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The Mocker: Albanese’s anti-Semitism challenge is to move beyond words to action

The Mocker
It’s time for discernible action form Anthony Albanese and Jillian Segal, not just words, says The Mocker. Pictures: News Corp
It’s time for discernible action form Anthony Albanese and Jillian Segal, not just words, says The Mocker. Pictures: News Corp

Having repeatedly said for the record that anti-Semitism has no place in Australia, Anthony Albanese has just discovered that platitudes alone cannot address this scourge.

It requires him to do something other than offer words.

This realisation has taken nearly two years to eventuate, but nonetheless a slow student’s first step forward deserves applause, no?

Just as a plodder needs remedial lessons, so does Albanese need Jillian Segal, the Prime Minister’s envoy on anti-Semitism.

It was her task to remind Albanese it is a moot point to insist anti-Semitism has no place in Australia when synagogues are firebombed, Israeli businesses are trashed and patrons targeted, and demonstrators in Melbourne streets chant “Death to the IDF”.

Segal wants to hold various bodies accountable for how they respond to anti-Semitism.

This includes educational and cultural institutions, public broadcasters, and government.

One of her recommendations is that the Australian Border Force screens visa applicants for anti-Semitic views and cancels existing ones held by those with such attitudes.

This prompted two noteworthy questions at Albanese’s press conference last Friday.

Did he agree with Segal it was anti-Semitic to hold that the state of Israel should be eliminated, and should a non-citizen with such views be deported/refused entry?

This called for a straightforward response, but instead of doing so, Albanese stonewalled.

“We have our system, which goes through security clearances, and that’s a condition that we make,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, Jillian Segal, during a press conference on Thursday. Picture: Nikki Short / NewsWire
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, Jillian Segal, during a press conference on Thursday. Picture: Nikki Short / NewsWire

That would be the same system this government had in place when it granted multiple visas to Gazans last year without conducting proper security checks, I take it?

WEASEL WORDS

Asked again whether the visa holder risked deportation if they expressed such views, Albanese once more was all weasel words.

“We assess people on the basis of our national security assessments,” he said.

“We do that across the board. We keep Australians safe.”

That last assertion is not just false, it is risible and shameful.

Nothing has emboldened anti-Semitist elements in this country more than the government’s abrogation regarding the safety of Jewish-Australians, as well as its craven appeasement of Western Sydney voters.

But let’s return to the issue of vetting visa applicants and holders.

Less than a year ago, Australians listened in disbelief as ASIO director-general Mike Burgess told ABC Insiders that Gazan applicants with “rhetorical support” for Hamas were not necessarily disqualified from obtaining a visa (Burgess later claimed his comments had been misrepresented).

Unsurprisingly, the Opposition highlighted this issue as a threat to public safety.

Instead of expressly ruling out the possibility of Hamas sympathisers being issued visas, Albanese equivocated and played the man, accusing the Opposition of sowing “fear and division”.

What you see now is a variation of this debacle.

In refusing to state whether he supports Segal’s recommendation, Albanese has left open the possibility that “mere” rhetorical support for the elimination of Israel is not in itself sufficient to refuse or revoke a visa.

Director-General of Security of Australia, Mike Burgess. Picture: Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire
Director-General of Security of Australia, Mike Burgess. Picture: Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

And, heaven forbid, do not press him on this issue, else you too are a threat to social cohesion.

You may have noticed last week that Albanese, for once when talking about anti-Semitism, did not also mention Islamophobia.

Perhaps you thought this meant Labor has finally dropped this ridiculous pretence of equivalence.

If so, think again.

When asked yesterday whether he would accept the Segal recommendations, Education

Minister Jason Clare mirrored Albanese’s evasiveness, declaring he would not look at the report “in isolation”.

You see, the minister has decided he must wait until he has a chance to read a corresponding report by Albanese’s envoy on Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, which is not due until next month.

And he also has to read Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman’s yet-to-be-completed report into racism in Australia’s universities.

In other words, the government will resort to bureaucratic shilly-shallying and whataboutism in response to the Segal report.

Instead of addressing anti-Semitism, Albanese will insist on a so-called holistic response to racism and religious bigotry.

Ironically, the outcome will serve only to advance the agenda of critical race agitators, who are notorious for their hatred of Israel.

THE BURKE FACTOR

As for anti-Semitism in the arts industry, it falls to Arts Minister Tony Burke to decide whether to halt funding to artistic organisations that condone this behaviour.

We can be confident he will do absolutely nothing.

Take, for example, his response to Creative Australia’s decision this month to reinstate Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as Australia’s pick for Venice Biennale 2026, after their controversial dumping in February.

Sabsabi, you may recall, produced in 2006 a video with spliced footage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, titled “Thank You Very Much”.

This was followed in 2007 by his video depicting former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated last year, in ethereal beams of light, which Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art described as “suggestive of divine illumination”.

Sabsabi insists he does not stand for terrorism or anti-Semitism. Despite bemoaning his initial dumping as “torture”, his attitude to deplatforming is remarkably flexible.

In 2022, he and other artists boycotted the Sydney Festival over its decision to accept $20,000 in funding that was to be used to stage a performance by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin. He did this “out of solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause,” he declared.

That was Sabsabi’s choice.

Visual artist Khaled Sabsabi. Picture: Anna Kucera / Creative Australia
Visual artist Khaled Sabsabi. Picture: Anna Kucera / Creative Australia

But it is rich to screech poor me when he, having treated an Israeli artist as a political football, finds himself getting the boot. And as former shadow arts spokesperson Claire Chandler observed, where is the public interest in selecting an individual to represent Australia who highlights a terrorist leader in his artwork?

But Burke will have none of that. Sabsabi’s works, he assured us this month, were the “exact opposite of something that could be seen to promote terrorism”.

This from the same minister who insisted in February that he was “shocked” upon seeing Sabsabi’s works. That is quite the turnaround.

Given Burke’s sudden enthusiasm for what he classifies as anti-terrorist artistic works, I have developed a concept multimedia piece along those lines which draws on Sabsabi’s work.

Picture a serene and luminous Hassan Nasrallah.

And imagine in the background, oblivious to the Hezbollah leader, the massive Israeli missile that is only a millisecond away from disappearing up his clacker.

Over to you, Creative Australia and Tony Burke.

I look forward to checking out Venice’s delights at public expense. Thank you very much.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/the-mocker-albaneses-antisemitism-challenge-is-to-move-beyond-words-to-action/news-story/555de0abb59f4aed10a18643b39ce2a9