James Campbell: Fire-bombing a synagogue with worshippers inside a bit more than anti-Semitism
Jew hatred is thriving openly in our midst and, while it may be early days, the sooner our leaders call this apparent arson attack at a Melbourne synagogue domestic terrorism the better.
James Campbell
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Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have both rightly moved quickly to condemn the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue as a clear act of anti-Semitism.
But it’s a bit more than that don’t you think?
Abusing a Jew in the street or graffiting the walls of Mt Scopus Memorial College – they’re anti-Semitic incidents.
Fire-bombing a synagogue with the worshippers inside?
I think there’ a word for that and it starts with a “T”.
Don’t take my word for it — go to the Australian government’s own website devoted to the subject: “a terrorist act is an act, or a threat to commit an act, that is done with the intention to coerce or influence the public or any government by intimidation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause, and the act causes death or serious harm or endangers life.”
Maybe it’s early days but the sooner our leaders bite the bullet and call this out for what it is – domestic terrorism – the better.
Since last October Australians have been forced to confront a terrible reality about our country.
Far from being the exclusive preserve of a tiny nut-job fringe, Jew hatred is thriving openly in our midst.
It should be a source of national shame that at the very same time as we have been presented with the evidence of this disease, to please the haters our government is crab-walking away from Australia’s long-time support for the Jewish state in the vain hope the majority of the population won’t notice.
Down at the ABC of course even fire-bombing a synagogue isn’t enough to get the act immediately labelled ant-Semitic, which to be fair to him left the Prime Minister nonplussed.
Being from Sydney of course he’s unused to the studied obtuseness of ABC Melbourne’s morning host Raf Epstein, a man capable of describing the past year as “a time, of course, of really heightened debate”.
When Albo called in to call out the Adass attack he was clearly taken aback to find Epstein seemed to think he might be getting a bit ahead of himself.
“Do we know it’s anti-Semitism, PM?” Epstein fretted. “And you don’t worry that labelling it anti-Semitism is getting ahead of where the police investigation might be?”
Keep that last question in the back of your mind for the next time there’s a suspicious fire at a gay nightclub or abortion clinic.
Originally published as James Campbell: Fire-bombing a synagogue with worshippers inside a bit more than anti-Semitism
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