Australia, we have a problem with migration

We shut our borders to China very quickly to help protect us from Covid-19. The virus of Islamist extremism is much more dangerous for our society.

The virus of Islamist extremism is much more dangerous for our society than Covid-19 ever was, writes Chris Kenny.

When Muslim nurses on the night shift at a public hospital talk openly about killing patients if they are Israeli (and by implication, Jewish) then we must recognise that Australia’s multicultural project is imperilled. At the very least we need to accept that mistakes have been made in managing our immigrant culture and corrective action is required.

Currently there are suburbs in Sydney’s east where police helicopters patrol at night to combat a spate of anti-Semitic firebombings and graffiti attacks that have terrorised the Jewish community. And just a half-hour drive away in the southwestern suburbs, nurses proclaim they would rather kill Jews than treat them, and people questioned on the streets endorse that obscene proposition.

Australia, we have a problem. The schism and the hatred have been patently clear for more than 16 months, but too many people, from our Prime Minister down, have been in denial.

Now the wound is infected.

State politicians, police commissioners, university leaders, media operatives, community and religious leaders all have averted their eyes, at best, and many have rubbed in salt to the lesion. Naively, many have hoped anti-Semitism would all go away because they lack the courage to confront it.

Apart from seeing regular protests in their cities chanting for their elimination, worrying about the safety of their kids at Jewish schools, being frightened to wear a yarmulke or the star of David in public, and having their synagogues and suburbs firebombed, Jewish Australians now fear that if they attend a public hospital they could find themselves in the hands of medical staff who are inclined to harm rather than heal them. And the most depressing fact of all is that after 16 months of escalating antipathy, nobody who has been paying attention could be the least bit surprised.

Perhaps it was the intimate and personal frankness of the Jew hatred from those Bankstown Hospital nurses that has shocked so many anti-Semitism deniers into realisation. Hatred is often practised at a distance and with generalisations, with chants against an absent and collective foe, like “F..k the Jews” or “Death to Jews”. But to see health professionals eyeballing a stranger on a computer screen and wishing a horrible death upon him simply because he was Jewish – that was intense.

The male nurse, Ahmad “Rashad” Nadir, and his female colleague, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, told Israeli content creator Max Veifer they would not treat Israelis, they would prefer to kill them, send them to hell and, in fact, had done so.

Veifer posted the full video on Friday, including an additional exchange when he asked, “Why do you think I’m gonna get killed? Maybe it’s because I served in the IDF? That’s why?” and Nadir responded, “That’s definitely the answer, correct”. Military service is mandatory for Israelis, with very few exceptions.

Whether the nurses’ claims reflected their deeds or was just a despicable fantasy, the insight was the same. This was a manifestation of a well-known racial hatred, the anti-Jew bile and death cult mentality at the core of Islamist extremism.

Adass Israel Synagogue Ripponlea which was fire bombed interior shots of smoke and water damaged classrooms. Picture: David Caird

When Sky News reporter Crystal Wu sampled public opinion on the streets of Bankstown on Thursday, some condemned the nurses’ rants while others downplayed them. But one young man said: “I stand with them, yes, in any way possible.” Attempting to justify his stance, the man referred to “all the kids the Jews have killed in Palestine”, then another man chipped in approvingly: “Look what they did in Lebanon as well.”

Muslim lawyer Ramia Abdo Sultan took to social media to argue the nurses had been entrapped and warned others they could become victims. “If you are Palestinian or pro-Palestinian,” she proclaimed, “if you are an Arab and especially if you are a Muslim, god forbid, you will be met with the high end of the stick, so don’t engage.”

This constant resort to victimhood is a common theme from Muslim activists. Jews are being threatened and Jewish institutions targeted, but somehow it is Muslims who are the victims according to Sultan and, implicitly, it is the Jews who are to blame.

Throughout this period of rising anti-Semitism, the silence of Muslim leaders has been deafening. Media this week pursued some community leaders for comment and the results were not always reassuring.

