Restoring trust after arson attack needs effective action

Anthony Albanese got it right on Sunday when he said his personal view was that the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue was an act of terrorism. Terrorism, he said, was “something that is aimed at creating fear in the community, and the atrocities that occurred at the synagogue in Melbourne clearly were designed to create fear in the community”. Victorian and federal police would meet on Monday to determine whether the arson attack should be designated as a terrorist act. The Prime Minister’s doorstop response had several weaknesses. It was two days too late. It was given on the wrong side of the country, at the opening of a new train line in Perth. And his tone and words lacked authority, empathy and gravitas. Mr Albanese’s visit to the burnt shell of the synagogue on Tuesday will also be four days too late.

The Prime Minister pointed to the government’s banning of the Nazi salute and other hate symbols, its appointment of Jillian Segal as the inaugural envoy on anti-Semitism (it later appointed an envoy, Aftab Malik, to combat Islamophobia), and legislation passed to outlaw doxxing. While he insisted that the government had “called out anti-Semitism consistently and worked through the issues with the community’’, Jewish communities want more than anti-Semitism being “called out”. They know it needs to be stamped out. Polite admonishments are scant consolation for letting campus and other anti-Jewish protests run amok for too long, for Labor’s politically motivated spruiking of its “advocacy” for premature Palestinian sovereignty, and its recent voting record at the UN.

Friday’s atrocity, unsurprisingly, has attracted attention around the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned last week, presciently, that the Albanese government’s shift towards supporting Palestinian interests at the UN would “invite terrorism”, blamed Labor’s “extreme anti-Israel position” for the arson attack and for increasing anti-Semitism.

The heightened danger of anti-Semitism in Melbourne was highlighted in a report by Julie Nathan, research director at the nation’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. She was not surprised by Friday’s firebombing, sadly, after recording a surge in attacks in the past year and noting Victoria’s record as Australia’s worst state for anti-Jewish activity. Incidents of hateful activity in Victoria had surged to 905 cases over the past year. That number accounted for almost half of the nation’s incidents and was up from 217 Victorian cases over the previous year. In light of those figures, Josh Frydenberg’s call for Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan to implement a permit system for demonstrations “which have become incubators for hate” has merit. After pressure from him, she will consider a ban on protests at places of worship. NSW Premier Chris Minns has been proactive, seeking advice from his Attorney-General to examine possible law reforms to protect places of worship. The fact such steps are needed reflects the problems that have surfaced since the vile, anti-Semitic Opera House protest two days after the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7 last year killed 1200 people and led to the kidnap of 250 more. In the immediate aftermath, Israel was reeling in shock and burying its dead. But the Opera House spectacle, staged before Israel had acted against Hamas, shows the brutal Iranian-backed terrorist group tapped into a deep vein of anti-Semitism previously unimaginable in a nation that prides itself on tolerance. It was an alarming lesson, played out many times since. Without effective action, terror will become embedded in our national fabric.

Melbourne’s Jews came together outside the synagogue on Sunday, in grief and solidarity, taking stock of treasures including one of the Torah scrolls that had been salvaged from the Holocaust and brought to Australia by survivors. Our response to the synagogue tragedy will shape our national values. In his Media column, Chris Mitchell poses two key questions: “Will the useful fools in the West who saw Palestinians as natural allies of our Aborigines, of homosexuals worldwide and to prosperous middle-class Western university students, explain their embrace of a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, Islamist death cult?’’ And how will history judge Mr Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong “for selling out” Labor’s long relationship with Israel for “a few Muslim votes in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne?’’