The growing fears of Australia’s Jewish community is a sorrowful new reality for a nation built partly on providing sanctuary from old-world oppressions.
The latest atrocity, an early morning attack in Woollahra to intimidate Sydney’s Jewish community, regrettably triggered political finger pointing instead of a united front against inherent evil.
Antisemitic acts have occasionally traduced Australian life since the 1960s. But a palpable uptick has followed Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack last year: they included an arson attack in June on the Melbourne office of Labor MP Josh Burns, graffiti at Bronte, Tamarama and Bondi beaches, the torching of a ute and homes sprayed with graffiti in Woollahra last month, the firebombing of Adass Israel synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea last Friday morning, a Brisbane man charged with making online threats towards a Jewish community centre in Victoria, and now another graffiti attack and car burning at Woollahra.
Amid the outbreaks, the Albanese government has banned the Nazi salutes, swastikas and other hate symbols in public, appointed Jillian Segal as special envoy to combat antisemitism, and promised to finance to rebuild the synagogue. An Australian Federal Police task force is investigating the terrorist attack at Ripponlea, while federal counterterrorism specialists look at Woollahra.
Meanwhile, Australia’s problems also erupted into an international incident with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, linking our votes on recent United Nations resolutions on Gaza for a two-state solution to the attack on the Melbourne synagogue, saying an “anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitism”.
The opposition seized on Netanyahu’s words, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reiterated there is no place for antisemitism in Australia. He is hardly the first prime minister to do so: Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison have all condemned the rise of antisemitism in Australia.
But a massive political change occurred on Wednesday when the opposition accused an Australian government of the day of fomenting antisemitism.
Liberal senator Jane Hume told Seven’s Sunrise that the Jewish community was looking for leadership on this issue. “Sadly, the equivocation of the government, of the prime minister, has emboldened and enabled those that are committing these horrific crimes that are unfair on a really important section of our society and our community, in our Jewish community,” Hume said.
Hume’s hyperbole has been matched by the conspiracy theories of Antoun Issa, the chief of staff to the Greens’ deputy leader senator Mehreen Faruqi, who claimed the synagogue attack could have been perpetrated by supporters of an Israeli state to provoke outrage about antisemitism. “It could very well be a white supremacist or someone enraged by the genocide or a Zionist false flag,” he the Herald’s View: posted on Instagram.
He has since been reprimanded. But the wild claims of Issa and Hume are unacceptable. In these dangerous days, people on the public payroll should be versed in the difference between public and private lives and be cognisant of the effect of their careless words on a community scared for their lives.
