‘Apologist for appalling government’: Mark Dreyfus slammed over planned Israel visit

Prominent opposition Jewish MP Julian Leeser has slammed the Attorney-General’s move as a ‘pre-election gimmick,’ and says Mark Dreyfus is an ‘impediment to addressing anti-Semitism in this country’.

Attorney-General and Cabinet Secretary Mark Dreyfus is planning to visit Israel. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, a prominent Jewish member of cabinet, will visit Israel to help mend frosty relations between the two countries, Anthony Albanese has announced.

Prominent opposition Jewish MP Julian Leeser has slammed the move as a “pre-election gimmick” and said Mr Dreyfus is an “impediment to addressing anti-Semitism in this country”.

“The Prime Minister is not sending a champion of the Jewish community,” Mr Leeser said. “He is simply replacing one apologist for this appalling government with another”.

The Prime Minister said Mr Dreyfus would be there “about a week”.

Mr Dreyfus had a trip scheduled for the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks but it was cancelled when Iran launched missiles against Israel.

The trip would be the first by a cabinet minister since Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong visited Israel last January.

The relationship between Australia and Israel has been frayed since the October 7 attacks, the following conflicts, and the heated domestic debate in Australia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month said the burning of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was an “abhorrent act of anti-Semitism” and connected it to the “extreme anti-Israel position of the Labor government in Australia”.

Mr Albanese, when questioned whether or not he and Senator Wong should visit Israel instead to mend the relationship, said “the Attorney-General is the appropriate person to visit Israel”.

The Nine newspapers reported Mr Dreyfus was preparing to visit “within weeks”.

Mr Leeser said the visit announcement came after Mr Albanese “focused for so long on the politics of the inner city left, he now realises he has lost the trust of mainstream Australians when it comes to the proliferation of anti-Semitism in our country and the betrayal of a longstanding Australian ally”.

“Sending Mark Dreyfus to Israel will not change the underlying failure of this government – which is the weak leadership of Anthony Albanese and hard-left policies of Penny Wong,” he said.

“In sending Mark Dreyfus, the Prime Minister thinks he is sending someone respected by the Jewish community to pour oil on troubled waters. He is not.

“Dreyfus’s silence on Israel is deeply felt across the Jewish community. Not only has he remained in Labor’s cabinet and gone along with every anti-Israel policy of the Albanese government, but as the minister responsible for Royal Commissions, the AFP and the Human Rights Commission, he has been an impediment to addressing anti-Semitism in this country.

“He has done nothing to clean up the Jew hatred at the AHRC. He has opposed the judicial inquiry into anti-Semitism on campus recommended by his own special envoy on anti-Semitism and, for more than a year, he failed to direct the resources of AFP or the AHRC to deal with the unprecedented anti-Semitism in this country.

“By sending Dreyfus to Israel, the Prime Minister is not sending a champion of the Jewish community. He is simply replacing one apologist for this appalling government with another.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin welcomed the announcement and said he “hope(s) that his visit marks a reset in Australia’s relations with Israel”.

“Every senior member of our government should go there to tour the south, bear witness to the horrors of October 7, and meet with witnesses, survivors and soldiers in order to understand the evil that Israel is facing and why the defeat of Hamas and the rescue of the hostages is the moral cause of our times,” he said.

“We hope that the Attorney-General returns to Australia with a new-found appreciation of why standing with Israel through this time of peril is not only the right thing to do, but in the national interest.

“We expect the Attorney-General will receive some difficult questions both about Australia’s treatment of Israel through this war, and its failures in regards to domestic anti-Semitism. We hope that his visit marks a reset in Australia’s relations with Israel and restores what was once thought to be unshakeable, bipartisan support for the Jewish State.”