JTA — President Isaac Herzog’s planned visit to Australia this weekend, which was scheduled in the wake of the Bondi massacre in December, has drawn widespread opposition and organized protests, including from some Jews.

Following Herzog’s invitation to visit the country by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, some Labor Party members and anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups called for the invitation to be rescinded.

Those calls have reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, with Australian human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti calling on Albanese to rescind the invitation or arrest Herzog on arrival for inciting “genocide.”

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, defended the visit in an interview with ABC radio, telling the station that it was the wishes of the Jewish community following the December terror attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney that killed 15.

“We have the Australian Jewish community, who have been targeted in an overtly antisemitic terrorist attack. We have had 15 Australians die, we have families mourning, and this was a request from the Jewish community for President Herzog to visit,” said Wong, herself a staunch critic of Israel.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald published Friday, Herzog called Sidoti’s statements “another lie and another distortion of the facts,” adding that he was visiting the country to “visit my sisters and brothers of the Jewish community to console and pay our respects to the grieving families and to the community.”

Herzog is expected to visit the country........

© The Times of Israel