Labor’s moral leadership on Israel and anti-Semitism is missing in action
Labor is caught between a tide of rising anti-Semitism and progressives who say there is nothing to see here.
This is not an Australian phenomenon but part of a global rise in hostility towards Israel and prejudice towards Jews. It is part of a civilisational shift, long in the making, now breaking out in many countries and in Australia in a way that is surely unprecedented.
There are many anecdotal reports of Jewish schoolchildren being abused and intimidated. But the signs of institutional hostility are apparent – in the Greens political party, sections of the ALP, universities, schools, cultural bodies, theatre and media. The picture is complex. There is both a legitimate political criticism of Israel’s war campaign along with pure anti-Semitism where Jews are blamed or intimidated because of the actions of the Israeli state.
In almost every case, anti-Semitism is being contested. Elites are divided. Many progressives pretend there is no issue.
But the joint letter last month from more than 600 corporate and community leaders condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, reveals a sense of alarm. The letter was a pledge of support to Jewish people in this country and a warning against “offensive language, vandalism and harassment” on our streets, universities and public landmarks.
Australian multiculturalism is going to face an examination of its character despite the near deafening silence from most of its alleged champions.
In nine weeks since the barbarism of Hamas triggered this war and Israel responded with a military campaign to destroy Hamas there has been no respite in events and institutional tensions in Australia pointing to a moral fracture.
The Israel-Hamas war with its legacy of a more dangerous Middle East will drive Western politicisation of this conflict like an electric current. In NSW teachers have promoted the Palestinian cause in the classroom supported by the NSW Teachers Federation in defiance of the state government. But universities will become the beating heart of this struggle.
Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser tells Inquirer: “I go back to the universities because this is the cauldron where it all starts.” Leeser says surveys reveal Jewish students feel threatened and have lost confidence in support from university authorities.
Independent MP for Wentworth Allegra Spender tells Inquirer: “My community has never seen anti-Semitism in Australia like this. Saying it isn’t a problem isn’t an option any more. AntiSemitism is on the rise particularly in universities both here and overseas. Our goal is to put anti-Semitism and the safety and security of Jewish students properly on the agenda of the vice-chancellors around the country and hold universities to account for their actions.” Leeser, Spender and Labor Jewish MP Josh Burns are working together on this project.
There is now a sharp rift between the Albanese government and the Coalition over the response to anti-Semitism. In Peter Dutton’s address to the Rabbinical Council of NSW last Monday, the Opposition Leader argued Australia was experiencing the “anti-Semitic rot” now spreading across many nations. He said: “Key leaders have been found wanting in providing strong support for Israel and clear-cut condemnations of anti-Semitism.” The legacy was a “moral fog” – a good description of Australia today.
Dutton said while he and Anthony Albanese had supported the Jewish community at the October 22 opening of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, he found himself disagreeing with the Prime Minister over the extent of anti-Semitism. Contrary to Albanese’s promise, anti-Semitism “has found footholds in our country and very significant ones”. Dutton argued there was a cycle of weakness at work, saying: “If perpetrators are not held accountable, then would-be perpetrators are not deterred.”
Dutton complains about the failure of police to arrest protesters at the Crowne Plaza in Melbourne on November 29 when relatives of Jewish people who had been murdered and victimised – visiting Australia in a delegation – were confronted by protesters and forced to retreat to a police station for safety.
Politicians from both sides condemned the behaviour. Protesters said the Israeli delegation was supporting genocide in Gaza.
Retiring 3AW radio veteran Neil Mitchell said: “Sadly, in my last days on radio, I’m starting to feel I don’t understand much about this country.”
Many influential Australians seem clueless and deliberately blind to the civilisation dimension of this moment. The conflict in Gaza is generating waves of political angst around the world. It is destroying trust between Israelis and Palestinians, leaving Gaza in ruins, creating an intractable dilemma over a new governing authority for Gaza and undermining support for the two-state solution.
The left across the West is mobilising support on the street as opposition grows to the civilian death toll from Israel’s war campaign.
But this conceals the political and moral truth – the left is making a fatal moral mistake in embracing the Palestinian cause when it cannot disentangle that cause from the violence intrinsic to the identity and meaning of Hamas as seen in its assault of October 7.
Writing in Quillette, New York University journalism professor Susie Linfield dissected the coming cataclysm in an article titled “The Return of the Progressive Atrocity”. With the left around the world fudging how much it supports Hamas, directly or indirectly, in the cause of Palestinian liberation, Linfield said: “Activists have the responsibility to know who and what they support and to separate themselves – openly and decisively – from programs and regimes that are predicated on violence and repression.
