Tensions Soar Over Herzog Visit

After the Bondi massacre and new hate laws, a visit to Australia beginning Monday by the Israeli president named in the ICJ genocide case is raising tensions as Herzog seals Israel’s victory in Oz, writes Joe Lauria. By Joe Lauria in Sydney, Australia Special to Consortium News Three weeks after passage of the most authoritarian laws in the country’s history, Israeli President Issac Herzog arrives in Australia on Monday as a conqueror putting the capstone on the takeover of the Australian government by a foreign power. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was maneuvered into “inviting” Herzog by the Zionist Federation of Australia, who invited him first, says the intent of the visit is to foster “social cohesion” following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack on Dec. 14 that killed 15 innocent people and wounded 40 at a Hanukkah party. But the visit is doing the opposite. Furious protests against the accused genocidaire are planned in at least 26 towns and cities with police threatening mass arrests in Sydney. Herzog says he wants to use the visit to combat “lies and false information” about Israel in Australia. “It’s … time to get out of that brainwash campaign that has been going on within the Australian public for quite some time, both against the Jews and against Israelis,” he told The Australian newspaper. Instead Herzog has spread the most horrific lies to cover-up Tel Aviv’s aggressive and genocidal campaign to build regional hegemony under the protection of Washington’s global empire that includes allied nations like Australia. Herzog pretends that Israeli aggression is actually protection for Western civilization against barbarians. He told the Murdoch-owned newspaper: “’Without us, the world is at risk and danger because of the Iranian empire of evil which has a kind of a jihadist, sort of Messianic intention to annihilate all those who don’t accommodate their beliefs, meaning Jews, Christians of all denominations, and moderate Muslims. And without Israel, Europe is at risk, the United States is at risk. The free world is at risk because we are at the border of a clash of civilisational values against an empire of evil emanating from Tehran, which launched the horrific attack on October 7. We did not seek this war. We did not want this war. We are defending ourselves.” Anyone with a modicum of understanding of the Middle East, Iran and Islam knows that Herzog is lying and that he is counting on Westerners’ lack of understanding. By blaming Iran front and center, Herzog is trying to achieve several things. First, he by saying Iran ran Oct. 7, he wants to remove the agency of Palestinians from their 78-year struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the first 30 years of which took place with a U.S. and Israel ally on the throne in Iran. Herzog knows that Qatar has been allowed by Israel for years to fund Hamas far more than Iran and that Iran has mostly backed Hezbollah defending Lebanon. Second, Herzog is purposely conflating Shia Iran with Sunni jihadist aims, such as that of ISIS wanting to “annihilate all those who don’t accommodate their beliefs, meaning Jews, Christians of all denominations, and moderate Muslims.” He is trying to conjure Iran into some generic idea of an evil Muslim power intent on rebuilding a Caliphate to enslave white Christians and Jews. This statement is similar to Benjamin Netanyahu’s oft-repeated propaganda line that “ISIS is Hamas and Hamas is ISIS.” While ISIS occupied territory in Iraq and Syria and never attacked Israel, Hamas has been fighting against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. An occupier — ISIS, versus a resistor to occupation — Hamas. Far from wanting to “annihilate” them, Iran dedicates seats in Parliament to Christian and Jews, groups that are protected in the Quran and in the Iranian constitution. Iranian Muslims who convert to Christianity have been harassed by authorities, but not native-born Christians. Third, Herzog is reinforcing anti-Iran rhetoric that saw the Australian Intelligence and Security Organization (ASIO) last year blame Iran for a series of anti-semitic incidents without proof. That led Albanese to kick the Iranian ambassador out of Australia. Once again the idea that Iran may have been responsible for the Bondi terrorist attack was floated by Israel, even though the shooters were inspired by ISIS — mortal enemies of Iran. Fourth, Israel is in the midst of desperately trying to get the United States and its allies to back renewed aggression against Iran, which was left off last June without achieving Israel’s ultimate goal of regime change. While Herzog is in Australia, Netanyahu will again be at the White House this week trying to put an end to Washington-Tehran talks and to bomb Iran istead. Arrests Threatened Huge numbers of Australians are not buying Herzog’s nonsense. They know Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 2023. They know Israel is carrying out aggression against the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran and launching bombing raids and assassinations across the region, not in self-defense, but as part of the 80-year expansionist, Greater Israel project. As many as 300,000 Australians marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge last August to demonstrate to the world that they rejected