ASIO, Israel, the US? Who is Really Controlling Australia’s National Security Interests?

The Australian Security Intelligence Agency (ASIO) confirmed that, during his controversial official visit to this country, Israeli president Isaac Herzog held a secret security meeting with the director general of our nation’s chief domestic spying agency, Mike Burgess. And while what was discussed is unknown, there’s been a hell of a lot of political developments of late to address.

The spying agency confirmed this, after Senator David Pocock quizzed foreign minister Penny Wong about whether the meeting had taken place, to which she responded that these were top secret matters not to be divulged during Senate estimates, and Pocock later said that, as far as he’s concerned, this was unprecedented access for a foreign head of state with our local spying agency.

The official visit by Herzog was said to be so he could mourn with the families of the Australian Jewish victims of the 14 December 2025 Bondi Beach mass murder, which was perpetrated by ISIS-inspired killers. However, there was speculation that it was also about shoring up relations between the apartheid state and Australia, and the meeting with the spying agency really confirmed this.

The relationship between ASIO and Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, has been the subject of much speculation, as when Burgess and PM Anthony Albanese announced last October that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had perpetrated two of thirteen local so-called antisemitic vandalism attacks, the foreign spying agency declared it had tipped off ASIO about this.

But the issue of undue Israeli influence on Australian politics and indeed, its public sphere, has been the subject of increasing questions, as not only did the IRGC announcement result in this country expelling its Iranian ambassador last year, but our entire nation is now implementing a whole-of-society combating antisemitism program that again appears to be the desire of the Israel lobby.

Blurring enemy lines

In a 4 March 2026 statement, the Australian Citizens Party explained that there is a lot of misinformation circulating in the public sphere in regard to Israel and Iran at present. A key issue has been that the ISIS-inspired massacre has been blamed, in part, upon the influence of the local Palestine solidarity movement, whereas ISIS has always been opposed to the Palestinian cause.

According to the ACP, “Sunni Wahhabi ISIS and Shia Iran are the most bitter and entrenched of enemies”. So, this implies that when Albanese was the first world leader to throw his support behind the illegal war of aggression launched by the US and Israel upon Iran last Saturday, it did not mark a joining of forces in pursuit of ISIS, which was the group behind the Bondi Beach massacre.

“ISIS formed, as a spin-off from al-Qaeda, to fight Iran and its allies in the Middle East: Iran and pro-Iran Shia militia did the majority of the fighting against ISIS,” the ACP statement continues, “and were in fact allied with Australia’s special forces who fought against ISIS in Iraq in 2016-18. From Australia’s standpoint, it’s clear which is the threat: ISIS.”

The ACP point out that when Albanese and Burgess revealed the suggested IRGC influence over two local attacks, even though the AFP and NSW police insisted twelve of them were due to Australian organised crime committing them and then working their impact to its advantage, they then set up an anti-Iran narrative in Australia, the fruit of which is only now being seen.

“US and British policy in Iraq and Syria created ISIS”. And while Albanese and Burgess were announcing Iranian involvement in crimes on Australian soil, which Mossad claimed it had presented to ASIO, the ACP points out that ASIO was not paying any attention to the Akrams, the Bondi father and son killers, even though it knew they were pro-ISIS and that they owned an arsenal of weapons.

Israeli influence

The 26 August 2025 Albanese and Burgess announcement that ASIO had received intel suggesting two of thirteen high-profile “antisemitism attacks” in Greater Sydney and in Naarm-Melbourne were the work of Iranian actors wasn’t simply accepted, as the AFP and the NSW police outlined on 10 March 2025 that the 12 major antisemitism crimes in Sydney were the work of organised crime.

The Israeli government then promptly claimed credit for having provided ASIO with the details pointing to Iranian involvement, and it also sought credit for the expelling of the Iranian ambassador. The issue with Israel, which continues to be perpetrating the Gaza genocide 29 months on, providing these details that were acted upon is that Tel Avivi considers Tehran its primary enemy.

This development also came after the Twelve Day war that the US and Israel waged against Iran in June 2025. That conflict ended with speculation that there would be further fighting. On ejecting the Iranian ambassador, Albanese signalled our side in the coming war back then. And the coming war has now broken out, as of last Saturday, 28 February 2026, when the US and Israel set upon Iran.

At the same time that he was taking credit for Israeli intelligence having provided Australia with intel last August, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer also suggested that his nation had shamed ours into taking action on mounting antisemitism in this country. This came a week after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu accused Albanese of being “weak” and abandoning Australian Jews.

So, following the massacre on Gadigal land at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, the official invitation extended to Herzog to visit in order to mourn with the local community, also marked an opportunity for Australia and Israel to put Netanyahu’s genocidal ramblings behind them.

Shifting authorities and priorities

The 3 August 2025 Sydney Harbour Bridge march that called for an end to Israel’s mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was a huge success, made up of at least 100,000 participants. However, the impact that this mass outpouring of civil society sentiment had was not appreciated by US and Israeli government actors.

A sizable white nationalist movement rose up in the immediate wake of that event, and it has been sustained up to the present. This massive spike in white supremacist sentiment was fuelled in part by local neo-Nazis, however the Trump White House and the massive UK Unite the Kingdom movement have both been promoting antiimmigration and white nationalist sentiment at the same time.

And following the Bondi Beach massacre, the Albanese government has moved to implement the local Israel lobby’s list of priorities, which means that a whole-of-society Plan to Combat Antisemitism is underway, along with two recent pieces of combating antisemitism legislation that’s been passed and the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has begun.

So, Israel’s concerns about the significant Australian support for the Palestinians is now receiving some direct attention from all levels of government, while Israel’s governance has now established a direct line to our nation’s chief domestic spying agency, which again raises questions as to why our nation is undergoing a complete revamp at the behest of Israeli authorities.