President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog landed in Australia on Monday to kick off an official visit at the invitation of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, following the December terror shooting at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in which 15 people were massacred by a father and son in an Islamic terrorist attack.

Herzog’s first stop was to lay a wreath at the site of the mass shooting, paying tribute to its victims as he stood in the rain.

“The bonds between good people of all faiths and all nations will continue to hold strong in the face of terror, violence and hatred,” he said. “We shall overcome this evil together.”

“These vile terrorists specifically and deliberately targeted our dear sisters and brothers, Australian Jews,” the president added in his remarks at the site. “Yet, this was also an attack on all Australians. They attacked the values that our democracies treasure. This is how terror operates all around the world, and, sadly, Israel has faced this deadly threat for many decades.”

Herzog said that “antisemitism here in Australia is not a Jewish problem — it is an Australian problem and a global problem. Over the generations, one thing has become clear: hatred that starts with the Jews, never ends with the Jews. This is why the current rise in antisemitism around the world is a global emergency — and we must all act to fight against it.”

The visiting president said that he welcomed the “positive steps already taken by the Australian government to tackle antisemitism since the Bondi attack. Leaders across all sectors of society must speak out clearly and consistently against antisemitism, because silence in the face of hatred is complicity.”

The president and his wife then met with family members of the Bondi terror attack victims, telling them that Israel stands with them.

“The world’s only Jewish state, the State of Israel and the nation of Israel, stood together with the Australian people,” Herzog said. “We stood with Australian Jews, for we are one big family, and when one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain.”

The president is also slated to hold official........

© The Times of Israel