Israel’s genocide and the falsehoods it peddles to try to cover it up. Herzog will be met with vociferous demonstrations across the country on Monday. About 5,000 protesters are expected at the Sydney Town Hall, including some Labor and Green MPs opposed to Herzog’s visit. Authorities are trying to keep the numbers down by blocking off streets and limiting train service to the central business district. The Palestine Action Group, organizers of the Town Hall rally, intend to lead a march from there to the New South Wales Parliament building. Police say they will arrest anyone who blocks traffic by marching. The protestors said they would march in single file. The police said that would be impossible and offered a different route away from the state Parliament, which the protest leaders rejected. Police want the protest relocated from Town Hall to Hyde Park and to march on a different route, proposals so far rejected by Palestine Action, which was in court on Monday trying to get the ban against marching lifted. The NSW premier has declared police emergency powers under a 2009 law, which has shut down central and eastern Sydney, to limit the number of people in an area and to carry out searches. Also in effect is a new law passed on Christmas Eve at 3:30am in the Parliament building in the wake of the Dec. 14 Bondi attack. The new law prohibits or limits protests for 14 days after a terrorist attack, renewable indefinitely. The state have deployed 3,000 police officers, including snipers, to protect Herzog. Five hundred officers will be at Town Hall. A complaint was filed against an attorney who has offered pro bono representation against any protester who is arrested. Herzog was at Bondi Beach on Monday to commemorate the massacre and meet with family members of the stricken. In the evening while the rally takes place, Herzog will be feted at the ICC — the International Convention Centre in Sydney. Herzog will then travel on Tuesday to the capital, Canberra, and then to Melbourne before returning to Israel on Thursday. Legal Action Against Herzog Herzog was named in South Africa’s complaint charging genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Fourteen other nations have joined South Africa’s complaint, which names Herzog. His statements are included as evidence of genocidal intent, dehumanization, and failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants. The complaint quotes Herzog as saying: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true … and we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.” Herzog was also named in a September 2025 United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry. It said Herzog’s statement quoted in the ICJ complaint “may be interpreted as incitement to Israeli security forces to target Palestinians collectively as culpable” for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The Commission said that statements like that of Herzog, “permitted Israeli security forces to disregard international law obligations.” The report says: “The Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog (along with PM Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant) incited genocide. Israeli authorities failed to punish this incitement.” Herzog has also come under fire in Australia for having been photographed signing bombs that were used to kill civilians in Gaza. In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald ahead of his visit, he acknowledged it was “something that was lacking taste. I agree that I may have made an error”. On Jan. 29, Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), and the Jewish Council of Australia, filed a complaint arguing that Australia had an obligation under international treaties to investigate and potentially arrest and prosecute Herzog for his apparent statements of genocidal intent. The Center for Human Rights Research and Advocacy in Malaysia called on Malaysia to issue an international arrest warrant for Herzog during his visit to Australia in the principle of universal jurisdiction that was once used against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. New Laws Against Hate Herzog arrives three weeks after the passage of nation-altering authoritarian laws that curb the right to protest and potentially endangers someone who is a member of a proscribed group with imprisonment for publicly saying Israel is an apartheid state that is committing genocide. Groups proscribed under the new law will be determined in secret and without due process by ASIO, the federal police, the home affairs minister and the attorney general. As the aim of Israeli and Australian politicians and the Israel Lobby has been to conflate the anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian movement with the Bondi terrorist attack, carried out by Indian Muslims inspired by ISIS, the Palestine Action Group, organizers of Sydney’s Monday protest, fears it may be banned as a hate group. The laws were passed by the federal Parliament on Jan. 20, just five weeks after the Bondi massacre, under huge pressure from the Israel Lobby. Within hours of the Bondi attack, Netanyahu was publicly blaming anti-genocide protesters in Australia. Addressing Albanese, Netanyahu said: “I called upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve. Instead, prime minister, you replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement.” He said Albanese “did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia, you did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country.” Netanyahu said he wrote to Albanese earlier because his “call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.” Right after the attack, Herzog said: “Time and again we called on the Australian government to take action and fight against the enormous wave of anti-semitism that is plaguing Australian society.” Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told Sky News Australia “this is what it means” to permit demonstrators to chant “‘globalize the intifada’ … if you let that continue and run in your streets” you are asking for more terrorism, she said, directly linking the protestors to terrorists. Haskel had earlier called anti-genocide protesters in Australia “useful idiots” for Hamas. Jillian Segal, Australia’s special envoy to combat anti-semitism, issued an alarming statement, blaming anti-genocide protesters for what happened on the beach. She said: “This did not come without warning. In Australia, it began on 9 October 2023 at the Sydney Opera House. We then watched a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge waving terrorist flags and glorifying extremist leaders. Now death has reached Bondi Beach. These are Australian icons. Targeting them is deliberate. This is not random. It is an attack on Australia.” Segal was trying to make as many as 300,000 Australians in effect complicit with the massacre of innocents at Bondi. The meda left out of its Bondi reporting that these protests didn’t just spring out of thin air, propelled by pure, irrational hatred for Jews, but instead grew in direct reaction and proportion to the advancing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Leaving that out of the story makes it seem like the protests, such as those planned for Monday, are fueled by pure anti-semitism. Leaving the genocide out of the story not only excuses and covers it up, but falsely portrays opponents of genocide as willing accomplices of terrorists. This is the Australia that Herzog is visiting this week. One that has capitulated to the worst of Zionist demands, namely continuing participation in the genocide and criminalizing its opponents by fundamentally changing the country to serve Israel’s demands. Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. Influence, affluence and effluence drowning the Truth. Again. Unless you are free to suppress speech you don’t like, how can you say you live in a free country? Is Bondi not pre-planned? Thanks Joe. First, as an Australian I am sick of foreign interference by leaders accused of genocide having so much influence on Australian politics and, as a consequence, our way of life and the very few limited freedoms we have under ‘our’ laws. Permitting the Israeli president to visit is one thing; but the Australian Labor government has just announced that it has allocated around $131m for a royal commission (RC) into antisemitism and social cohesion after the Bondi shooting massacre, this is according to the attorney general’s department. The inquiry has been allocated 89 staff in total – 64 for the royal commission itself, and 25 inside the department. For clarity “A royal commission is an independent public inquiry. In Australia, royal commissions are the highest form of inquiry on matters of public importance.” Nice idea. But rarely have any findings of any RC been implemented by a government, regardless of where they may lie on the political spectrum. The reports of so-called antisemitism (something NOT defined in Australian law, but defined under the influence of the Zionist lobby here) has been grossly overstated by politicians and legacy-media for reasons that are pretty obvious by now. A well regarded social survey, conducted annually, indicates “34% (of respondents) in 2024 have a somewhat or very negative attitude towards Muslims, up from 27 per cent in July 2023, but still below peak levels recorded in 2018 (39%), 2019 (40%) and 2020 (37%). Negative attitudes towards Jewish people increased from 9% in 2023 to 13% in 2024. … the net score of positive attitudes minus negative attitudes [showed] Jews positive 14, Hindus positive score 12, Sikhs positive 9 and Muslims negative 19.” That last bit again: Muslims rated negative 19. But no RC into the vitriol displayed towards Muslims in Australia? Australia still struggles to rid itself of the spectre of the White Australia Policy. There are some things prohibited from any airing in the Australian MSM, including the so-called progressive papers. One of those forboden things is that specimens like Herzog and Netanyahu are the two of the main drivers of antisemitism in Australia; and the second: that the Australian PM and the rest of the Labor government has failed to denounce the war crimes of the Israeli government, exacerbating the problem by inviting one of them to Australia at the behest/cajoling of some very forceful lobbyists. This from a government which openly announces its support of international law. About Royal Commissions: hxxps://www.royalcommission.gov.au/about-royal-commissions List of Australian royal commissions: hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_royal_commissions Albo’s “Knights And Dames” Moment?: hxxps://michaelwest.com.au/albos-judgement-the-voice-richo-segal-herzog-bondi/