Western nations confront 1930s-style anti-Semitism

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in Judaism, Britain has crossed a diabolical line. In an act of anti-Semitic savagery taken to the ultimate extreme, two Jews were stabbed to death at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester. Three were badly injured. The terrorist, Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British citizen of Syrian descent who also rammed his car into worshippers, was shot dead by police. Two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s have been arrested on suspicion of instigating acts of terror.

It was an attack on the “very foundations of humanity and the values of compassion”, Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said. Britain, a country that for 80 years has “defined itself by its brave stand against the Nazis and their regime of Jew-murder”, Brendan O’Neill writes in Inquirer, now faces intense social, political, and law-and-order challenges to rid itself of the twin scourges of Israelophobia and anti-Semitism.

So do other nations, including Australia, where our social fabric is badly torn and where we are fortunate that the arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue in December last year and other violent assaults on Jewish strongholds have not proved fatal. The Manchester attack is a “red alert”, says former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the nation’s highest-ranking Jewish federal minister.

Protests laced with anti-Semitism and attacking Western values have happened frequently in Australia since October 7, 2023. The ugly flames of anti-Semitism have been fanned by protests such as that at the Sydney Opera House forecourt on October 9, 2023; months of university campus protests that made Jewish students feel unsafe, and; the pro-Palestinian march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3 this year.

That day, prominent figures and other demonstrators, some carrying Palestinian flags and crude anti-Israel signs, walked behind a picture of Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei. For years similar demonstrations have brought British cities to a standstill but they have become more frequent in the past two years. Jihadi terrorism has been a problem, often thwarted by authorities, since the London transport bombings by Islamist fanatics on July 7, 2005.

Investigations will determine if jihad ideology was baked into Shamie’s background. When Donald Trump’s viable peace plan for Gaza is on the table and the Albanese government, like Keir Starmer’s government in Britain, has recognised a non-existent Palestinian state prematurely, it is hard to see the point of planned protests to mark the second anniversary of Hamas’s barbaric October 7 attack, in which 1200 Jews died and 250 were taken hostage.

NSW police are right not to approve the application made by protest organisers for a demonstration at the Sydney Opera House next week. Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna addressed reporters on Friday, citing public safety as the main deciding factor on what would be a significant anniversary for both sides of the debate.

“We’re not anti-protest, we facilitate thousands of protests, and in fact with this particular group we’ve been facilitating protests and public assemblies for the last two years,” he said. The issue will be decided by the NSW Supreme Court.

There is plenty the Albanese government must do, Canberra bureau chief Richard Ferguson reports, to help prevent the escalation of anti-Semitism and avoid a Manchester-style attack on these shores. The Prime Minister’s hand-picked special envoy on anti-Semitism, Jillian Segal, is correct when she says it is time for Mr Albanese to tell Australians how the government will act on her plan, released in July, to end the anti-Jewish hate crisis. Ms Segal is right. Jewish Australians cannot be expected to “build higher walls” and rely on constant security to go about living and worshipping.

The plan is practical. It would strip funding from universities and arts festivals that fail to stop anti-Semitism, train Australian Border Force officials how to screen anti-Semites trying to enter Australia, and implement a nationwide definition of anti-Jewish hate in all levels of government and public institutions.

“It is time for the federal government to respond publicly to the key recommendations of the plan,” Ms Segal said. Labor already has set up an Australian Federal Police taskforce on anti-Semitic crimes, strengthened hate speech laws, boosted security at synagogues and schools, and banned Nazi symbols and salutes. That is a start, but more is needed if Australians are to avoid the tragic scenario

O’Neill describes when “next time I read about Kristallnacht or one of the other frantic attacks on Jews in 1930s Europe, I will think of Heaton Park. I will remind myself that it is still happening, here.” That terrible prospect, unthinkable a few years ago, must be resisted with unflinching resolve.