The Fight Against Antisemitism - my latest from The Saturday Paper on 14th December 2024

Ten days before Christmas and the usual carols, jolly Santas and decorated trees colour my local Balaclava shopping strip in inner Melbourne. But this year they coincide with the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the nearby Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, a “fuck Israel” sign on the gazebo in my local park, “fuck jews” on a lamppost and, further afield, cars set alight and messages of hate scrawled on fences in Jewish areas of Sydney. Welcome to Australia in 2024.

I spent the solemn first anniversary of October 7 in the company of family, friends and members of the Jewish community. Making our way to the commemoration venue – a warehouse in an industrial precinct in Moorabbin, selected to foil disruption by angry activists – all felt wrong. The location was disclosed with less than 48 hours’ notice as a security precaution, and there was a massive police presence. I was hiding in my own city. I had already avoided the central business district on Sundays because of the loud and aggressive protests marching weekly through our streets, with some demonstrators flying terror group flags, their faces covered with masks and keffiyehs.

The day before the anniversary, a highly educated and politically left old friend, who had remained silent for most of the year, emailed to tell me she had been thinking of me but hadn’t known what to say. With this introductory remark she went on with an account of her new book, her dinner with a mutual acquaintance and her plans to set off for an overseas holiday.

On her lack of communication over this past year, I reply to say I have been struck by how few of my old lefty friends have thought to check in with me as the rising tide of anti-Semitism has made it difficult to feel safe in my city of birth. I tell her I have had to contend with explaining to my grandchildren why their schools needed to bolster their security arrangements and why people angrily tear down posters of children held hostage by terrorists. I’d asked myself why do many leftists now march with Hamas and Hezbollah supporters? Is this a new thing or have they always supported Islamist terrorism? I say I’m not sure how to interpret the silence, but it feels like abandonment from where I sit. So many dinners, so many years of sharing family and laughter. What did it add up to in the end?

Insulted, she retorts sharply about my questioning of my old leftist associates. She says two things really got to her – my assumptions about people like her and “your relentless focus on your experiences of this terrible period”.

Focus on our, meaning Jewish, experiences might seem relentless for her, but it is a long-practised response of our community to threats from outside. Who else is going to focus and think and write about what is happening to us?

The chief of staff to the Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, suggested the Melbourne synagogue attack could have been a “false flag” attack, and is “counselled”. A journalist reports hearing the view that the Jews firebombed their own synagogue to keep the focus on them. Did we gas ourselves in the 1940s, too?

In Perth, on the day of the synagogue fire, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intoned, once again, that there is no place in Australia for anti-Semitism. He looked especially tired and regretful that this “ancient hatred” has somehow bubbled up again on his watch. It’s so hard to deal with an ancient hatred, he implied, like dealing with all those other perennial afflictions: bushfires, floods, plagues.

He pledged an extra $32.5 million over the next 18 months to increase security for Jewish communities. The schools my grandchildren attend already have parent-funded armed guards at their gates. What are we expecting now, tanks and rocket-launchers? How about taking measures to reduce the threats?

The government has banned Nazi salutes and symbols, passed anti-doxxing legislation after the doxxing of my WhatsApp group, and appointed an anti-Semitism envoy, so what more is there to do?

Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong, in her efforts to appease anti-Zionist sectors of her party, has diminished our relationship with Israel and makes mealy-mouthed pronouncements about Australia’s standing on these global issues. What Australia thinks and does in the Middle East has minimal impact internationally, compared with the impact these statements have in creating havoc at home.

But even that’s not good enough for the protesters.

When asked when the weekly demonstrations will stop, Nasser Mashni of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, says “only after liberation”, by which he meant “decolonisation of Palestine – a Palestine that’s free from the river to the sea”. He said this was a one-state solution – not the federal government’s preferred two-state solution. He is calling for the elimination of Israel – the only Jewish state in the world, surrounded in the region by 22 Arab Islamic states. You do the maths.

“Globalise the Intifada” means exactly what we saw at the Adass Israel Synagogue. Look at the drive-by shootings and firebombing of synagogues in Canada to get a taste of what is developing here. The rallies long ago crossed over from being anti-Zionist to anti-Semitic and fundamentally anti-Australian. We have always prided ourselves on a relatively harmonious population of multiple origins that does not carry overseas battles onto home ground.

These forever weekly marches, with a seemingly permanent booking at State Library Victoria and the city streets, are starting to morph into the “liberated” or “autonomous zones” tactics we saw in Seattle’s Capitol Hill and New York City Hall four summers ago, leading to arson and looting and violence. We have already seen this tactic on our university campuses this year.

Let’s think about what the desperation to land votes in a few seats where Muslim voters are active has led to in the wider society. Penny Wong and Tony Burke have bent over backwards to satisfy these communities, but it’s not enough to appease Senator Fatima Payman or the Greens. The Greens just announced their new candidate for the seat of Blaxland, Omar Sakr, who has reportedly called Zionists “angry Karens in a state of constant hysteria”, invoking the “Holocaust to shield their behaviour”. He has labelled this a “Zionist tradition”.

More than 80 per cent of Jewish Australians are committed to Israel’s continued existence, which is what Zionism is. Our connection to the land of Zion has been inextricably embedded in liturgy and practice for more than 2000 years.

State governments have allowed the relentless public expression of anti-Zionist sentiments in rallies, and the federal government’s critiques of Israel has created a climate where anti-Zionism crosses into anti-Semitism – the explosion of abuse, intimidation and violence against Australian Jews, which has increased fourfold in the past year.

Make no mistake, for “Zionist” read “Jews”. That’s why Australian Jews are being targeted, all these thousands of kilometres from the war in the Middle East. A young couple running a gift shop in Northcote were forced out of the suburb with their child after harassment and threats of violence. A wine shop owner with a Jewish name in East Brunswick has been continually targeted with stickers and threatening visits from locals. He told me he will soon have to close down.

State governments must take control of the public order. Some Australian states require a permit for protests, and while this is controversial among free-speech advocates, at least a firming of public order laws and strengthened policing of them is urgent. We must make our cities and universities safe and civil again. The weekly demonstrations put fear into Jewish Australians and alienate others. They have to end.

If the government thought this would burn itself out, they were wrong. I know how they feel.

A year ago, I had a sad call from my then eight-year-old granddaughter. She had been following the horrible news of the pogrom in Israel. She asked me if this was the start of another Holocaust.

I had to think quickly, as you do when children ask you important questions. I reassured her that this time the difference is Israel has a strong army and would now be able to defend its citizens. I said we in Australia were a long way from the disturbing events of that weekend. My Holocaust-survivor mother chose to come here because it was as far away as possible from Europe and the ashes of her family.

The reports of celebrations in Australia by Hamas supporters at the Sydney Opera House made me nervous. How was it that followers of an Australian government-listed terrorist entity could take over our streets and celebrate the murder and rape and taking of civilian hostages with impunity? I hoped that my reassurance to my little granddaughter was justified.

Now, a year on, I am older and wiser and for the first time in my life I am glad my mother is dead and can’t see what is happening in her beloved Australia, the refuge that delivered to her the precious gift of the rest of her life in peace.