Australian business groups postponing Israel visits in wake of Hamas attacks

Australian business delegations to Israel are being postponed in the wake of the Hamas attack.

People with Israeli flags watch the Opera House while it is illuminated in blue to show solidarity with Israel in Sydney on Monday. Picture: AFP

Australian business delegations to Israel are being postponed in the wake of the Hamas attack on southern Israel on the weekend, according to Paul Israel, the executive director of the Tel Aviv based Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Israel, who has been in Australia for a two-week business visit, said business delegations headed for Israel in the next few weeks were now rescheduling them for later in the year.

The chamber, which has a full-time staff of 12 people based in Tel Aviv, is the largest foreign chamber of commerce is Israel, handling up to 30 delegations a year with more than 700 people.

“The missions due in the next week or two are rescheduling,” he told the Australian in an interview.

“But the ones scheduled for later in the month or November are still coming.”

Mr Israel, who was born in Melbourne but has been living in Israel for the past 30 years, said three delegations which were planned to leave from Australia to Israel in the next few weeks had been postponed.

He said he first heard of the attacks in a phone call from his wife on Saturday telling him that she and their children were heading to the bomb shelter room in their apartment just south of Tel Aviv.

Paul Israel, the executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce.

“They rang me very soon after it all started.”

He said his wife and one of his sons had run into the room of their middle son whose room was also the family’s bomb shelter.

He said homes in Israel all had bomb shelters since the Gulf War of the early 1990s.

Mr Israel, who has run the chamber in Israel for the past 20 years and is well known in Australia-Israel business circles, said he had received a large number of messages in recent days of support from the wider community in Australia, as well as people needing help to get out of Israel or to get back home to Israel.

The chamber has a full-time staff of 12 people based in Tel Aviv which he said were now working from home in the wake of the attacks.

He said he expected there would be as many as 40 trade missions visiting Israel next year from Australia “all on the back of innovation”.

The chamber has been instrumental in promoting Israel as a hi-tech nation keen to make business connections with a wide range of industry sectors in Australia including agriculture, start ups, tech companies and investment and finance companies.

He said he expected many first time visitors to Israel who had been planning to visit would defer their plans, but he said people visiting for family reasons would continue.

He said Israel was protected from even worse damage by Iron Dome anti missile system for short range missiles which he said had been the “saviour” of the country from outside rocket attacks.

He said many people in Israel, including in his chamber, were now working from home in the wake of the attacks.

“People are working from home. We just came off the Jewish high holidays, so it was a bit quiet.”

“We are busy preparing for delegations for the rest of the year and next year.”

“It has been interrupted and people are distracted,” he said.

“This is the worst incident in Israel’s history.”

“It is the largest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust. There has been nothing like it. It is bad.”

But he said people in Israel were used to having to respond to crisis situations.

“It is not new to us to pivot and be flexible with what is going on,” he said.

Mark Leibler says he was personally concerned about his own family living in Israel. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Mark Leibler, senior partner in law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, and national chairman of the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, said he business delegations to Israel and proposed business conferences in Israel were being postponed.

“It is very difficult nowadays to get into Israel because lots of airlines are not flying.

“The country is in a state of war.”

He said he expected that there would continue to be some “solidarity missions” to Israel but “business delegations will obviously not be going now.”

Mr Leibler said he was personally concerned about his own family living in Israel, particularly his grandson, who had been called up to fight in a combat unit in Israel.

He said it was difficult for people to go to work in the country at the moment.

“They are basically stuck at home, going in and out of their underground shelters when the sirens go off.”

“This is not a time to have business meetings and to be touring. It’s very difficult.”

“The only groups who will be going while the war is on will be solidarity missions.”

He said he was having “sleepless nights” worrying about his family in Israel, particularly his grandson.

“It is not only me. There are many in the Jewish community who are very much in the same position with family and close friends over there.”

“There has never been another occasion since the Holocaust where almost 1,000 Jews have been murdered, butchered, raped, taken hostage – virtually on one day.”

“It is unimaginable. It is impossible to understand how it could have happened.”

He said proposed business delegations were not being cancelled but were being delayed.

“It is almost impossible to do these things in the middle of a war.”

“Having business missions there is not an option.”

A spokesman for Frank Lowy, who is based in Tel Aviv, said Mr Lowy was currently in New York and did not want to comment on the situation in Israel.