“Australia will recognize the state of Palestine.” This pledge from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese highlights two stark facts. One: Australia-Israel relations are decrepit. Two: Bible prophecy is alive.

On August 11, the office of the prime minister announced that Australia would officially recognize Palestine at the United Nations this month to help bring about “a two-state solution, a ceasefire in Gaza and release of the hostages.”

On August 18, Australia canceled the visa of Simcha Rothman, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke further insulted Israel by saying, “Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry.”

On August 19, Prime Minister Netanyahu responded by posting, “History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

The Bible says that God will “break the brotherhood” between the Jewish nation and its allies. Is this what we’re seeing unfold Down Under?

This is more than a mere diplomatic disagreement. It comes as Australia’s Jewish communities are being flooded with hatred, intimidation, threats, vandalism and assaults. Both Netanyahu and the United States administration have called it a tsunami.

The world’s worst deluge of anti-Semitism since the Holocaust occurred in Israel on October 7, 2023. Since that date, anti-Semitism in Australia hasn’t decreased: It has tripled.

To combat the anti-Semitism flooding Australia, the government appointed lawyer Jillian Segal as the first special envoy to combat anti-Semitism. But Segal’s appointment was essentially forced on Australia.

One of the movement’s most iconic moments came on August 23 as tens of thousands of Palestinian supporters took over one of the great symbols of the West, the Sydney Harbor Bridge. About 90,000 demonstrators blocked traffic, waved Palestinian flags, and even held up images of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has vowed to wipe the Jewish nation off the map.

This is the same harbor where pro-Hamas demonstrators rallied at the Sydney Opera House two days after Hamas shot, bludgeoned, raped, tortured and murdered its way through 1,200 peaceful Israelis.

Among the bridge protesters was at least one convicted terrorist, Islamic State recruiter Youssef Uweinat. He groomed young children to commit terrorist attacks, spent four years in prison, convinced a judge he was de-radicalized, left prison two years ago, and was seen on the bridge proudly waving a flag made famous by the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Another man on the front line of the march was terrorist-sympathizer Abed Mourtada, one of those who spoke out to support of Hezbollah in the wake of October 7. When Hezbollah’s top terrorist, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Mourtada traveled to Lebanon to attend his funeral.

On August 24, 100,000 protesters flooded Melbourne’s central business district with a similar anti-Israel march. The genocidal chant “From the river to the sea” is often heard at such marches. “Death, death to the idf” was another rallying cry. (Sydney and Melbourne account for about 85 percent of Australia’s Jewish population.)

In Brisbane, 30,000 to 50,000 people showed up to protest the Jews, thousands more marched in Hobart, and 40 cities and towns have held protests over the past month.

The government is watching and listening, not for the benefit of Australia or its Jews but for political gain in the next election.

Look at who the protesters are and listen to what they are saying. What kind of leaders throw their political weight behind such a movement?

Whether it is in the ranks of the terrorist-supporting protesters or in the bitter exchanges between national leaders, the surge in Australian anti-Semitism is visible for the world to see. The problem is so significant that the federal government has actually appointed its first “special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.”

Yet it has emerged that this government office was instituted only due to significant pressure from the United States. One U.S. official said the Australian government strongly resisted the idea and that it took a “monumental effort” to get it to take this long-belated step and at least partially address the anti-Semitism problem.

The special envoy, Jillian Segal, has offered various solutions to the government, but these have done little to curb the anti-Israel bias.

Meanwhile, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization revealed that some of the anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne have been coordinated by none other than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s army of jihadi terrorists. The revelation forced the Albanese government to expel the Iranian ambassador.

“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Albanese said. “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”

That is exactly what they were. And they worked. Australian soil is fertile ground for anti-Semites, Iranian and otherwise.

Liberal Sen. James Paterson summarized Australia’s relationship with Israel as at its “worst place” since the state was created in 1948.

The nation’s descent into anti-Semitism is more than a social phenomenon. What we are seeing is the gradual fulfillment of prophecy.

Zechariah 11:14 states that in the end time, God will “break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.” Israel was the patriarch whose descendants became 12 tribes. One of those tribes was Judah, whose descendants became the Jewish people (including the Jewish nation called Israel today). Another tribe came from Joseph, whose son Ephraim became the British commonwealth nations, including Australia, and whose son Manasseh became the United States.

(Connect the history of the Bible to current nations and events with your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong.)

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 2004 that Zechariah 11:14 “could be a prophecy of a rift between these [Israelite] countries—one that would leave Judah very alone ….”

What does Bible prophecy say will happen when the West abandons Israel? Zechariah 14:2 forecasts that East Jerusalem will fall to the forces of radical Islam. Mr. Flurry noted this and wrote that the brotherhood breaking between these nations, particularly with the U.S. superpower is probably what will lead to the Jews losing half of Jerusalem in a violent conflict.

When he announced his plan to support a Palestinian state, Albanese claimed, “A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza.”

He is wrong. God alone is the hope of the Jews, of Israel, of Australia and of all peoples. He alone has the power and the will to bring about world peace. His prophecies are being fulfilled in our nations today, before your very eyes.

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