Stop talking, start doing: Jewish leaders and Netanyahu demand Labor act on anti-Semitic hate

After a wave of hate in Melbourne, Jewish leaders say the time for political statements from Labor is over and that it needs to commit now to crackdowns on anti-Israel protest slogans and a strategy to tackle anti-Semitism in schools.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus outside the fire-damaged East Melbourne synagogue on Sunday. Picture: NewsWire / Valeriu Campan

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Australia’s Jewish leaders are calling on Labor to combat the anti-Semitism crisis with a crackdown on violent anti-Israel slogans, a plan to tackle ­bigotry in classrooms and a merging of all federal and state police task forces investigating hate crimes.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke tried to stem longstanding criticism of Labor’s response to anti-Semitism by declaring an ­alleged arson attack on Friday on the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation was an “attack on Australia” and signalling he believed the incident was terrorism.

The attack on the synagogue and one on an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD were followed on Saturday with an incident at Greensborough, in Melbourne’s northeast, in which cars were ­graffitied with Palestinian flags and three were set alight. Police said there were clear “inferences of anti-Semitism”.

“We’ve come together today to stand in solidarity with the community here, to say that when someone has tried to say, ‘you don’t belong in Australia’, that in fact it’s the community here that absolutely belongs in Australia,” Mr Burke said on the steps of the East Melbourne synagogue on Sunday.

Yet hours later thousands of pro-Palestinian activists gathered at the State Library in Melbourne before marching down Swanston Street. Some chanted “death to the IDF” as they marched just blocks from the restaurant trashed on Friday night.

Jewish leaders said the time for political statements from Labor was over and that the government needed to commit now to ridding the streets of anti-Israel chants such as “death to the IDF” and “from the river to the sea”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has in the past linked Labor’s pro-Palestinian positions at the United ­Nations to anti-Semitic hate crimes in Sydney and Melbourne – demanded the federal government take a stronger lead in protecting Jewish Australians as he was on his way to meet Donald Trump at the White House.

“The reprehensible anti-­Semitic attacks, with calls of ‘death to the IDF’ and an attempt to ­attack a place of worship, are ­severe hate crimes that must be uprooted,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“The state of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community, and we demand that the Australian government take all action to deal with the rioters to the fullest extent of the law and prevent similar ­attacks in the future.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, backed by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, called on Anthony Albanese to revisit its blueprint for stopping anti-Semitism – from cancelling visas for people found to have made hate statements to implementing ­national guidelines on what constitutes anti-Jewish bigotry.

With the Albanese government having not committed to most of the peak Jewish body’s 15-point plan to tackle anti-Semitism and improve relations with Israel, community leaders, including ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, said Jewish Australians would not be safe until the government and police forces were tougher on anti-Semitic hate.

Elements of the ECAJ plan ­include merging the current AFP task force on anti-Semitism and separate state police squads ­focused on tacking anti-Jewish hate into one, national joint counter-terrorism unit.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin. Picture: Dan Peled

“There is no single policy that will address a crisis this deep and pervasive,” Mr Ryvchin told The Australian. “This is why the ECAJ formulated a comprehensive 15-point plan. Had the plan been implemented when it was presented, a lot of the issues our society has faced in the months since the summit could have been avoided.

“Instead, we are again going through the motions of politician statements, and questions about security and policing, as occurs in the wake of every severe anti-Semitic incident.”

Leading lawyer Mark Leibler – national chairman of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council – said police needed to be more robust in tackling anti-Semitism.

“As long as protests accompanied by chants of ‘Zionists are terrorists’, ‘death to the IDF’, ‘globalise the intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ continue, violence directed at the Jewish community and its institutions is inevitable,” he said.

“The cleverest economic reforms, the most enlightened investments in health or education or infrastructure, will count for little if our social cohesion disintegrates.”

Both Mr Burke and the Prime Minister said over the weekend that they were being briefed regularly by ASIO and federal police. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan did not visit the synagogue or make a public appearance over the weekend.

Protesters march during a Pro-Palestine rally at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne on Sunday. Picture: AAP

After NSW man Angelo Loras was charged on Sunday with ­alleged attempted arson, Mr Burke said on the steps of the East Melbourne synagogue that the work Labor had done to tackle anti-Semitism through an AFP task force, increased security at synagogues and Jewish schools, and tougher hate-speech laws was working.

“What we see on the door that’s behind me is an attack on Australia,” he said. “There’s been some reporting that no one was physically injured – that doesn’t mean no one was harmed. The community here was harmed, the ­Jewish community in Australia was harmed and we were harmed as a nation.

“I’m glad that the arrest has happened so promptly. I would also say a whole lot of the investment that’s been done in security and in CCTV has helped make sure that arrest happened so promptly. We now have laws that we didn’t have a few years ago. We have security programs that we didn’t have a few years ago.”

Anti-Israeli protesters terrify families outside Israeli restaurant Miznon on Hardware Lane in Melbourne on Friday night. Picture: AAP

Ms Ley also called on Mr Albanese to revisit the ECAJ strategy her predecessor Peter Dutton had planned to adopt if he had won the May election.

“As we know too well, this isn’t an isolated incident, which is why the Coalition reaffirms our full support for the anti-Semitism summit’s plan of action and calls on the Albanese government to do the same,” she said. “National leadership is needed to protect Jewish Australians and stamp out anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

The Dor Foundation – co-founded by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg – was set up last year to tackle anti-Semitism.

Its head, former counter-terrorism official Tahli Blicblau, writes in The Australian on Monday that Labor needs a “harm-prevention model” – like those for drugs or drink driving.

“Anti-Semites are advertising their position loud and proud on social media and in protests on the streets – and we are not listening,” she writes.

“To prevent and reduce anti-Semitism in the long term – rather than simply respond to its physical manifestations – we need a co-ordinated national strategy that includes education, advocacy, civil society partnerships and systemic reforms. We must invest in evidence-based interventions that target the drivers of hate in the physical world and online.”