Bibi bound for Oz in June?
JERUSALEM – Plans are afoot for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Australia, The AJN has learned.
JERUSALEM – Plans are afoot for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Australia, The AJN has learned.
A senior Israeli government official revealed that Jerusalem has “conducted preliminary discussions” on the subject of a visit, and while a date has not been finalised, Israel is very keen for it to go ahead.
The plans for a visit reflects growing warmth between Jerusalem and Canberra since Tony Abbott took office. Abbott said shortly after taking office that he wanted to strengthen ties with Israel.
The government official told The AJN: “The two Prime Ministers met most recently at Davos at the World Economic Forum. There were invitations from both leaders to each other.”
A trip by Netanyahu to Australia would be expected to focus on trade relations, fighting delegitimisation of Israel, and the challenges facing the country. There could be some less comfortable topics, such as the subject of Ben Zygier, also known as Prisoner X, the Australian man who killed himself in an Israeli prison after a career with Mossad.
While The AJN was the first news outlet to have confirmation of plans for an Australia visit from within the Israeli government, a political blogger Tal Schneider suggested that a visit was in the offing in an unsourced post earlier this week, suggesting that the visit will take place in June.
Schneider told The AJN that she thinks it strange that Netanyahu appears prepared to be so far away from Israel. “It seems just weird for an Israeli Prime Minister to take such a long trip, because Israel is always under threat,” she said.
Schneider added that plans for such a big trip would seem to indicate that Netanyahu feels very stable in office, and that he does not foresee any government crises, Palestinian violence, or progress in the peace process, all of which would prevent him from travelling. “If he didn’t feel secure in his seat he wouldn’t plan such a trip,” she said.
NATHAN JEFFAY
Benjamin Netanyahu meeting Tony Abbott at Davos in January. (Photo: Ashernet)
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