Sara Netanyahu angst over live export trade

The wife of Israel’s prime minister will do what she can to end the ‘tremendous cruelty’ of Australia’s live export trade.

Sara Netanyahu said her husband, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will do what he can to end the “tremendous cruelty” of Australia’s live export trade and she will lobby her friend Lucy Turnbull over the issue.

Israel has in recent years been the third largest market by volume for Australian cattle producers and the fifth largest for sheep, according to Meat and Livestock Australia data.

Mrs Netanyahu posted her comments in a video on Mr Netanyahu’s Facebook page four days after 60 Minutes aired footage taken on a ship last August depicting thousands of sheep deaths and inhumane conditions.

Last week Agriculture Minister David Littleproud announced a review into the live sheep export trade after about 2400 sheep died on a ship bound for the Middle East late last year.

In her Facebook video, Mrs Netanyahu said she was “appalled” by live export conditions.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” she says, according to an English translation of her video provided to The Australian.

“I was appalled to see the awful conditions in which animals are transported to Israel. It really breaks my heart. I am fully supportive of the animal rights organisations which care for the welfare (of) animals in Israel and throughout the world,” she said.

“I am fully supportive. I turned to the PM, my husband who will do all he can to stop the tremendous cruelty. I also addressed the Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, and I have no doubt he will do all he can. I will also address the Australian Prime Minister’s wife, my friend, and I am sure the topics will speak to their hearts.

“There isn’t a single being who deserves to suffer this way, and to be humiliated this way. And we cannot as a community accept this. We owe to the animals the minimal acceptable conditions.”

The sheep died from heat stress on the MV Awassi Express, a ship used by Western Australia-based Emanuel Exports, during a voyage between Australia and Qatar in August 2017.

On Monday the same ship, which was about to take 65,000 sheep to the Middle East, failed inspection and Australian Maritime Safety Authority officials said it had to improve before it was allowed to set sail.

Australia has been a major diplomatic supporter of Israel, and Ms Netanyahu’s public appeal to the Turnbulls is considered unusual. But live export has been controversial in Israel for some time. In 2016 Animals Australia worked with animal protection groups in Israel — Anonymous for Animal Rights, Let the Animals Live, and Israel Against Live Shipments — to campaign against the live export trade.

The same year an Israeli cross-party parliamentary committee condemned the live export trade.