Lebanese Muslim Association Secretary Gamel Kheir told Sky News he condemned the nurses’ statements but not the individuals because we did not know the full context of their comments. Just what context would render these death wishes justifiable is difficult to fathom.

Kheir also tried to make out a case of equivalence with Islamophobia, claiming that media and politicians were overlooking Islamophobia to focus only on anti-Semitism (victimhood again). When asked by Laura Jayes whether the nurses’ statements were indicative of broader anti-Semitic sentiments in the Muslim community, he said he did not believe this was a “justifiable” question.

Another Lebanese community leader, Jamal Rifi, named Australian of the Year by this newspaper in 2015, told me he accepted there was a problem with online-fuelled Islamist extremism but it was countered effectively by our security and intelligence agencies. Rifi slammed the nurses’ comments and said there was no excuse for their words, before adding an assurance that “these two people do not represent the view that is held in the Muslim community”.

Still, nothing can pretend away how anti-Semitism has run unchecked in this country since the day after the Hamas atrocity in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. That is when Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun took to a street corner in Sydney’s Lakemba to proclaim the slaughter of 1200 Israeli men, women and children as a day of triumph and celebration.

“I am elated,” the preacher said. “It’s a day of courage, a day of pride, a day of victory. This is the day we’ve been waiting for.” Dadoun’s words were captured on video and broadcast widely, yet he faced no charges, no sanction and no serious public rebuke.

The following night an angry mob was burning the Israeli flag and chanting “F..k the Jews” and “Where’s the Jews” and possibly “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, turning what was supposed to be a ceremony of mourning for Israeli victims into revelry at their slaughter.

At that precise time bodies were still being recovered and identified in southern Israel, the fate of more than 200 hostages including young women and a nine-month-old baby boy taken into Gaza was unknown, and Israel had yet to launch any military response.

From those early hours we heard only excuses from police and politicians about their lack of action. They did not want to inflame the situation and the hateful rhetoric did not “meet the threshold” for prosecution under hate speech laws.

Many Australians found it astounding that such celebrations of violence and implicit incitement to further violence could be tolerated. Many remain incredulous that charges were not laid so that a court could decide on thresholds and we could learn whether legislative changes were required.

Despite hate speech laws being updated in Canberra last week, no charges have yet been laid against the nurses, even though police and the Prime Minister suggest a crime has been committed. With all the laws and amendments in the world, nothing much can happen without the buy-in of police and political leaders, which has been sorely missing so far.

“We shouldn’t tolerate hatred or people who advocate violence,” Peter Dutton said this week. “There are laws which prohibit that from happening. It’s a failure of the system where the laws aren’t enforced.”

When we saw Matildas captain Sam Kerr face trial in a British court for using the word “white” it is hard to comprehend how hate speech charges have not been laid against Palestinian activists here.

Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests have been regular since October 2023; the insignia of Hamas and Hezbollah has been commonplace in their throng (with some charges laid after media attention), and the intimidating slogan of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has reverberated around city streets most weekends.

Yet all along the Prime Minister and the premiers have just watched on. State police forces have escorted the marchers, occasionally arresting and dragging away anyone with an Israeli flag.

We have not seen anger, moral clarity or strong condemnation from Anthony Albanese. The only thing more pathetic than Albo’s response to Dadoun’s vile outburst back in October 2023 was the Prime Minister quoting himself to demonstrate his toughness on the issue. “The next morning on the Today show,” Albanese told parliament on Thursday, “I said this in response to the demonstration that took place in Lakemba that night: ‘Well, there’s nothing to celebrate by the murder of innocent civilians, going about their day.’ ” Really – in response to a religious leader’s nauseating praise for the grotesque slaughter of 1200 men, women and children, Albanese cited his pedestrian observation that such a slaughter was nothing to celebrate as evidence of his strength.

