vote, the memory of Arthur Calwell’s friendship, Bob Hawke’s warm embrace, and even Albanese’s past solidarity. And now we carry the sting of watching leaders trade blows — not reasoned arguments, but performance gestures, slights, and insults.
Friendship between nations should be like friendship between people: strong enough to withstand storms, not only fair weather. To watch this unique relationship fray in this way is to feel the loss of something precious.
We will not forget Australia’s role as Israel’s first friend. Nor will we forget the history we shared, the values we celebrated, the solidarity that once bound us. But nor, I fear, will we forget the breaking of it.
That is the tragedy of this moment — not only that policy has shifted, but that an historic friendship has faltered. These ties need to be treated with more care than is being given right now.
