A week after Hamas entered Israel and slaughtered 1400 innocents – children were killed in front of their parents, babies beheaded, barely ambulatory victims burned alive on their settees – a dozen young men dressed in black, their identities hidden behind balaclavas hopped on a Melbourne tram.
A young woman I know was aboard and was frightened of the neo-Nazis. The noisy gang had already attracted the attention of police, who boarded at the next stop. An officer told other fearful passengers not to be afraid. “They’re just protesters,” he said.
They were a bit more than that. Growing in number to about 25, they later boarded a city train, gave Nazi salutes, and menaced passengers reportedly asking some were they Jewish. A week later, the Victorian parliament passed the Summary Offences (Nazi Salute Prohibition) Bill – its sets penalties including $23,000 fines and jail for offenders – outlawing the gesture that was mandatory for Germans in the lead up to World War II.
It is doubtful Melbourne mindless neo-Nazis know the anything of the roots of the salute, although they understand Hitler rose to power with a vision for a new racial order in Europe, part of which became the so-called “final solution to the Jewish question”.
The Holocaust that followed is the reason there is an Israel. But it seems that Jews are never safe. Obviously not in their United Nations-created homeland, nor across Europe, not in the US or the UK and, shamefully, not even in Australia.
After the October 7 attacks, some of the world’s most famous buildings were bathed in the colours of Israel’s flag which was adopted 75 years ago last weekend. Strikingly illuminated were the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gates, The Empire State Building, The White House, London’s Guildhall and our own Opera House. At only one was there a riot: the Opera House. Clearly not everyone was surprised by this. Once it was known that pro-Palestinian groups would attend the Opera House to protest against its symbolic illumination, NSW Police warned Sydney’s Jews to stay away. But one turned up with an Israeli flag and he was the only person arrested that night. Ironically, pro-Palestinian protesters with Israeli flags were left alone. Of course, they set fire to these while chanting “f..k Israel” and “f..k the Jews”.
It is one thing to assume that witless students from Melbourne University chanting the Palestinian staple “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” might not be aware those words reflect a modern Middle-Eastern Final Solution: the genocide of the Jews who live west of the Jordan and east of the Mediterranean.
And protests on Monday at Melbourne’s Sofitel Hotel against the Australian subsidiary of Elbit, the cutting edge Israeli company that works on digital battlefield technologies, reaffirm the assumptions many young Australians make about Israel – that it is militaristic, hostile to its neighbours and indifferent to civilian deaths in Gaza. It is historical illiteracy.
No doubt many Australians are wondering why those with no ethnic connection to anyone in the Middle East would express sympathy for Hamas and those who support it?
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, believes that the relentless teaching in Australia that Israel is an apartheid state, founded on colonialism, and a tool of Western imperialism has won over the students who in earlier decades opposed the Vietnam War and, indeed, apartheid.
As a result, many of them have interpreted Hamas mass slaughter “as some sort of act of resistance and a noble act”.
It might look like it’s a long way from supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, but in its own way, is an extension of that activism.
Ryvchin believes that parts of the Australian community have accepted the regularly peddled fictions about the Israelis for so long they can’t view Jews as ever being victims: “Look at what’s happening on the campuses … it’s no longer a bunch of far left students incited by a few lefty academics. It’s become so well organised, so widespread, and so bloodthirsty in its nature.”
It seems that even though Hamas fully revealed itself on October 7 – and any thought of moderation and negotiation was made impossible that day – substantial numbers of Australians believe Israel had it coming.
As a democracy, Israel’s Prime Minister has not only to defend his nation – and their professional and civilian forces are well equipped and trained for that – but also respond to the constituency’s fears and anger.
Many in the west, and even in Israel, have long thought that Article 7 of the Hamas charter was just an easily dismissed, florid outburst of hostility toward Israel: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims … there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
When ISIS were evicted from Mosul starting in 2016, the forces against them included the US, Australia, the UK, France, Canada, Germany and even Turkey. ISIS was defeated, but about 8000 civilians were also killed along with 50 journalists. It was hailed internationally as a victory for justice.
It would appear that despite the savagery of Hamas, many Australians are taking a different view of today’s events in Israel and Gaza.
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