“The Western Left’s response to October 7 will, I believe, be viewed as a moment of moral corruption on a par with the defence of Stalin’s purges, Czechoslovakia’s anti-Semitic show trials of 1952, the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and Poland’s anti-Semitic expulsions of 1968, along with the denial of the Khmer Rouge genocide and the adulation of China’s vicious Cultural Revolution.
“There’s no mystery as to what kind of state Hamas aims to create; we only need look at what it already has created. This time, no one can plead ignorance. There’s little liberation, justice or freedom to be found in Gaza, where there are no opposition political parties, no elections, and no freedom of religion, the press or protests. Opponents are arrested, tortured and sometimes executed. Abortion and homosexuality are outlawed.
“And what kind of liberation will this be? Aside from the Taliban, Hamas has established the least progressive pseudo-state on earth. The lesson of Iran has apparently not been learned; history is repeating itself not as farce but as tragedy.
“An ethical collapse takes time to develop. October 7th reveals the long-simmering theoretical confusions, and the moral void, that dominates many of today’s ‘progressive’ movements. A Left that is fixated on ‘decolonisation’ mistakes a death cult for a liberation movement and is unable to recognise a bloodbath, even one that was filmed and publicised worldwide by the killers themselves.
“A Left that, rightly demands absolute condemnation of white-nationalist supremacy refuses to dissociate itself from Islamist supremacy. A Left that divides the world between racists and antiracists and is obsessed with ‘people who look like me’ can’t understand that the clash of two national movements has nothing to do with race or colour. A Left that celebrates diversity, vilifies one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse countries in the world. A Left that sees systemic racism in every nook and cranny – and in every (white) heart – can’t recognise the systemic anti-Semitism that results in mass murder.”
Don’t think this is a passing moment. It will test our culture and our institutions. The tragedy of Israel and the Palestinians has re-erupted and will spread into our domestic politics. President Joe Biden declares his ongoing support for the two-state solution yet its momentum is fading with grievous implications.
‘The Albanese government wants to keep the domestic ramifications of this conflict as subdued as possible. Yet the cultural, political and moral dimensions will not disappear.’
Pew Research Centre found only 35 per cent of Israelis believed a Palestinian and Israeli state could co-exist according to a March-April 2023 survey. A Gallup poll before the current war found only 24 per cent of Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem supported a two state solution – support has more than halved since 2012. There seems no leadership and little political will on either side to reverse course and negotiate a settlement.
The physical and political wasteland that lies beyond these hostilities was captured this week in my interview with US professor Eliot Cohen, from the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Highlighting the political vacuum, Cohen said: “Nobody wants Gaza. The Egyptians don’t want Gaza, the Saudis don’t want Gaza, the UAE doesn’t want Gaza, the EU doesn’t, the US doesn’t, the Palestinian Authority is incompetent to run Gaza but I bet they don’t want it either.”
The Albanese government wants to keep the domestic ramifications of this conflict as subdued as possible. Yet the cultural, political and moral dimensions will not disappear because they are apparent in our society. Having sanctioned virtually any organisation to declare its support for the voice, Labor faces a climate where political expression fused with artistic or any other professional responsibility has become the norm.
Witness the furore over the pro-Palestinian protests staged by actors at the Sydney Theatre Company’s performance of Chekhov’s production of The Seagull – a pathetic stunt where actors donned keffiyeh to signal their fidelity. The upshot has seen two STC directors resign, more than 1000 patrons sign a petition of protest and various actors declare the arts should not be exploited to divide and traumatise the community. What does the Albanese government think?
Normally competent Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, asked last weekend on Sky News’ Sunday Agenda, said: “I think people are entitled to have their say about important issues.” Performers might support the Palestinians or Israel and it’s “OK for people to have a say on these things”. Watt was following Arts Minister Tony Burke, who made clear the previous weekend he had no objections. Burke said there were two different types of protest – hate speech, which he would condemn, and this incident, which he wouldn’t engage with as minister. In short, he had no criticism to make as minister. No principle involved here.
Can you believe this? Albanese government ministers telling us the issue is artistic freedom. This is beyond farce. Ministers are so spineless they cannot even dissent from such squalid antics that are manifestly inappropriate and an insult to audiences who do not come to witness political statements. These performers have a wide outside scope to advertise their politics. Former judge Ronald Sackville wrote in this paper that the STC needed to show it understood why this “protest” was wrong. Obviously, Labor doesn’t even think that.
