Australian Greens risk Corbyn-like descent into party anti-Semitism

British MPs who quit Labour under Jeremy Corbyn because of rampant anti-Semitism have warned Australian Greens of the ‘huge political cost’ of treading a similar path.

Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the British Labour Party after claiming that the scale of anti-Semitism had been ‘dramatically overstated’. Picture: AFP

British MPs who quit Labour under Jeremy Corbyn because of rampant anti-Semitism have warned Australian Greens of the “huge political cost” of treading a similar path, saying leaders couldn’t bury their heads in the sand.

They said anti-Semitism was at odds with centre-left values and the demonisation of Zionism was the newest “iteration of ­ancient hatred”.

It comes as The Australian revealed on Thursday how Jewish members were abandoning the Greens because of its “blindness” to anti-Semitism, which had forced members out and made it a no-go zone for young progressive Jews.

Party insiders and experts said the Greens risked a descent from a hard-line pro-Palestine stance into anti-Semitism akin to Corbyn’s Labour, but unlike that political broad church there was no internal counter view pushing back.

Former British Labour MPs Joan Ryan and Mike Gapes, two of nine who quit in 2019 citing ­institutionalised anti-Semitism, said leadership was crucial, and Zionism had been demonised across their party.

“You can’t fight anti-Semitism without fighting anti-Zionism,” former 17-year MP Ms Ryan told The Australian. “It’s the latest iteration of ancient hatred … you have to stand up to it.”

Leader Adam Bandt. Picture: Martin Ollman

Of that period, Mr Gapes said “the atmosphere was poisonous” and entryism had allowed in hard-left activists – “including from the Greens” – who bullied people “seen to be ‘Zionists’ ”.

He warned any party not to marginalise Jewish voices or downplay anti-Semitism, saying “hopefully” the Greens “sorted themselves out”.

“You can’t keep your head down and hope it’ll go away,” the former 27-year British MP said, adding that under Mr Corbyn Zionism had been weaponised.

“It became unbearable for some Jewish MPs. You had ­aggressive protests outside of synagogues. People seen to be ­Zionists were bullied.”

In Australia, senator Mehreen Faruqi has refused to say whether Hamas should be dismantled and posed next to a poster of the Israeli flag in a bin to “keep the world clean”; a now-dumped NT candidate said the government was run by Zionist “puppet masters”; and leader Adam Bandt shared mat­erial showing a map of a “free Palestine” encompassing all of Israel.

In February, NSW MP Jenny Leong apologised for saying the Jewish lobby had “tentacles”.

“At least Corbyn never went as far as overt anti-Semitic tropes or words,” one Labor figure said.

The Australian revealed on Tuesday how Greens councillors had voted against motions urging the release of hostages while branches have called the creation of Israel a “huge mistake” and Hamas’s October 7 attacks “self-defence”.

Nine British Labour MPs quit over the party’s anti-Semitism in 2019, including Joan Ryan, pictured second-left, and Mike Gapes, centre. Picture: AFP

A spokesman for Mr Bandt said the Greens condemned “anti-Semitism and racism”, saying its criticism was aimed at the Israeli government and not its people or the Jewish community, and how the party’s position was based on “international law and human rights”.

Anthony Albanese’s office was shut because of pro-Palestine protesters while activists vandalised Macnamara MP Josh Burns’s office with “Zionism is fascism”.

“Greens consistently encourage office protests,” a Labor source said. “When offices get smashed up, they go ‘That’s nothing to do with us, we had no idea’.”

The British Labour Party recently swept to a landslide election victory, but it required a five-year dismantling of the Corbyn era’s remnants, which ended in a near-record 2019 election defeat and a damning 2020 report by Britain’s human rights watchdog into the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. That report found “at best” it did not do enough to prevent it and “at worst” accepted it.

Ms Ryan feared hard-left politics was racing down a road similar to the one trod by her party under Mr Corbyn. “We learnt you have to stand up to anti-Semitism as soon as possible,” she said.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi. Picture: Martin Ollman

NSW MP Jenny Leong. Picture: Adam Yip

“The idea anti-Semitism could run rife is totally contrary to what a centre-left party (is founded on).

“I’m not sure what the (Australian) Greens say about it, but if they’re suggesting their values are on anti-racism, that can’t be true if they’re not doing something about anti-Semitism.”

Fighting anti-Zionism was essential, Ms Ryan said, adding that there was a “huge political cost” to not doing so. “We paid the price (at the 2019 election),” she said, adding that the hard left had been unable to reconcile that anti-Semitism was racism. “People don’t know what Zionism is, and anti-Semitism doesn’t change, it’s the same in the UK as it is in Australia,” she said.

Jewish Greens working group co-founder Daniel Coleman told The Australian he felt there was “not even lip service” against anti-Semitism while another member said the party needed to mirror Labour’s own de-rooting of anti-Semitism.

Monash University social policy professor Philip Mendes said unlike British Labour, the Greens had no will to change course, nor the requisite conditions. “Labour is a mass institution, there’s strong counter trends within it,” he said.

“In the Greens, there’s no counter view. Most support that (hard-line) view; those that don’t have left.

Monash University associate professor Dr Philip Mendes. Picture: Supplied

“A group of Jewish Greens resigned en masse from the party last year; they were exhausted... the last group with a slightly alternative view has been excluded.”

Professor Mendes said the Greens had been “completely captured” into a hard-line “binary” position where Jews were framed only as “far-right Zionists”.

“It’s McCarthyism,” he said.

“‘Are you a Zionist?’ That’s the test you’ve got to pass to be acceptable. It’s about exclusion.”

The Prime Minister has called the party “appalling” for ignoring anti-Semitism and Peter Dutton has labelled the party as “evil”.

A federal parliament insider said some in the party “never understood anti-Semitism” and had a “blindness” to it.

“Senator Faruqi has never got it,” they alleged.“She should have been looking for partners in Israel and the community who shared her values, and lifting those voices up.”

Activists at a Melbourne rally. Picture: Ian Currie

A source from Sydney’s hard-left activist scene said the Greens had “re-established affections” with the revolutionary left, pointing to an influx of party figures at pro-Palestine encampment protests, who were trying to “re­ignite” Vietnam War protests.

University of Sydney politics expert Stewart Jackson said the party’s “strong bedrock in peace activism” was reflected in its position on Palestine.