00:00The announcement was made via social media on Monday night Australia time with the Israeli
00:07Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying that the visas of Australian representatives to the
00:11Palestinian Authority in the West Bank were being revoked.
00:15He cited two main reasons for doing so.
00:18Firstly, the Australian government's announcement last week it was moving to recognise a Palestinian
00:23state.
00:24And secondly, the government's decision to reject or cancel the visas of a number of
00:28Israeli figures in recent times.
00:30Those two issues together, Gideon Saar said, was evidence the Albanese government was fuelling
00:35anti-Semitism in Australia.
00:38In response, Australia's top diplomat has labelled the moves as unjustified.
00:42Penny Wong accusing the Netanyahu government of further isolating Israel and undermining
00:47efforts for peace in the Middle East and a two-state solution.
00:51She's also rejected those allegations of anti-Semitism.
00:55It's understood this decision may only affect two Australian staff, the representative to
01:00the PA chief among them.
01:02And it is similar to how Israel responded to the decisions of other countries last year
01:07to recognise Palestinian statehood.
01:09Norway's envoys in Ramallah were shipped home and the Spanish consulate here in Jerusalem
01:14was banned from offering any services to Palestinians.
01:19The announcement came just hours after it was revealed the Australian government had cancelled
01:23the visa of far-right politician Simhach Rothman, who was due to tour the country.
01:28The grounds for that being that his views were inflammatory and could fuel division in the
01:33community.
01:34Mr Rothman says his foreign minister's decision is welcome.
01:38I think that the government of Australia needs to decide.
01:46Do they want to be on the side of Hamas or do they want to be on the side of Israel?
01:50Or it's not only Hamas and Israel.
01:52They need to decide if they want to be on the axis of evil or the axis of good.
02:00Mr Rothman insists that the only reason he was banned from entering Australia is because
02:04he has said that Hamas is bad and Israel is good.
02:08But the letter from Home Affairs, which the ABC has seen, outlines a number of other comments
02:13officials took issue with, among them that children aren't dying of hunger in Gaza, that
02:18those children are enemies of Israel and that the idea of a two-state solution has poisoned
02:24the minds of the world.
02:26He repeated some of those comments during his interview with me and also took issue with
02:31references to the West Bank, insisting that that occupied Palestinian territory be referred
02:36to as Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for the region.
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