Tony Burke has lashed out at Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli Prime Minister called Anthony Albanese a ‘weak leader’, with the Immigration Minister claiming ‘strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up’.

Netanyahu took to X on Tuesday evening to brand Albanese ‘weak’, accusing him of ‘betraying Israel’ over the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood. 

‘History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,’ Netanyahu wrote. 

But, in a significant deepening of the diplomatic rift between the two countries, Burke hit back on Wednesday morning, claiming that ‘strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry’.

‘Strength is much better measured by what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there’s a decision we know Israel won’t like he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu,’ Burke told ABC Radio.

Burke said that Albanese had made clear to the Israeli PM that Australia was going to move to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN next month.

But he said that it came with strict conditions, including the promise that Hamas would not play any role in the future Palestinian state.

‘(Albanese acted) without in any way compromising the long-standing view that every hostage needs to be released, without compromising the view that Hamas is a terrorist organisation which must play no role in a future Palestinian state,’ Burke added. 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured) took to X on Tuesday evening to brand the Australian Prime Minister ‘weak’, accusing him of ‘betraying Israel ‘ over the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood

Tony Burke said that Albanese had shown strength by making it clear to the Israeli PM that Australia was going to move to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN next month

‘But to say to the Palestinian people who at the moment must be feeling so invisible to the world, to say, ‘you are not invisible, we see you, we will recognise you, and that we will take the action that Australia has always believed needed’.’

The diplomatic tit-for-tat intensified on Monday when it was revealed Burke had revoked the visas of far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman over some of his provocative comments including describing children in Gaza as enemies.

Australia had also denied entry to former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked, who once branded Palestinian children ‘snakes’, and controversial Israeli advocate Hillel Fuld.

But Shadow Minister for Home Affairs Andrew Hastie, who was responding to a report in the Daily Mail about controversial Muslim speakers who were allowed in to Australia, accused Burke of ‘double standards’.

‘How can the Albanese Labor Government approve the visa of a Hamas supporter but deny entry to an elected politician of a friendly country?’, he told the Daily Mail. 

‘Tony Burke must come clean on the secret and arbitrary process that he applies to create these inconsistencies leading to a current Israeli politician having his visa cancelled a day before he is set to arrive in Australia.’

But Burke defended his decision on Wednesday morning, claiming that he had a ‘personal responsibility as to whether or not Australia formally rolls out a welcome mat to people with extreme views’.

‘One of them has described Palestinian children as the enemy, and the other has described Palestinian children as little snakes,’ Burke added.

On August 11, Albanese announced Australia would support a move to recognise a state of Palestine at next month’s United Nations assembly (pictured, a woman in Gaza on Tuesday)

‘Now, if anyone wanted to come on a public speech tour, and they had those views publicly expressed about Israeli children, I would block the visa.

‘And I am going to not have a lower bar for the protection of views that are bigoted views against the Palestinian people.’

In response to Burke’s blocking of visas, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the visas of Australia’s representatives to the Palestinian Authority had been revoked.

He also instructed the Israel Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry into Israel. 

Before publicly branding him ‘weak’, Netanyahu had sent Albanese a strongly worded letter on August 17, condemning him for failing to address what he described as an ‘epidemic’ of antisemitism that had ‘intensified’ under his leadership.

‘Prime Minister, antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve, and to do so by a clear date: the Jewish New Year, September 23, 2025,’ Mr Netanyahu writes in the letter.

The Israeli PM claimed Australia’s announcement to support a move to recognise a state of Palestine ‘rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages’, ’emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets’.

‘It is not diplomacy, it is appeasement,’ Netanyahu wrote in the letter. 

‘Following Hamas’s savage attack on the people of Israel on October 7, 2023, pro-Hamas extremists and left-wing radicals began a campaign of intimidation, vandalism and violence against Jews across the free world,’ Mr Netanyahu wrote to Mr Albanese. 

‘In Australia, that campaign has intensified under your watch.’ 

He went on to highlight several acts of antisemitism against the Jewish community in Australia. 

‘In June, vandals defaced a historic Melbourne synagogue with graffiti praising Iran and calling to ‘Free Palestine’,’ Mr Netanyahu wrote.

‘In July, arsonists targeted the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation during Shabbat dinner, forcing twenty worshippers to flee for their lives.’