In the weeks after Oct. 7, the Biden administration led an international effort that produced a statement condemning Jew-hatred that nearly three dozen countries signed. The U.S. State Department’s office of the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism asked Australia to sign on, but Canberra declined, according to a former senior State Department official.

“We really should have made a bigger deal out of it at the time,” the former official told JNS. “It was signed by dozens of countries. It was a strong statement, but any major U.S. ally should have signed onto it.”

“We definitely asked the Australians, and they didn’t,” the former official said. “In retrospect, that was actually a much bigger deal than it seemed at the time, I guess.”

The statement on Nov. 6, 2023, called H

See Full Page