Why aren’t Australians speaking up for our Jewish population?

Posters of Adolf Hitler masked by the face of the Israeli Prime Minister and placed, as they were recently, in the heartland of Jewish Sydney can be received by the Jewish community as only a sinister threat. As a Jewish Sydney­sider, I spurn that threat, confident that I live in a tolerant and compassionate community that will honour and protect my rights regardless of my religious affiliation or even my political views. Historians of Holocaust history would call me naive, but I stand nonetheless, in all my brazen naivety, before my fellow Sydneysiders and hope they stand also with me.

Joanna Auerbach, Kensington, NSW

It is appalling that Jewish Australians are under such threat that they feel they must hide their identity. When Australians are too terrified to show who they are, and the response of our government is so measured with an abundance of caution that it has the force of impotency, we are indeed, as Gemma Tognini writes, “facing a crisis of courage” (4-5/11).

But apart from timid authorities, why are Australians in general not publicly, vocally and visibly demonstrating against the ugly tide of hate directed at our Jewish fellow Australians?

Is it fear of being called a racist, of championing the “oppressor” of Palestinians should any support for the Jewish community be shown? Are we cowed by the likes of “Brother Ismail”, whose reported post-October 7 hate sermon at Al Madina Dawah Centre called jihad the solution and attacked the Prime Minister, the government and Muslim leaders who criticised jihadi groups (“Police look into ‘jihad’ preacher”, 6/11)? Or is it a pervasive laissez-faire indifference – if it doesn’t affect me then she’ll be right, mate?

Tognini is right about a crisis of courage. Perhaps we are also facing a crisis of integrity and conscience.

Deborah Morrison, Malvern East, Vic

I am not sure Anthony Albanese understands the Middle East, but former prime minister Scott Morrison certainly does and can see that for a two-state solution to be viable there needs to be genuine intent by both parties (“Morrison cites 9/11 on Israeli mission with Johnson”, 6/11). On multiple occasions during the past 100 years, the Jewish people and then Israel have accepted every proposal presented and offered to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs in good faith on establishing a state living peacefully next to a Jewish Israel, but not instead of it.

Every time the Arab world has rejected anything offered or simply not responded. Those protesters calling for a “free Palestine” would do well to read some history books.

Alan Freedman, St Kilda East, Vic

Once again Chris Mitchell has proven what a great journalist he is and has been for many years (“Many journos misunderstand what Hamas is”, 6/11).

His most recent article related to the history of Hamas is most enlightening. Unlike many younger and even older journos Mitchell does his homework before penning an article. The one big difference I find between journalists writing for The Australian as opposed to those who write for opposition publications is that they do due research. What non-News Corp journalist does more research than, say, Greg Sheridan? What non-News Corp journalist has the experience of Paul Kelly? No non-News Corp journalist goes within a bull’s roar of Henry Ergas. If you do not read The Australian you are missing out on the full picture.

Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

It is time to stop referring to “refugee camps” in Gaza. These are high-rise slums, purpose-built across three generations and uniquely maintained under the supervision of the UN and its Relief and Works Agency.

For all their talk of Arab brotherhood and Muslim solidarity – and while they buy up the game of golf, much of the English football structure and build imposing stadiums for its global spectacles, and spend billions annually on the breeding, maintaining and worldwide racing of thoroughbred horses – the world’s richest rulers will not spend serious money to ameliorate and overcome the plight of the Palestinians or accept them into their own societies. They instead entrench and preserve the “the refugee problem”. They prefer things that way.

Clive Kessler, Randwick, NSW