No excuse for allowing Jewish hate to fester on our campuses

Students gather outside the Arts Building at Melbourne University, which was occupied by pro-Palestine protesters, in May 2024. Picture: David Crosling/NewsWire

I am not Jewish but I have contacted my Jewish friends to say to them that I am sorry for them and their children with the increasing and dangerous anti-Semitic attacks on them, their synagogues, their businesses, homes and property.

Many are afraid to send their children to school. They are being persecuted by disgusting graffiti, firebombing, doxxing, threats and boycotts of their businesses, especially by the arts community. Finally, the more violent and dangerous attacks have been recognised as terrorism.

As an Indigenous person who understands racism and discrimination from thousands of first-hand experiences, the idea that anti-racist legislation and norms do not apply to Jewish Australians, as far too many “pro-Palestinian” protesters advocate, is an alarming trend. They are undermining the basic principles of human rights and the standards set in domestic and international laws on prohibiting and eliminating racism.

Jewish Australians are entitled to the same standards of community safety that we all expect, and which apply to all Australians of any ethnicity. No one is an exception, no group is an exception; not Jews, not Muslims.

I work at the University of Melbourne and have been subjected to a protester invading a lecture hall with a loud boom box to drown out my lecture, and locked in by “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators who disagree with this simple proposition. Another professor, a brilliant Jewish Australian physicist, Steven Prawer, was subjected to even worse attacks. His office was vandalised and he was physically threatened.

Prawer supervised students researching bird flight. Yet, in their fanaticism, his attackers claimed he was involved in weapons research. There are many more stories of these anti-Semitic attacks on our campuses, such as months-long encampments with anti-Semitic chants broadcast daily over megaphones, and vandalism in our facilities. Anti-Semitic verbal and online intimidation continues apace. I have been labelled online as a Zionist for refusing to accept that Jewish Australians should be subjected to this abuse.

University administrators must take stronger steps to protect staff, students and our public from this violence and disruption of our workplaces and activities.

Mostly, they have refused to call the police even when criminal activities have occurred.

The fear of being accused of “taking sides” and undermining the principle of academic freedom has muzzled them and exposed Jewish staff to clear danger and intimidation. These arguments around tables in chancelleries are, in my opinion, confused at best, negligent about the safety of staff and students, and, at worst, allow the potential for extreme violence. These concerns are more urgent as terrorist attacks on Jewish Australians have increased dramatically.

Academic freedom is not freedom of speech; these are very different concepts and rights. Only academics are entitled to academic freedom, and this right is conditional on their work conforming with the rigorous rules of the academies and their disciplines that relate to evidence, ethics and integrity.

Freedom of speech is also limited by laws relating to defamation, racial and other forms of discrimination. University administrators and anti-Semitic protagonists alike have conflated the two concepts; one seeking refuge against their responsibilities on false grounds and the other seeking free licence on our campuses to spread anti-Semitism and hatred. Both claim to be horrified by the war, the violence and the death of thousands of civilians, and yet neither has any ability to prevent them.

Now the principle of academic freedom has been significantly undermined with the inexplicable events at the Queensland University of Technology, where a conference billed as an anti-racism symposium hosted Sarah Schwartz, of the Jewish Council of Australia. Much of her presentation, which she claims was a comedy event, is shocking and readily available to all on her X account.

A slide from a presentation at a QUT anti-racism conference.

Her claim to being satirical is deluded. Her claim to communicate the message, that there are “good Jews” like herself who oppose the war in Israel and neighbouring territories and countries, also backfired. She presented a series of hateful stereotypes of Jewish people that have been used to persecute them for centuries and justify genocide, and despite her claimed intent, has managed to reinvent them to show all Jews as bloodthirsty monsters.

She deeply offended Jewish Australians and other Australians, including me. She showed an image of “Dutton’s Jew” and, while I am no fan of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, there was nothing satirical about this message. It was objectively anti-Semitic in its depiction of her nemesis, the “bad Jew”, who she imagines has lost all agency and is an unwitting puppet of various warmongering masters. As a Jewish friend said to me about this, the “good Jew/bad Jew” narrative is the “absolute epitome of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory”.

This narrative seeks to isolate those who do not conform to wider mainstream society expectations. Sarah Schwartz has claimed her Jewish identity as a licence to broadcast inane, hateful nonsense about her fellow Jewish Australians in her absurd and ineffective attempts to support Palestinians. She is entitled to her views about Israel and the war with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, but she is not entitled, even though Jewish, to be anti-Semitic towards Jewish Australians.

This must be considered in the context of the others on stage with her. Matt Chun, whose real name is Matthew Jones, was an invited speaker in the same session. He is not an academic but rather a children’s book illustrator, funded by Creative Australia with his collaborator, Amy McQuire.

Jones famously participated in the ongoing persecution of 600 Jewish Australians who were doxxed and whose private details were leaked to the public. He went on Instagram and stated: “Having now read the entire transcript, I’ll research and publish a number of posts about specific individuals from this leaked group chat, and the organisations with which they intersect.” He said: “The group chat confirms what we already know: Zionists are thoroughly racist, thoroughly anti-Indigenous and thoroughly committed to colonialism.”

In 2021 he started a boycott campaign against other Jewish Australians, including publisher Morrie Schwartz, owner of Schwartz Media, and gallerist Anna Schwartz.

Anna Schwartz did not censor artist Mike Parr or “obliterate” his work in December 2023, as Parr claimed. She allowed Parr’s work to remain in her gallery as planned, but declined to further represent him after 36 years because he conflated the terms Nazi and Israel in his political art performance.

Matthew Jones claims to be anti-Zionist, and he is entitled to his views, but he is not entitled to be anti-Semitic towards Jewish Australians. Sarah Schwartz and Matthew Jones were joined by others, among them Randa Abdel-Fattah, Sara Saleh and Senator Lidia Thorpe. Saleh’s resignation from the Human Rights Commission was announced in July last year after her social media posts were reported in the media. These posts were said to explicitly state support for Hamas. She was also reported to ask: “What would be left of Jews as a people” without “their violence, their toxicity, their racism?” It was reported Randa Abdel-Fattah was subject to an investigation at Macquarie University for social media posts alleged to create an unsafe environment for staff and students.

The QUT Carumba Institute led by Chelsea Watego hosted the conference. Who invited Sarah Schwartz, Matt Chun, Sara Saleh and Randa Abdel-Fattah? The views of these speakers are public knowledge. Any person whose judgment can be trusted would have known that it was likely there would be an incident causing outrage. It must also be asked why, if the reports are accurate, an Israeli Jew who attended was publicly and loudly abused and humiliated by the participants.

For academics who claim to be anti-racism to purport that they were ignorant about the background of those they invited, and to manage a conference that involved public abuse of an individual, if reported accurately, is not sustainable.

There are very few who support the terrible civilian casualties, and they are rightly labelled as extremists. The vast majority want an end to the conflict, death and destruction, but some choose effective ways to contribute to an eventual peace and a post-war Palestinian state. Sydney Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio said recently: “We don’t all have to agree or think the same, but what makes Australia so incredible is the diversity. We can coexist and come from a place of respect.” She is involved in interfaith activities aimed at uniting our community. This is paramount, and university leaders should instruct staff to abide by the accepted academic rules of public debate and academic freedom. Inciting hatred, anti-Semitism, public abuse and violence must be strictly out of bounds and those responsible held to account, just as we all are for now standard policies relating to harassment and bullying.

Marcia Langton AO is a professor of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne.