Hamas
After the terrorist attack on 7 October 2023, Hamas chose to use its own citizens as human shields. As Alexander Downer, Australian Foreign Minister 1996 – 2007 has written, Hamas knew that casualties would grow, but they did not care as their objective was not to save lives, but rather to win an international propaganda war and in doing so Hamas has succeeded brilliantly in manipulating the Western media.
The recently released hostage, Yarden Bibas was kept in a cage underground, shackled, starved and alone, and taunted about the fate of his wife, Shiri and their infant children. Nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel were last seen clinging to their mother on 7 October as Gazan civilians dragged them into hell. They were murdered solely because they were Jews. Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese, along with other world leaders could have demanded mercy for them. Instead, the Australian government spent more time cheering for Palestinian statehood than it did demanding the freedom of this young mother and her children.[i]
Then on 21 February, Hamas staged a grotesque handover of four dead hostages, 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz as well as Shiri with her two baby children. Heartbreakingly, forensic tests quickly confirmed that the remains, supposedly of Shiri did not match her DNA but instead were those of an unidentified woman. Two days later Shiri’s remains were returned and forensically identified as hers.
Despite calls for Israel to agree to a two-state solution, Hamas does not even want a two-state solution. Hamas wants a one-state solution. There is no Palestinian state, only because the Palestinian leadership has turned down every offer they have received, starting with the Peel partition plan in 1937, the UN partition plan in 1948, and offers of statehood in 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In 2000, the Israelis and Americans offered the Palestinians 96% of the West Bank and all of Gaza with their capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians just walked away. As the Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban said all those years ago, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity!”[ii]
Australia – Quo Vadis?
Australia is one of the few governments which has opened its doors to Gazan refugees, even though not a single Arab nation is willing to accept them. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Foreign Minister, Penny Wong have called on Israel to ease up, even while Israel’s citizens were being slaughtered, abducted and held in underground cages, and they have taken the ridiculous view that the two-states can somehow be imposed by the international community.[iii]
When Wong recently represented Australia at the 80th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Spectator magazine asked, “Was this the first step in repairing the relationship, or the final insult.” Tragically, anti-Semitism did not vanish with the collapse of the Nazi Reich but instead has lived on in the Middle East and Israel is again threatened by genocidal enemies as violent anti-Semitism becomes normalised.[iv]
Anti-Semitism comes to Australia
There has been a marked escalation of anti-Semitism in Australia with vandalism, torching of cars and hatred on university campuses as well as the firebombing of the Adass Synagogue in Melbourne and a childcare centre in Sydney, and the discovery of a caravan packed with explosives, which included the addresses of Sydney’s Great Synagogue and the Sydney Jewish Museum and yet, in an interview on Sky News, a senior NSW Police Force officer remarked “It’s Terror, but is it terrorism?” It was a reminder that when the police turned up at the Sydney Opera House on 9 October 2023, they made no arrests even though a mob waved the flags of the terrorist organisation, Hezbollah and launched flares chanting, “F---k” the Jews and “Gas the Jews”.[v]
A number of leading Australian universities have revealed that they were providing “safe spaces” for Jewish students to which the opposition education spokeswoman, Sarah Henderson reacted saying, “That Jewish students are being segregated in ‘safe rooms’ at a number of universities is disgraceful and reflects an appalling failure of leadership by the Albanese the government”.[vi] Eminent professor and doyen of the Aboriginal rights movement, Marcia Langton has warned that “University leaders are exposing Jewish staff and students to the risk of extreme violence by allowing anti-Semitism under the false cloak of academic freedom”.[vii]
On 15 February, Josh Frydenberg together with Ilana Rubin announced the launch of the Dor Foundation to work with organisations across the country to better understand what anti-Semitism is and how to build tolerance, understanding and social cohesion. The foundation will focus initially on universities which have been a hotbed of anti-Semitism, as well as the online space, which has spewed and spread hatred against Australian Jews in the 16 months since the war in Gaza began.
