The leader of the Jewish state was in Australia last week, the first time in the country's 69 years that any serving Israeli prime minister has set foot here.

Overlapping his time in Sydney was a visit by the leader of the world's biggest Muslim-majority state. Even though the distance from Indonesia to Australia at its closest is only a quarter the distance from Sydney to Melbourne, Joko Widodo is just the fourth serving Indonesian leader to visit in the 72-year history of his country.

Jerusalem and Jakarta do not recognise each other diplomatically. The two leaders were in Sydney on the weekend and studiously ignored each other.

Of course, there was a big element of coincidence that both Benjamin Netanyahu and Jokowi, as he's universally known, happened to be here simultaneously. But is there something more going on here? Each visit, each leader, each country had its own specific reasons, but a much bigger agenda is at work.