Albanese must speak up for Israel’s right to exist
It is well past time for Anthony Albanese to speak up loud and long on what he knows to be true: an evil tide of anti-Semitism is rising in Australia – not reasoned opposition to Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terrorist organisation but outright hatred of Jews for no reason other than they are Jews. Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott knows what must be done. Writing in The Weekend Australian last Saturday, she spoke out for free speech with “zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, hate speech or intimidation”. The contrast between her statement of what is right and the weasel words or abject silence from other university leaders is stark, and it is up to the Prime Minister to call for national unity in support of the zero tolerance for evil that Professor Westacott expressed.
It is not enough for Mr Albanese to commit to “unequivocally fight anti-Semitism” and to dismiss pro-Palestine protesters at universities as ignorant of Middle East history, as Noah Yim and Joe Kelly have reported in The Australian. It is not enough for him to lament to the Labor caucus that anti-Semitism is being expressed more openly than ever in his lifetime. Mr Albanese must lead so others will follow and he must do it now to stem the tide of hate speech directed against Jews today but that will be used in the future against people of any other faith or ethnicity who are blamed as individuals for intractable problems of religion or politics.
This is no politically easy thing for Mr Albanese – his caucus includes opponents of Israel and his party many more – but he must speak for Australia and make it absolutely clear that anti-Semitism can never be accommodated. And in doing so, Mr Albanese must acknowledge that there is no easy answer to the devilishly difficult issues at the heart of Israel’s current Rafah offensive. While free speech confers no right to express hatred of individuals, religions or nations, neither is it a free pass for denying that doing what is right is inevitably accompanied by horrible costs.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken may be correct that without a viable Israeli plan for Gaza’s post-war governance the Jewish state faces the prospect of staying in the Strip indefinitely, confronted by an “enduring insurgency”. The diametrically opposed and no less alarming prospect, however, is Israel’s absolute belief that unless it gains full control of Rafah – whatever the cost – it will lose the war, with catastrophic consequences such as those seen in Syria and Iraq when the world had to mobilise to defeat Islamic State’s similarly barbaric insurgency. Amid reports that Hamas is again launching attacks in Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza that were believed to have been cleared of the terrorists, the existential challenges facing Israel seven months into the war could hardly appear more challenging. Israeli troops are back fighting in places they had vacated. The challenges facing Israel demand understanding and support from the Jewish state’s friends, not moves such as those foolishly supported by Australia in the UN General Assembly last week that delighted Free Palestine and pro-Hamas supporters and their anti-Semitic allies.
Former federal Labor minister Mike Kelly got it right on Monday when he criticised the Labor government for backing Palestine’s bid for UN membership – or, as it turned out, an enhanced status at the world body. The breakdown in bipartisanship over Israel, Mr Kelly warned, threatened the “moral underpinning of our foreign policy”.
His warning must be heard. Better is needed from the government than ill-judged, knee-jerk responses aimed to please voters in electorates with significant Muslim populations. “If the bells tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind,” Bob Hawke warned in 1971 after returning from meeting prime minister Golda Meir in Israel, a country he described as “a small, lonely democracy in the Middle East”.
While Mr Albanese must speak up against anti-Semitism in Australia, he cannot separate that cause from acknowledging Israel’s right to exist. But he and Foreign Minister Penny Wong need to acknowledge the dire consequences for freedom from hate based on ethnicity, faith or gender that would follow if the Jewish state loses its fight for survival.