Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denies any link between Australia's recognition of a Palestinian state and this week's Bondi Beach terrorist attack against Jews celebrating Chanuka.
"Overwhelmingly, most of the world recognizes a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East," Albanese muttered in his trademark anodyne tone when relating to the attack. This was pushback against insinuations of Australian diplomatic culpability made by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and many Jewish leaders.
Albanese is wrong. He is blind, purposefully in denial. His enthusiasm for promoting Palestinian statehood led to the Bondi Beach slaughter.
Albanese's impudent and insolent, in-Israel's-face, at-Israel's-expense, over-Israel's-objection, stance on this matter indeed makes him culpable in the murder of 15 Australian Jews. As Emile Zola famously wrote: J'accuse!
This may be an accusation not comfortable to make, but Israeli and Jewish leaders around the world must insist upon it in every interaction with politicians and diplomats.
Leaders like Albanese – and prime ministers Keith Starmer of Britain and Mark Carney of Canada, and President Emmanuel Macron of France – must be told that their insane insistence on unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, specifically after October 7 and especially as calls for the destruction of Israel escalate in Palestinian society and in Western streets – is immoral.
Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood in defiance of Israel obnoxiously delegitimizes Israeli historic-national and security positions and callously undermines the right to dignity of Jewish supporters of Israel. It amounts to abrogation of Western commitment to Israel's security and to abandonment of the Jews. It is criminal appeasement of the enemy beast (and the beast will never be appeased).
It declares open season for hunting down Jews and "Zionists." Yes, it directly paves the way to Sydney-style bloodbaths.
You see, the dereliction in countering antisemitism of the Australian government (and of the British, Canadian, French, and other governments) is clear, but that is only part of the picture.
Undeniably, they have been delinquent in setting proper limits on democratic discourse and in applying concrete policies that would combat the escalating hate fest. They have let the jihadist mobs rant-away in their streets with calls of "Gas the Jews," Death to the IDF," "Globalize the Intifada," and other threats to Jews near and far.
Alas, dereliction of duty in combating such hate is an accusation easy to make and substantiate. It is a painfully obvious and searing indictment, but also too thin of an indictment. Western leaders must be charged with more – with mollycoddling the rapidly accelerating civilizational assault on the Jewish People and their indigenous homeland, the State of Israel.
WHEN GOVERNMENTS like Canberra give credence to false anti-Israel narratives about the Gaza war (such as allegations that Israel intentionally starved Gazan children, or targeted hospitals and journalists) – Hamas is handed a victory, and supporters of jihad are given incentive for violence against Jews everywhere.
When these falsehoods are presented as legitimate criticism of Israel's government, Israelis and Jews inevitably become classified as villains undeserving of rights or sympathy – and outrages like Bondi Beach as well as campus and subway attacks on Jews become likely, even normalized.
When governments like Canberra blabber about the "urgency" of Palestinian statehood and shower Israel with "tough love" in this regard through highhanded UN resolutions – Palestinians get a green light for more war against Israel, and antisemites are encouraged to rev-up their attacks on Jews.
When governments like Canberra continue to massively fund the nefarious Hamas-penetrated agency, UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians) – this feeds the Palestinian claim to a so-called "right of return" that would demographically destroy Israel and nourishes the convictions of jihadist gunmen that they can freely pop-off Jews on beaches or in synagogues.
In short and in plain language: By slap-happily bashing Israel and recklessly promoting Palestinian statehood at this existential moment, governments like those of Prime Minister Albanese weaken Israel and prolong the Palestinian campaign to demonize Israel. And this fuels the mobs rampaging through Jewish neighborhoods in Sydney and Melbourne, London, and Toronto.
And when Western leaders are willfully and stubbornly oblivious to this linkage, their professing of support for Jews rings hollow.
Every thinking Jew in the world knows this to be true. We feel this in our bones. Albanese and his ilk can deny this perspective and profess to be concerned both for the rights of Palestinians and for the safety of Jews with no contradiction between them, but we Jews know otherwise.
To paraphrase the actor and podcaster Jonah Platt: Western leaders absolutely do not get to foment hatred of the one place in the world where Jews are not a minority and where half of all Jews on Earth live – and then pretend they care about Jewish lives.
They absolutely do not get to dismiss mainstream Jewish community voices while tokenizing fringe anti-Zionist Jews who agree with them and who libel Israel – and then pretend they care about Jewish lives.
Mr. Albanese, Mr. Starmer, Mr. Carney, and Mr. Macron: You absolutely do not get to superciliously ignore the genocidal intentions of Palestinians against Israel and the murderous aims of antisemitic rioters against Jews – and then pretend you care about Jewish lives.
Instead, breed a strategic brain and scale back your dangerous delegitimization of Israel and Jews. Get some gumption and tell Palestinians that there will be no Palestine "from the river to the sea" (i.e., no erasure of Israel). Grow a collective spine and tell your own publics that you reject the relentless equation of Israel and Jews with the evils of faddish radical discourse (imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, white supremacy, genocide, etc.).
Stop scurrying about the international stage with schemes to ram a hostile Palestinian state down Israel's throat while offering crocodile tears when local Jews pay the price of your maliciousness and malfeasance.
