As it happened: Netanyahu compares Palestine recognition to appeasing Hitler in Australian interview; AI, tariffs, removing red tape among Chalmers’ 10 priorities

Netanyahu has labelled the burning of a Melbourne synagogue last year as part of a “tsunami of antisemitism” and said pro-Palestinian protesters in Sydney or Melbourne should be “counteracted”.

“If you don’t stop [attacks such as on the synagogue] when they’re small, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and ultimately, they consume your society,” he said.

Netanyahu said protesters on the streets calling for a ceasefire should be opposed.

“They should be defied by the leaders. And yet we see – not in America, I’m happy to say, because President Trump is standing strong – but in Europe, one country after another succumbing to them, condemning Israel that is fighting these monsters and is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.”

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu has claimed accusations Israel is starving children in Gaza are on par with the historical persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages.

“[History is] repeating itself,” he told Sky News. “Israel is starving Palestinian children. What lies.”

He claimed Israel had brought 2 million tonnes of food into Gaza since October 7, amounting to one tonne of food for every person.

Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said today. That takes the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began.

The United Nations said on July 29 that “the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has likened recognition of a Palestinian state to appeasing Hitler in the 1930s.

“It’s appeasement, pure and simple,” he told Sky News.

“They gave [territory] to Hitler. And what did he do? Immediately started World War II, the worst war in the history of humanity.”

Earlier this week, Benjamin Netanyahu personally attacked Anthony Albanese, writing on his X account: “History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Ahead of the full interview airing, a snippet showed Netanyahu saying Albanese’s record was “forever tarnished” by his plan to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN in September.

Now the full interview has been broadcast on Sky News.

Netanyahu does not personally attack Albanese during the interview with the vehemence of his post on X, talking more about the leaders of western democracies appeasing Hamas, and his determination to continue the fight.

“When Prime Minister Albanese and the leaders of France and Britain and others, when they say, all of them, ‘give them the Palestinian state’, they actually mean [they are] voting terror. And they’re saying, ‘it doesn’t matter what horrors you people do. It doesn’t matter that you say that you’ll go not only after Israel, but after the United States. Death to Israel, America, death to the west!’”

Netanyahu added: “Last time I looked, Australia was part of the West.”

And here’s a breakdown of what the treasurer said in his press conference earlier today:

Jim Chalmers has revealed plans to slap EV drivers with road-user charges within months and to revamp environmental protection laws to accelerate the development of houses, mines and renewable energy projects, as he declared the tax system defective.

At the end of the government’s three-day economic roundtable, Chalmers confirmed a checklist of more than 30 areas – most of which had been known before the start of the discussions – that he and other ministers will move on, some within days.

Read more here.

The Australian government has directed Australian officials in Palestine’s administrative capital to depart, after Israel cancelled its officials’ visas earlier this week.

“Our operations in Ramallah [the largest city in the occupied West Bank region of Palestine] have been suspended,” read a statement on the Smartraveller website on Thursday.

“Our ability to provide consular assistance in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is extremely limited. Australians in need of consular assistance should contact the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv or Australian Embassy in Jordan.”

All of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel’s border with Lebanon remain “Do Not Travel” zones.

The Australian government denied a visa to a far-right Israeli politician set to undertake a speaking tour of Australia at the invitation of a fringe Jewish group.

Israel retaliated by cancelling the visas of three Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority and ordering embassy staff to apply extra scrutiny to Australian applications to enter Israel.

The updated advice comes after Israel’s military said on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that it would call up tens of thousands of military reservists ahead of an expanded operation in Gaza City, where many Palestinians have chosen to stay despite the danger.

Israeli tanks have been edging closer to densely populated Gaza City over the past 10 days. Israeli officials have said evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the military moves in.

Two more people have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Thursday. The new deaths raised the number of Palestinians who have died from such causes to 271, including 112 children, since the war began.

Israel disputes malnutrition and starvation figures posted by the Gaza health ministry.

With wires

Unions and Australian tech giants have agreed to work on a model to compensate musicians, authors and possibly media outlets for the content used to feed artificial intelligence tools.

The in-principle undertaking, discussed at the government’s economic roundtable, seemed impossible a fortnight ago when a debate blew up over the prospect of large language models, such as ChatGPT, learning from articles, songs and art without compensating creators.

Read more here.

In this video, our economic reporter Millie Muroi wraps up day three of the roundtable, including when things got heated between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his shadow counterpart Ted O’Brien.

Also mentioned is the Australian Council of Social Service, which disagreed with the opposition’s assertion that Australia has a spending problem.