Australian Prime Minister Albanese was greeted with boos while attending a vigil held in honor of the victims of the Bondi Beach shooting on Sunday.
An estimated 10,000 people gathered to mourn, including Albanese, various Australian politicians, and members of the Jewish community, converging at Bondi Beach to remember the victims. David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, addressed the crowd about Albanese’s presence, which was met with a chorus of boos.
“This must be the lowest point of antisemitism in our country,” Ossip stated. “This has to be the moment when light begins to overcome the darkness.”
Meanwhile, the crowd cheered when opposition leader Sussan Ley was mentioned. Ley has noted that a coalition government under her leadership would reverse Albanese’s government decision to recognize a Palestinian state.
This tense reaction follows criticism from Jewish leaders and Israeli officials, who have condemned Albanese’s government for overlooking warning signs of rising antisemitism in Australia in the months preceding the Bondi Beach attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu emphasized a letter he sent to Albanese earlier this year, when Albanese’s government announced it would recognize a Palestinian state. He argued the move “fuels the antisemitic fire.”
“Your government took no action to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancerous elements growing within your country. You took no steps. You let the problem spread, and the result is the terrible attacks on Jews we see today,” Netanyahu said on the day of the attack.
The December 14 attack left 15 people dead and dozens more hospitalized. The shooters were a father-son pair, with the father killed during the incident. The son, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, awoke from a coma after recovering from severe injuries and .