How can a man who gets emotional about Labor leadership challenges and passionate about “fighting Tories” not feel anger and passion about this repugnant animosity in his own country, on his watch? And why has he done so little to confront the problem?

Albanese and Labor have only exacerbated the anti-Semitism crisis. They have granted up to 3000 holiday visas without proper security checks for Palestinians fleeing Gaza – this would seem deeply unwise given our domestic tensions and the fact no Arab nations are sharing that burden.

Labor also has further isolated Israel diplomatically, joining rhetoric that blames it for the continuation and escalation of hostilities, breaking with Israel and the US in UN votes on the issues, and failing to put the most pressure on the Hamas terrorist outfit and its Iranian backers. All this has helped give licence to the anti-Israel radicals in our midst.

In the weeks after the October 7 atrocity a group of nurses and midwives in NSW formed Nurses & Midwives 4 Palestine. In a social media post just a few weeks ago a nurse identified only as Mark launched an astonishing tirade against Israel and its alleged actions in Gaza.

“The abduction, false imprisonment and torture of thousands of healthcare workers, patients and internally displaced persons,” Mark, in his nurse scrubs, told a crowd of protesters, “all of this is being carried out by the Israeli military … let’s just call them out for what they really are – terrorists.”

Without evidence, he accused the Israeli military of murdering doctors, nurses and patients in what he called a “genocide” carried out by “Zionist terrorists”.

This was unhinged. Mark claimed the group of about 80 were mostly union members from the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association.

This comes after it was revealed a Bankstown Hospital newsletter had included a photo with a staff member at work in a Free Palestine T-shirt. And midwife Sharon Stoliar has spoken about confronting anti-Semitism in nursing ranks more than a year ago.

There seem to be three broad strands of anti-Semitism in play. There is the element driven by Muslim fundamentalism, as we saw from Dadoun, at the Opera House and from the two nurses; there is the hard left political hostility as exemplified by the Greens and Nurses & Midwives 4 Palestine; and there are the far-right groups that have been emboldened in this climate.

The viruses of anti-Semitism and Muslim antipathy towards Jews cannot be left to infect our society unchecked. The federal Opposition Leader has been brave enough to mention the need for an overhaul of immigration and citizenship processes.

“At some stage our country has to have a discussion, I think, about the way in which the whole migration system works,” he said this week.

Dutton said it was “an outrage and we have got big problems in this country” when somebody such as Bankstown nurse Nadir (an Afghan refugee who arrived on a people-smuggling boat) can become an Australian citizen.

This much is obvious – we do not want citizens who profess race-based hatred and murderous intent – but politicians usually avoid making such points for fear of being branded xenophobic of Islamophobic.

Dutton, however, argues that if you “hate” our country we should be able to revoke your citizenship.

Our White Australia history and commitment to a non-discriminatory immigration program make this a perilous subject. Yet when we see the horrors caused by Islamist extremism in the Middle East and how that scourge has damaged us at home with terror attacks and social division, we are obliged to consider how to protect our society.

Immigration has been crucial to the nation’s success, and most Muslim migrants have contributed to that proud record. Yet it is unavoidable that if we take large numbers of immigrants from countries where Jews face open hostility – countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and now the territory of Gaza – without the most stringent security and character tests, we risk importing strife.

We shut our borders to China very quickly to help protect us from Covid-19. The virus of Islamist extremism is much more dangerous for our society.

This week’s events demonstrate that we need to be far more stringent and wary of hateful ideologies when we impose immigration and citizenship tests. We also need to engage with Muslim communities to fight extremism.

Too many animosities are homegrown, and radicalisation can occur online. Successive governments since 9/11 have started this work but none has followed through.

And no major party leader until Dutton has even dared to mention the crucial inputs of immigration and citizenship in such stark terms. As a nation we cannot be so insistent on tolerance and multiculturalism that we welcome intolerant people who undermine our diversity – to do that misses the point, and turns a nation-building immigration program into a policy of self-harm.