Australia hits back at Netanyahu after he calls PM Albanese "weak"

Canberra [Australia], August 20 (ANI): Australia hit back at Israeli Prime Minister after he branded the country's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "weak", with Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of conflating strength with killing people, Al Jazeera reported.

In an interview with Australia's national broadcaster on Wednesday, Burke said strength was not measured "by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry," Al Jazeera reported.

Burke's comments came after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Australian Prime Minister on social media, claiming Albanese would be remembered by history as a "weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews," Al Jazeera reported.

Speaking on the ABC's Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu's broadside as part of Israel's "lashing out" at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state.

"Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there's a decision that we know Israel won't like, he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu," Burke said.

"He has the conversation, he says exactly what we're intending to do, and has the chance for the objections to be made person to person. And then having heard them, makes public announcement and then does what needs to be done."

Relations between Australia and Israel, traditionally close allies, have progressively soured in recent months amid tensions over the war in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported, with ties becoming especially acrimonious since Canberra's announcement last week that it would recognise a Palestinian state.

On Monday, Australia announced that it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker with Israel's far-right Mafdal-Religious Zionism party and a member of Netanyahu's governing coalition, amid concerns that a planned speaking tour in the country aimed to "spread division," Al Jazeera reported.

Hours after that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said he had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has come under growing international pressure, including from many of its traditional allies, over the level of human suffering being inflicted by its war in Gaza. (ANI)

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