Call to Action: Write to your MP to Cancel Israeli President Visit

From 8-12 February, our government is planning to host Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, as an act of so-called 'solidarity' after the horrific antisemitic attack at Bondi. Standing with Jewish Australians is essential. But it doesn't require extending official state hospitality to the most senior representative of a government that is under the gravest legal and moral scrutiny in the world. This is the man who has personally signed bombs dropped on Gaza.

The International Court of Justice has issued provisional measures requiring Israel to prevent acts that could fall within the Genocide Convention and to enable humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for senior Israeli leaders. These processes are ongoing, but they make one thing clear: this is not business as usual. If Australia claims to stand for a rules-based international order, then red-carpet diplomacy right now risks looking like selective morality - loud for some breaches, quiet for others.

Supporters might say the Israeli presidency is ceremonial and diplomacy isn't endorsement. But state visits are pure symbolism: they signal legitimacy and normalcy. That symbolism will land domestically too, worsening division and hatred at a time when we need cohesion. The visit will also reinforce dangerous conflations between Jewish identity and the actions of the Israeli state.

Australia can - and must - oppose antisemitism directly through community protection, stronger enforcement, and unambiguous public leadership. We should not outsource that solidarity to a foreign leader’s visit.

For those reasons, I have written to my local MP David Smith calling on him to tell the Prime Minister to cancel this visit.

Please write urgently to your MP too. Find your MP here. And feel free to draw on content of my letter for your own if you wish.