Ignorance feeding evil: Julia Gillard puts social media in frame for distorting Israel history

In a rare comments, Julia Gillard warns many young Australians have ill-­informed views about the Israel-Hamas conflict because social media has exploited their lack of knowledge about history.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard, and the Melbourne University encampment on Monday, inset. Picture: Matt Turner/AAP

Julia Gillard has warned many young Australians have ill-­informed and unbalanced views about the Israel-Hamas conflict because social media has exploited their lack of knowledge about the history of Israel.

In a rare public intervention from the former Labor prime ­minister, Ms Gillard says there is a desperate need for better education about the facts of the conflict and the pathways to peace.

Her comments come as younger Australians have dominated anti-Israeli protests in growing numbers and polls show many younger people in the country are increasingly hostile towards the Jewish state in its war against Hamas at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Australia.

“It worries me that people get their understanding of history off social media without ever touching any of the real facts,” Ms Gillard tells former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a documentary on anti-Semitism to be screened on Sky News Australia on Tuesday.

“I think a lot of what is going on today is a distortion of history from social media. It’s a misunderstanding about how Israel came into existence. It’s a misunderstanding about the nature of the conflict.

“And because of that, I think particularly young people are ­developing views about this which are unbalanced and really not ­informed by the history in any way. So if we can find a way of ­getting better education, a better understanding about what is going on and the pathways to peace, we’ll be in a much better place than we are now.”

 

Ms Gillard – the nation’s first female leader and a highly respected figure in both Labor ranks and Australia’s wider progressive movement – says she has been alarmed by the rise in anti-Semitism in Australia since the October 7 slaughter of Israelis by Hamas. “I’ve been shocked and very, very disturbed to see some of the anti-Semitism,” she says.

The pro-Palestine protest camp at the Australian National University in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

As Ms Gillard warns about the need to educate young people better on Israel, Education Minister Jason Clare declared a University of Melbourne pro-Palestine group’s social media call for the ­destruction of Israel on Monday “repulsive” and anti-Israel campers at the Australian National University were given till 12pm on Tuesday to pack up or face arrest.

The Israel-Hamas war is also set to dominate discussion in the party Ms Gillard once led this week as Labor MPs returned to Canberra for parliament.

West Australian ALP senator Fatima Payman on Monday demanded Anthony Albanese suspend trade with Israel and the government later this week will face down a Greens motion to ­support the recognition of a Palestinian state.

The Australian can also reveal the Coalition will promise to revoke the visas of “anti-Semitic” foreign-born university protesters, including if they make chants such as “from the river to the sea”, which refers to the destruction of Israel.

In her interview, Ms Gillard calls on every Australian to call out anti-Semitism immediately whenever they see it, whether it is on the street, in the workplace or in the home, saying the lesson of history is that if we don’t confront it now, it only grows.

“The Holocaust, of course, teaches us where anti-Semitism leads if it’s not confronted,” she says. “These things happened a step at a time. So given we’ve seen that history, we’re in a position, when we see the first few steps, to say, ‘No. No more. Let’s start combating that now rather than watch this history just play out’.

“I think where we need to go from here is each of us needs to make sure, as we move through the community, that we see any form of anti-Semitism, that we call it out and we deal with it and we address it, that you don’t walk by, because if you keep walking by, then things get worse and worse.”

She says it took longer than it should have for people to decry the “grievous” sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7. Many women’s rights groups were criticised by taking a long time to publicly recognise that Hamas committed acts of sexual violence against Israeli women during the attacks.

“I think wherever in the world sexual violence happens, then women and men have to come together and decry sexual violence,” Ms Gillard says. “I do think that it took longer than it should have for people to come out and to decry this sexual violence, which was obviously so grievous To see what those women went through, I think, horrified the world, as it rightly should.”

She says recent events in the Middle East mean a two-state solution to the conflict is “so far” off. “Whenever I’ve gone to Israel … it’s always been the dearest wish of mine that we could see peace emerge in the region, a two-state solution, two nations living side-by-side, secure borders, great trade, and everybody able to get on,” she says. “Unfortunately, in the modern age, we are just so far from that.”

Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism

Premieres Tuesday 28 May at 7.00pm AEST

Stream at SkyNews.com.au or download the Sky News Australia app