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Selective context: Why Isaac Herzog’s visit deepens Australia’s moral failure

It would be hard to imagine a more divisive guest in this country. The Jewish Council of Australia has expressed ‘outrage that the Albanese Government would fuel the flames of division  by inviting Herzog to visit Australia, warning that his trip is completely inappropriate and offensive and will rightly spark mass protest’. Herzog, the Council said, ‘has played an active role in the ongoing destruction of Gaza, including the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the displacement of millions’.

By Sue Wareham | 9 February 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/selective-context-why-isaac-herzogs-visit-deepens-australias-moral-failure,20660

Calls to ‘consider the context’ of President Herzog’s visit obscure Israel’s ban on dozens of NGOs in Gaza and the West Bank, writes Dr Sue Wareham.

AHEAD OF TODAY’S VISIT to Australia by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the anticipated large protests against it, Foreign Minister Penny Wong asked us to ‘consider the context’ of the visit.

Part of that context is the horrific massacre of 15 Jewish Australians at Bondi in December and the deep sense of grief felt throughout Jewish communities and beyond.

However, the context also includes the destruction by Israel of practically every aspect of civilian society in Gaza, with over ten per cent of the population directly killed or injured since October 2023 and barely a soul alive who has not been traumatised in multiple ways, including bereavement, displacement, and deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation, shelter and other essentials. 

Herzog is not an innocent bystander, as Israel’s breaches of international law in Gaza and the West Bank have become so commonplace as to be almost normalised. In September 2025, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory accused him of inciting genocide, citing his statement that “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”, made soon after Hamas’ brutal attacks of 7 October 2023. The entire Palestinian population has been punished ever since.

That collective punishment has deeply affected very many Palestinian Australians, as they grieve the loss of loved ones in Gaza, and have watched helplessly as remaining loved ones have faced deprivation, multiple displacements and a dire humanitarian situation.

Despite the “ceasefire” that began in early October 2025 (a ceasefire which appears to mean fewer bombs rather than no bombs), the collective punishment continues.  

Israeli authorities have now de-registered and are effectively banning 37 international humanitarian organisations (INGOs) from operating in Gaza and the West Bank. Unless the organisations comply with Israeli demands to provide personal data on all their staff – in a context where over 500 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023 – they will have to withdraw from all the Occupied Palestinian Territory by the start of March.

This poses an impossible choice for INGOs — to either compromise staff safety or to abandon people who are in desperate need. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), as one of the affected agencies, has made the extremely painful decision that it will not comply with Israeli demands for staff information. MSF’s statement of 30 January said that ‘despite repeated efforts, it became evident in recent days that we were unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities on the concrete assurances [regarding staff safety] required’. 

MSF states that if the agency is expelled from Gaza and the West Bank, ‘it would have a devastating impact, as Palestinians face a brutal winter amidst destroyed homes and urgent humanitarian needs’ with basic services including food, water, shelter, healthcare, fuel and livelihoods largely destroyed, and a health system that is ‘nearly non-functional’.

Oxfam’s assessment of 3 January is similar, stating that ‘Despite the ceasefire, humanitarian needs remain extreme’. The removal of these services would ‘close health facilities, halt food distributions, collapse shelter pipelines and cut off life-saving care’.

Oxfam noted that INGOs already operate according to strict compliance and due diligence standards.

Setting aside any moral imperative to provide aid for fellow humans who are suffering, Israel’s actions in banning INGO access violate the nation’s legal obligations, as the occupying force, to ensure the health and welfare of the civilian population.

They also violate the January 2024 International Court of Justice ruling that Israel ‘must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip’.

Far from complying with the law, Israel continues to actively block the delivery of essential aid to a population in urgent need, and is now enforcing INGO registration conditions that exceed routine oversight and undermine humanitarian neutrality and independence.

For the many Palestinian Australians and their loved ones in Gaza, Israel’s actions have devastating consequences. And yet their grief and distress are not part of Minister Wong’s selective “context” for the visit of President Herzog.

It would be hard to imagine a more divisive guest in this country. The Jewish Council of Australia has expressed ‘outrage that the Albanese Government would fuel the flames of division  by inviting Herzog to visit Australia, warning that his trip is completely inappropriate and offensive and will rightly spark mass protest’. Herzog, the Council said, ‘has played an active role in the ongoing destruction of Gaza, including the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the displacement of millions’.

Australia’s stance could have been very different. Apart from choosing our guests more sensitively and avoiding those accused of the most grievous crimes, Australia should long since have applied meaningful sanctions against Israeli individuals and the State of Israel itself.

Foreign Minister Wong has the power to determine that Israel’s ongoing deliberate obstruction of aid and its collective punishment of the Palestinian people meet the threshold of “serious violation or abuse” under Australia’s sanctions regime. She has chosen instead to insulate Israel from accountability, thus undermining the universality of international law and eroding Australia’s credibility as an independent nation. 

The people of Palestine and their loved ones here pay a heavy price for Australia’s failure to act.

Sanctions against Israel are not likely to be announced in the coming days, but the need for them is only growing.

February 11, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Religion and ethics