Australia on Monday, 18 August, cancelled the visa of far-right Israeli lawmaker Simcha Rothman and barred him from entering the country for three years, a day before he was due to start a speaking tour in Melbourne and Sydney. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Australia "will not accept people coming to spread a message of hate and division." Rothman, a member of the Religious Zionism party and a key architect of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, has previously described Palestinian children in Gaza as “enemies” and called for Israel’s full annexation of the West Bank. Canberra’s move comes a week after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that Australia would vote to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September. The government has recently refused visas to other controversial Israeli figures, including former minister Ayelet Shaked. Within hours of Rothman’s exclusion, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he had revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and ordered Israel’s embassy in Canberra to scrutinise any future official Australian visa requests. Sa’ar condemned Australia’s decision as “shameful and unacceptable,” linking it to both the Rothman ban and Australia’s impending support for Palestinian statehood. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called Israel’s response "unjustified" and urged "dialogue and diplomacy" to defuse the dispute. The tit-for-tat measures have pushed bilateral relations to their most strained point in years, adding a diplomatic setback to already tense discussions over Middle-East policy.