Who invited this bloke?

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is preparing for his official state visit to Australia under a cloud of controversy and a lack of social cohesion.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is due to visit Australia. (Source:X)

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is preparing for his official state visit to Australia to express solidarity with the Australian Jewish community following a mass shooting at Bondi. The invitation has received criticism from the Australian public, who question the government’s decision to invite a controversial figure like Herzog, who represents a country that the UN has declared is committing genocide in Gaza.

In a country where an overwhelming majority of people believe there are ‘no innocent people in Gaza’, where 83% of the of the country back a conflict with Iran, Herzog is considered a moderate in Israel—particularly relative to the far-right coalition that swarms around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Hailing from Israel’s Labor Party left tradition, President Herzog held ministerial roles, led the opposition for five years, and served at the Jewish Agency for Israel before becoming President in 2021.

In the UN-declared genocide that followed Hamas’s terror attacks of October 7, 2023, Herzog has served as a more palatable face in his ceremonial and symbolic role as Israeli President. As Benjamin Netanyahu talks war, fire and brimstone, and biblical passages to salt the earth in Gaza—along with a cohort of messianic-tinged ethno-supremacist senior ministers in a motley crew of a government—Herzog has attempted to be the velvety covering on Israel’s iron fist. It hasn’t worked.

From an unravelling society where the public support guards who rape Palestinian prisoners in unlawful detention, and cars ram into protestors with different worldviews, the centre-left Herzog stated during press briefings that “an entire nation” in Gaza was responsible for the October 7 attacks. Later, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, finding that Herzog (along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant) incited the commission of genocide through public statements.

Herzog’s statements were later cited in South Africa’s application as evidence of risk of genocide and incitement, along with many other senior military and government officials in Israel, and the hundreds of hours of documented war crimes of the IDF. Herzog’s country is a global pariah; its actions have been found abhorrent by a majority of the world’s population, including a majority of Australians. Why are we inviting him to Australia?

In a country where a Palestinian football official was denied a visa at the last minute for a World Cup qualifier in Perth, where Omar Sakr and Candice Owens alike are denied speaking gigs, and writers’ festivals are ruined by ideologically intense boards with no writers on them, the Herzog visit burns a bit. In this country—where the political and media elite harp on about social cohesion till the cows come home—and a majority of Australians oppose Israel—the invitation of an Israeli head of state tastes a bit like bulldust.

Amid the constant slide toward authoritarianism—as laws change and bend around the people to suit powerful Zionist influence (hate speech laws, anti-discrimination laws, terror laws, lawfare, defamation, public hounding, vexatious reporting, jobs denied, reputations ruined, livelihoods lost)—all for the demands of pro-Israel elements with disproportionate power in our country. An Australian public coming to terms with a government that doesn’t act in the public interest, even during a genocide, now has to face the fact that our government has invited a man whose country is the main driver of antisemitism on earth.

Remember when PM John Curtin invited Himmler for a state visit because the Australian-German Nazi community demanded it smack in the middle of WW2? Nope? How about when Malcolm Fraser invited brother number two from the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime to ensure pro-Khmer Rouge supporters felt safe in Australia? Didn’t happen, did it? So why did Albanese shit the bed and invite Israeli President Herzog for a state visit while Israel commits genocide and twists the arm of the collective West into World War III with Iran?

In the West Bank, on International Holocaust Memorial Day, settlers raze and burn Palestinian homes, backed by Western funds—including Australian tax-exempt charities. A fiery evening pogrom, best described as hellish, is caught on camera: crazed silhouettes heap stolen material on fires that burn through the night—a common sight in Netanyahu’s Israel. Israeli society itself has unravelled under this period of extremity, militarism, dehumanisation, and genocide—the people of the settler state pushing toward an endgame that cannot be understood through a geopolitical or social lens.

While the Greater Israel project trudges on—as its champions demand to cut aid to Gaza by two-thirds—the US Envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, denounces nearly half the world’s population for holding “deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” even as his country considers war with Iran at Israel’s behest, after providing 24/7 airlifts of ordnance under two presidents to bomb Gaza into oblivion. Destroyed olive groves and cemented wells dot the biblical lands; missing children and the sheer volume of horrific content sear into the brains of Australians.

Is it enough that people have lost their jobs—journalists from public broadcasters, sports commentators from major networks? Academics cut off from funding, professionals and retail clerks harassed? Australians languish in their own democracy, feeling completely detached from the swirling events before them, watching as a government, media, and bureaucratic class jolt the country into uncertain and unnecessary social oblivion.

In the wake of the Bondi tragedy, the focus has not been on ISIS, intelligence and policing failures, or guns—but on the consequences borne (again) by the Australian people. We’re a pretty reasonable lot and put up with a lot from the nanny state, but for one of the world’s most desirable and safest secular nations, it inexplicably requires draconian federal and state laws limiting the proud Australian right to protest and express ourselves as free citizens—all because of two psychopaths who committed an abomination on our society.

Since October 7—when Israel responded with a brutality not seen in modern times and people began publicly expressing anger at Israeli and Australian governments that prosecute and support such horrors—states have passed hate crime laws and tightened policing. The federal government slapped us with a Hate Crimes Bill in February 2025, then rushed through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill during school holidays in the wake of Bondi, while everyone tried to make sense of it all. The sacrifices of everyday Australians will pave the protected, protest-free path that Herzog walks when he visits, as Australia’s scandalous political class smiles alongside him.

Western governments like Australia’s may cling to the status quo of historical acquiescence to lobbying groups, but storms rage outside. Populations in these countries are melting down as their governments overtly enable, support, or execute the will of a genocidal state that wields unprecedented power over them. However politically prudent Albanese’s decision to invite Herzog may seem in the old pre-genocidal language of supporting Zionist interests, it looks absolutely horrendous now.

The optics from welcomed Israeli officials in the West has not looked good. (Source: X)

People are scared. Journalist Glenn Greenwald says, “The number one threat to free speech in the West and in the United States are Israel loyalists trying to monitor and police the discourse of Americans to forcibly expel from the discourse criticism of this foreign country [Israel]…,” and the same applies here. Against the grain and defying reason, Israel has pushed its objectives onto nations and leaders worldwide, and Herzog’s visit, along with the raft of social restrictions and limited public freedoms that buffet him, represents that trend in Australia.

A coalition of civil society groups—that now includes UN human rights rapporteur Ben Saul—has raised a legal complaint demanding the government disallow the visit. It reflects a public interest that is ignored, held by people who feel their voices are increasingly suffocated. The visit should be disallowed—for social cohesion’s sake, if nothing else—and the question asked: what is this visit going to achieve?

In NSW, where Herzog will be received amid a “major security response,” a sweeping protest ban will be in place. His entourage includes controversial and powerful Zionists such as Yaakov Hagoel, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, and while the visit is framed as paying respect to the victims of Bondi, Herzog and his delegation will make the most of their access to Australia—taking their time to deliver their messages. When it’s all over in a few days, Australia will have hosted a political delegation from the world’s most controversial and accused nation, amid ongoing allegations of genocide in Gaza and widespread international condemnation of its military actions. That just feels a little un-Australian.