Anti-Semitism ‘Rise’ obscures more slaughter in Gaza
By Stuart Rees
Jan 26, 2025
A child at a hospital following an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, 14 November 2024. Omar Ashtawy APA images.(Photo inserted)
Australian political leaders and their mainstream media backers are in moral outrage mode. Anti-Semitism they say is rife, infectious, getting worse and must be stamped out. At first sight these claims seem plausible. They are made in response to the burning of a synagogue, a child care centre, to a Jewish community leader’s home being torched and to anti-Jewish slogans being painted on public buildings and Jewish places of worship.
No-one would justify any of these acts, but let’s consider who has joined the anti-Semitism chorus, what has driven a fearful Prime Minister to hold a national Cabinet meeting and prompted the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police to float the idea that the prejudice allegedly sweeping Australia might be orchestrated by foreign actors.
To augment the chorus, an Israeli deputy foreign minister intervenes (since when has Australia been governed from Jerusalem) to accuse the Australian government of letting the anti-Semitism bubble grow by doing nothing and thereby inflaming emotions and making the Jewish community demand action. Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton appears grateful to an Israeli colleague because she appears to confirm his – Dutton’s – ploy that the Prime Minister is responsible for outrageous acts of anti-Semitism even for the supposed terrorist like burning at synagogue.
Ms Jillian Segal, the PM’s envoy on anti-Semitism is on hand to repeat her usual claims though recently amended. She now knows that anti-Semitism puts Australian democracy at risk. In the absence of any admission about genocide in Gaza, she and others must dip into the hyperbole basket, get the media onside, create fear, ambush politicians who might dare to question the anti-Semitism chorus.
As if to confirm anti-Semitism predictions, nightly news shows police handcuffing a couple of suspects, shoving them into the back of a paddy wagon, soon to be charged and appear in court. There is no sign of foreign influence but a quick news grab confirms dangers of anti-Semitism. Long before it is known who has been arrested, assumptions are made in local media that the culprits must be either Palestinian or at least pro Palestine. What a shame if it turns turn out that the anti-Semitism graffiti is painted by right wing, possibly neo-Nazi characters who are proudly anti-Semitic but simultaneously enthusiastic supporters of Israel. Before the anti-Semitism chorus grows, ponder that paradox.
Loud repetition by the anti-Semitism chorus creates fear. Universities appear under siege if they do not accept the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism even though lawyers, senior academics and politicians from around the world, including in Israel, have described that definition as imprecise, confusing, impoverished, ignorant, slovenly, open to misinterpretation and manipulation.
For having allowed pro Palestine students, including those of Jewish background to pitch their tents on the Sydney University campus, the Vice Chancellor of Sydney University faces demands from the anti-Semitism chorus that he should resign. At that point of course, a lawyer gets into the act, is asked to conduct an inquiry and produce a report. Barrister Bruce Hodgkinson gets the job and eventually recommends there should be a ban on future protest camps, and protests inside university buildings should also be forbidden.
The Sydney VC and other besieged university leaders should be reassured that representatives of the Australian Jewish Council and from the University of Western Sydney, who evaluated the hundreds of submissions to the government’s anti-Semitism Commission, appear to estimate that less than 10% of the submissions show any evidence of the prejudice which is said to be of pandemic proportions,
In a context of emotional furore, it is not easy to consider evidence if it appears to contest what you think you already know.
The cat is out of the moral outrage bag. Divert attention from the unprecedented barbarities and cruelties of the state of Israel. Ignore the fact that in order to help with the slaughter of women and children in Gaza, hundreds of young Australian citizens have travelled to Israel to assist the Israeli Defence Forces to kill Palestinian families.
In a culture in which anti-Semitism is claimed to be the issue, death and destruction in Gaza and on the West Bank appears of little consequence. Instead of Albanese and Dutton jumping on the anti-Semitism bandwagon, for fear of the consequences of not doing so, it would be more honest and courageous, let alone principled, if they insisted that violence benefits no-one hence their condemnation of anti-Semitism and of the continuing slaughter in Gaza and on the West Bank.
Quick reminder of events surrounding the anti-Semitism controversy. By all means acknowledge that Australian citizens of Jewish background, in common with many of Arab, Palestinian background, experience fear and feel threatened by attacks on their identity. For one minute that should not happen. But in Palestine, at least 46,000 people have been killed and the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet calculates that this figure is an under estimation by 40%.
Why not compare evidence of death in Palestine with outrage about anti-Semitism. People may have been hurt by anti-Semitic symbols and charges but no-one has been injured, let alone killed, let alone left to search for children suffocated to death, buried beneath tons of rubble.
It may not be intended, but the anti-Semitism chorus looks like another attempt to stifle opposition to Israeli apartheid, to military thuggery, to continued ethnic cleaning, to a genocide which includes the Israeli Finance Minister’s insistence there is a complete moral justification to use famine to eliminate two million Palestinians.
Anti-Semitism is the issue? Really ? At least don’t be frightened to question that claim. Why not find a breath of cool air to ponder other evidence. Cease the political grandstanding diversion. At least give it a rest.
Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.
Anti-Semitism ‘Rise’ obscures more slaughter in Gaza - Pearls and Irritations