Anti-Semitic arts boss had to go

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Abdul-Rahman Abdullah had no choice but to resign as a member of the National Gallery of Australia Council. As Cameron Stewart revealed on Wednesday, Mr Abdullah, a Muslim Australian, in offensive social media posts accused Israel of waging “a holocaust” against Palestinians, and called on Israel’s opponents to “end this sickness”. One post said: “End the genocide, end apartheid, end Zionism.”

The controversy has been a disaster for Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke, also the Arts Minister, who appointed Mr Abdullah in September last year shortly before the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7. In what has turned out to be bad judgment, Mr Burke said Mr Abdullah would provide the NGA with “authentic leadership” that reflected “modern Australia”.

The appointment meant the NGA would continue in “safe hands”, Mr Burke said. It might have gone over well in Mr Burke’s western Sydney seat of Watson, which has a high proportion of Muslim voters. But most Australians would have been surprised by the appointment had Mr Abdullah’s real attitudes been revealed.

In 2020 he said Australia was “a deeply belligerent, inherently bigoted and selfish country that continues to destroy the environment for ­profit, imprison asylum-seekers and is unable to acknowledge the colonial framework of violence that still defines us”.

Australians, he said, have “this self-image of being relaxed and easygoing but we are consumed by institutional racism, government corruption and hard-edged politics”. Such loathing does not fit with the NGA’s role “to inspire all Australians”. Good riddance.