The Antisemitism Summit
On 20 February, Sky News investigative journalist Sharri Markson together with the co-Chief Executive of the Executive Council of Australian jury, Alex Ryvchin hosted the Anti-Semitism Summit held at The Central Synagogue, and simultaneously broadcast live on Sky News. The summit was a tour de force. Josh Frydenberg spoke with great dignity and strength declaring that Australia was at a “pivotal” moment and that combating anti-Semitism was not just the Jewish community’s fight but also Australia’s fight.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns called for Australia’s laws to be changed to do more to protect the Jewish community. The former home affairs secretary, Mike Pezzullo described the state of anti-Semitism in Australia as a “national terror situation” and said it should be declared a “national emergency”. The Albanese government has recently introduced mandatory minimum prison sentences for terrorism offences and enacted laws targeting harmful hate speech, advocating or threatening the use of force or violence. This belated action took place only after the Liberal Opposition had strongly pushed for it.
A 15-point plan of action to defeat anti-Semitism was laid out at the summit. It included the declaration of a National Emergency on anti-Semitism and the establishment of a Joint Counter-Terrorism Taskforce, a judicial enquiry into anti-Semitism at universities, and a call for immigration officers to be trained to recognise anti-Semitism.
The Summit was a major turning point in the fight against Anti-Semitism.
The Voices of Antisemitism
Two nurses at Sydney’s Bankstown Hospital were recently stood down after boasting that they would not treat Israeli patients but would “kill them” instead. The NSW Health Minister said those nurses would never work in the department again and Premier Minns said they could “not return to wards or public hospitals in NSW”.[viii] However, a group of 50 Muslim bodies run by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir barracked for the two nurses suggesting they were victims of “weaponised anti-Semitism” and “manufactured political outrage”. Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Britain, Germany, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several Arab nations, but not in Australia where it must surely now be declared a terrorist organisation.[ix]
John Menadue AO (Founder of the “Public Policy Journal”, Pearls & Irritations) writes, “So much of our media is in thrall of the Zionist lobby. They deliberately manufacture consent for the genocide. ‘Anti-Semitism’, according to Menadue has become a cloak to hide the genocide, mass murder and displacement of Palestinian people, and he adds - We must not allow the weaponisation of anti-Semitism to crush legitimate criticism of the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.”[x] Attitudes such as this are spewed on a daily basis by this “Public Policy Journal”.
The so called “Jewish Council of Australia” has opposed many of the recommendations made by a Parliamentary panel on anti-Semitism. This council claims that “Almost 1,000 Jewish people in Australia have signed an open letter condemning Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza.” There may be a handful of Jews, mostly members of this Council, who hold this view, but their numbers are tiny, and they do not remotely represent the vast majority of Australia’s Jewish community. It comes as no surprise that this Council is the only organisation, claiming to represent the Jewish community which is regularly published on the above-mentioned Public Policy Journal!
The Trump Factor
During his first term in office, Trump produced the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. That achievement would have earned any other president a Nobel peace prize. If Trump now succeeds in bringing about an Israeli-Saudi accommodation, that will change not only the Middle East but Israel’s relations with the entire Muslim world.[xi]
Whatever the practicality of Trump’s suggestion to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, he had the courage and audacity to put forward an alternative vision. Trump knows that he will need the support of the Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all of whom want a peaceful Palestinian state, not a state run by militant Islamists. Netanyahu has called Trump’s proposal “The only viable plan to enable a different future” for the region, and Israel’s President, Isaac Hertzog described Trump’s proposal as the first “new idea” to have been put forward in years, adding that Trump had “Ignited a major process that I hope will bring real change”, although he did stress the importance of working with Israel’s regional allies.[xii]
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM – HEAR THE OTHER SIDE
[i] Hamas pulled trigger but world loaded the gun, Gemma Tognini, The Australian, 21 Feb 25
[ii] Why Trump is on the right track with Gaza plan, Alexander Downer, The Australian, 10 Feb 25
[iii] Donald Trump's Gaza play may even help Middle East peace, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 8 Feb 25
[iv] Auschwitz is a lasting symbol of apocalyptic hatred of Jews, Henry Ergas, the Australian, 31Jan 25
[v] Terror Australis, The Spectator, 8 Feb 25
[vi] Bipartisanship push to end university hatred, The Australian, 13 Feb 25
[vii] Marcia Langton: university leaders misusing academic freedom to defend anti-Semitism, The Australian 27 Jan 25
[viii] Deranged Sydney nurses banned, The Australian, 13 Feb 25
[ix] The Australian, Islamic bodies back sacked nurses, 18 Feb 25
[x] Pearls & Irritations, 7 Feb 25
[xi] A Paradigm Shift for the Middle East, Foreign Affairs, 7 Feb 25
[xii] Trump to bring Mideast change of "biblical proportions", Times of Israel,10 Feb 25
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