Anti-Semitic poison spreads as government fails to act

The attack on homes and property on Wednesday night in an area of Sydney with Jewish residents will surprise no one who has watched the equivocation and indifference to acts of anti-Semitism in Australia over the past 12 months. Homes were graffitied and cars vandalised with messages of specific hate.

The attack added further insult to the grief and fear generated by the Hamas terrorist group’s invasion of Israel on October 7 last year. Abuse was directed at people for being Jews. The rampage was chillingly reminiscent of the Nazis who vandalised Jewish homes and businesses in Germany in the 1930s, before proceeding to murder as many Jews as they could, as well as people of many other faiths, nationalities and circumstances, in World War II.

Wednesday night might not have happened if Australian politicians and public figures had not appeased the anti-Semites for over a year. It started when crowds in western Sydney celebrating Hamas the day after the invasion were not wholeheartedly condemned, especially by local Labor MPs. It continued when a mob at the Sydney Opera House chanted threatening slogans as they denounced Jews in the aftermath of October 7, before Israel had even mounted a response. In that case there was a half-hearted police investigation that went nowhere. It rolled on as MPs’ offices were blockaded and, in the case of Josh Burns, the Labor member for the Melbourne seat of Macnamara, firebombed. One of the individuals responsible is being assessed for a court-ordered program that could prevent a criminal conviction. It continued as university leaders excused intimidation of Jewish staff and students on their campuses. Certainly, there were notable exceptions, including University of Western Sydney chancellor Jennifer Westacott, who was not having any of it, but others cowered behind claims they were obliged to protect free speech. The irrationality deepened last week when threats led to Myer abandoning the launch of its Christmas windows in Melbourne. And now there are attempts to intimidate Sydneysiders for being Jewish and, if they aren’t, for having neighbours who might be.

That is has come to this is due in no small part to inconsistent leadership – starting with Anthony Albanese. “There is no place for anti-Semitism in Australia. Conflict overseas cannot be made a platform for prejudice at home,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday. It should have been in talking points issued to all Labor MPs a year ago, with instructions to shout from the rooftops. So should have Health Minister Mark Butler’s speech last month, including: “History’s oldest prejudice, its oldest hatred – anti-Semitism – is growing and spreading here in a way we’ve never seen before … It must be confronted. It must be called out. And it must stop.” Appeasement of anti-Semitism should never have started but the chance was missed for ministers to challenge from the start all the members of the Labor Party and left-wing unions to distinguish opposition to the Netanyahu government from hatred for Jews, including academics imbued with eccentric theories that Jews are invaders in Israel. It is a task Mr Albanese must meet now. Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court explained why in a speech on Thursday night. There is, he said, “a deep and profound challenge: how to educate and communicate effectively with a generation exposed to a system producing an apparently significant number of future leaders whose lack of a traditional Western historical education is matched by their sense of self-righteousness and their willingness to spout slogans”. Wednesday night demonstrated what will occur again and again if we don’t.