Some progressives say the incident isn’t worth worrying about. In fact, the reverse argument applies – if it’s so minor why can’t the government show leadership? Why is it so craven? Presumably because it doesn’t see any principle at stake. Just think about that.
What does Labor really believe? At least we know where the Greens stand, courtesy of this war.
Leeser put that in lights a few weeks ago, saying: “Anti-Semitism is now a full-blown feature of the extremist-Greens political ideology.” He said the Greens were more racist and dangerous than One Nation. One certainty is that the progressive media will avoid any assessment of the Greens to test the validity of such a claim. The reluctance of universities to confront what is happening to Jewish students is unsurprising.
Last week Spender sent out a brief survey to her community to collect anti-Semitism experiences on campus. There were more than 160 responses.
The scorecard on incidents of anti-Semitism read: University of Sydney 56, University of NSW 49, University of Technology Sydney 17, Macquarie University nine, University of Melbourne seven, Monash University six, being the main institutions featured. A total of 72 per cent said experiences of antiSemitism had worsened since October 7 while 12 per cent replied “no” on that issue.
Spender says: “Students talked about being refused contact with the SRC ‘if I was a Zionist’, celebrations of the ‘Palestinian resistance’ soon after October 7, swastika graffiti and posters of ‘From the River to the Sea’.”
“Universities are ground zero for this problem,” Leeser says. “Universities should be a place of free academic inquiry, people should be able to go about their business unharassed.”
But that’s not happening. Leeser referenced for this paper an independent July 2023 survey report titled The Jewish University Experience Survey that showed Jewish students “were afraid to identify themselves on campus”.
Almost two-thirds, 64 per cent, reported at least one incident of anti-Semitism during their time at university and the majority, 88 per cent, had this experience in the past 12 months. For many students these incidents occurred monthly or more often. On 29 per cent of occasions the anti-Semitism involved university staff. Most students, 61 per cent, felt there was little point lodging a complaint because it would make no difference. The conclusions were based on 563 responses to the survey.
Leeser sees deep trends at work – the World War II generation steeped in the danger of anti-Semitism is gone; there is now a “poverty of education about the Holocaust”; and the education sector faces major cultural dominance from the left. He says efforts to get universities to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – which provides a binding working definition of anti-Semitism – have met a lot of resistance. So far, only 4½ Australian universities had signed up.
“What is extraordinary is the way universities say there is nothing to see here,” Leeser says. “They say we’ve got general anti-racism provisions. There’s a failure to realise the particularity of anti-Semitism.” Indeed, Australia seems a lost and uneducated nation on what anti-Semitism means.
It is extraordinary that the profound speech on the nature of anti-Semitism by High Court judge, Jayne Jagot delivered on October 5 as the Sir Zelman Cowen Lecture has got almost no attention.
“We should not assume that awareness of and a sustained response to anti-Semitism is not required in Australia,” Jagot said. She said anti-Semitism “continues to bubble along, ebbing and flowing in its intensity in response to circumstances”. It was, however, not just a form of religious, racial, ethnic and cultural discrimination. She quoted a columnist for The Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg, saying anti-Semitism was “a conspiracy theory about how the world operates”.
“This has explanatory power,” Jagot said. “It explains why, after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism exists.” US writer Walter Russell Mead nailed the issue, as quoted by Jagot, when he said: “Jew hatred is more disempowering and self-defeating than most other kinds of hate because it involves not only negative emotions about a group of people but a deeply false set of ideas about how the world works.”
In this sense anti-Semitism has another role – as Mead says, it becomes “a leading indicator of a loss of faith in liberal values”. History reveals that Jews are identified by others through whatever lens the anxiety of the moment demands. This is the particularity of anti-Semitism to which Leeser refers – but it is an awareness that seems barely to exist in an uneducated Australia in relation to the real nature of anti-Semitism.
Jagot says there are only 16 million Jewish people on earth, just 0.2 per cent of the total. About seven million live in Israel. Anti-Semitism is on display in relation to the state of Israel and in relation to Jewish people living outside Israel. Every sign is that anti-Semitism is on the rise.
Labor needs a strategy to manage this – but is the Albanese government politically and morally equipped for that task?
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The Gaza war is undermining support for the long-enshrined two-state solution – an Israeli and Palestinian nation side-by-side – the upshot being a more dangerous Middle East and a consequential tide of anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism in Western nations including Australia.