Julian Burnside’s Holocaust post attracts fire – and history ‘gift’ from Josh Frydenberg

Julian Burnside has apologised for his ‘anti-Semitic’ tweet which sparked outrage in the Victorian Bar and saw Treasurer Josh Frydenberg send him essential reading materials.

Julian Burnside. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

High-profile Melbourne barrister Julian Burnside says he “regrets” likening Israel to the Nazi regime in a Twitter post condemned by the Jewish community.

The former Greens candidate, who once represented some of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, has since deleted the post, in which he wrote the “treatment of the Palestinians looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust”.

But Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said Mr Burnside’s apology was “redefining the meaning of Chutzpah”.

“My suggestion to Burnside is that he stops going to the Holocaust playbook whenever he has criticism of Israeli policies and respect those who have suffered enough and do not deserve to be revictimised and retraumatised,” Dr Abramovich said.

“He has diluted and diminished his apology to the Holocaust survivors for earlier desecrating their memory and throwing dirt on their pain by retweeting a post that attacks people like myself who are actively fighting the hateful rhetoric of antisemitism and suggests that we are crying wolf.”

Mr Burnside’s Twitter post was related to a Washington Post article about a Human Rights Watch report into violations of international law during 11 days of fighting with Hamas militants.

Mr Burnside had been condemned by the Jewish community in 2018 after reposting an image showing Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s face superimposed on a Nazi officer in a uniform that ­included the “death’s head” emblem used by the SS unit responsible for concentration camps

On Thursday, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson lodged a formal complaint about Mr Burnside to the Victorian Bar, writing that he may have engaged in behaviour “likely to diminish public confidence in the legal profession”.

“His conduct in equating Israelis with the German treatment of Jews during the Holocaust is so gravely offensive that this brings into question whether he is a fit and proper person to retain the appointment of Queen’s Counsel, a prestigious office conferred by the Crown on only the most eminent barristers,” she wrote.

Mr Burnside told The Weekend Australian he disagreed with the action of the Israeli government but regretted his tweet.

“I learned about the Holocaust when I was 10. It horrified me then and it still horrifies me. I have read the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials: dreadful,” he said.

“I strongly dislike what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians, given the terms of the Balfour Declaration.

“But I regret that I referred to the Holocaust.”

“Apart from the numbers being radically different, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is about land; the Holocaust was about genocide.”

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, whose mother arrived in Australia from Hungary after escaping the Holocaust, said Mr Burnside’s Twitter post was “insensitive” and “indefensible”. On Friday, the Treasurer sent Mr Burnside a copy of Eddie Jaku’s The Happiest Man on Earth, a story by a 101-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Mr Burnside ran against Mr Frydenberg for the seat of Kooyong at the last federal election.

Today I sent @JulianBurnside a copy of Holocaust survivor, Eddie Jaku’s, remarkable book.

I hope he finds it educational, after his insensitive & indefensible tweet.

We have a collective duty to ensure the atrocities of the Holocaust are not only understood, but never repeated. pic.twitter.com/oLWN3jEWEa

— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) July 30, 2021