One-on-one with the President

Thank you so much, Mr President, for talking to us. To begin with, since you arrived here yesterday morning, how have you been received by the Jewish community and also by the general Australian community?

It’s a very emotional trip, and I’m very honoured and gratified in coming here and seeing the overwhelming reaction, first and foremost, of the Jewish community, especially the bereaved families and the families in mourning, the members of the congregations and communities, and the leadership.

It was extremely moving yesterday at Bondi in the memorial service, and it was extremely moving and a huge event with thousands of members of the Jewish community last night, with the premier of New South Wales and many other leaders. I came with a very large, important delegation of people, and tonight at Chabad [of Bondi], I hope to see the prime minister there as well.

So you know, it’s a story to tell for ages, because it’s an expression of our love, the love from Israel to the Jewish community of Australia and vice versa. And it’s also an opportunity to send a message to all decent Australians, which are the big majority of people in Australia who understand us better than some people perceive it to be, and connect between what we’ve gone through on October 7 and what you’ve gone through on December 14.

Which actually leads to another question that I had, and that is that in Australia, the Jewish community are so used to consoling our Israeli brothers and sisters when there’s terror in Israel. Now that the role is reversed, what can you teach us about healing and mourning and moving forward?

It’s quite incredible what you mentioned, because in my delegation through the WZO [World Zionist Organisation] and the Jewish Agency whose chairs came along with me, there are a few people who are related to this question.

On the one hand, bereaved families. I came with the family of Oded Lifshitz, who was killed at age 83 in the dungeons of Gaza and his body was returned hundreds of days later. He was from Nir Oz. And I came with a family of Amit Bunzel, a warrior in the paratroopers who fought in battle to release our hostages. And what was amazing, his parents told me that at Bondi, when they met the bereaved families, the families asked to cling to them and talk to them and say, ‘can you tell us what to do? Can you explain to us, how do we function as a bereaved family with such a loss?’ And they found purpose in taking over.

And the second person that I brought with this delegation on the third is Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin. She’s a former member of the Knesset. She chairs the Victims of Terror Fund of the Jewish Agency. And JReady, which is an international operation of the Jewish Agency, to support the needs of communities in emergency – both prepare them and also deal with the post- trauma and the shock. And they had a delegation within days in Australia. So it all intertwines together, and I think it sends a very strong message of bonding between Israel and the Australian Jewish community.

Across the West – and Australia is no different – a lot of Jews feel that institutions we once trusted, universities, arts festivals, cultural bodies, the media have failed the Jews, especially since October 7, leading to what happened in Bondi. How do we reverse or fix this?

It’s a long, drawn out process that actually enjoyed an oversight by many who didn’t alert, who were silent, who didn’t want to do anything about it, who were not tough enough, even when the [university] encampments went in following October 7 and the whole apparatus in what I call the eighth frontier against Israel, which is the public opinion and the digital sphere and the public sphere campaigns against us.

It is something that runs very deep. There has to be a change, a deep change in the way, for example, universities function. I have friends telling me they can’t open their mouth and express the fact that they are Zionists who believe in Israel and its right to exist and to protect itself and defend itself. Because they won’t be able to be promoted in campuses, for example, they won’t be able to sit on committees or enjoy their professional success because of their personal views on Israel.

This is outrageous, and I think now is the moment, I think, post-December 14. Bondi is a watershed, and because it’s a watershed – it’s a tragic watershed – clearly the President of Israel should land in Australia and be received without the need for thousands of police to protect him, because we are allies of Australia and friends of Australia and Israel should be a bipartisan issue in Australia. But somebody has hijacked this discussion, and turned it into a long process of protests all over Australia, and it’s about time there’s a counter-reaction.

And what is your message to those protesters? I was at the event where you spoke on Monday night, it was beautiful, there was unity and peace, and just a few blocks away there were these hateful scenes of protest.

Many of these protesters have no clue about which River and which sea and what Intifada is about, and of course, about the story of Israel and Australia, and the fact that Australia has been there from day one with us in the creation of our national homeland, and is a strong ally.

And we are defending the free world. We are at the frontier of defending the free world against an empire of evil. This empire of evil spreads havoc all over the world, including in Australia, bloodshed, terror, jihadism, and these demonstrators don’t have the courage to turn against Iran and say, ‘How come you’ve been butchering tens of thousands of your own people who want freedom and love?’ You know why they don’t demonstrate? Because they’re politically motivated, they’re brainwashed. They have no intention of really fighting for the good cause of humanity, but rather simply because they’re totally distorted in their vision of what Israel is all about and what the conflict is all about.

And what do you want to tell Jewish people who have aligned themselves with that?

Well, I can only regret that. I read, of course, some of the statements. But honestly, I know that the huge, overwhelming majority of the Jewish community and the members of the Jewish communities around Australia, are allied with Israel and are extremely moved and happy that I came over.

You’ve spoken about resetting and upgrading the relationship between Australia and Israel. You’ll meet with the Prime Minister on Wednesday in Canberra. What are you planning to tell him?

It cannot be that the only issue that’s at stake all the time is what you term the two-state solution. There are so many other topics on our agenda. We are two nations that are incredible in their economic results, in their innovation, in their science, in their contribution to humanity. We can share on so many grounds.

We can discuss the solution of peace with the Palestinians and how to get there. We can argue – we are a democracy, you are a democracy – but that cannot impact the love and affection and cooperation that must ensue, and was always there from the beginning between Israel and Australia.