The Labor Party’s attempt at balancing internal factional and voters’ interests, has created a vacuum for social cohesion to deteriorate and antisemitism to flourish, warns Jewish leaders.
The firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue stands as the defining moment in a year of heightened community unrest stemming from the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
It saw Labor Premier Jacinta Allan of Victoria, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese take a more forward step in dealing with an ongoing series of antisemitic incidents.
The overarching Executive Council of Australian Jewry reports that by the end of November there were 2,000 recorded cases of antisemitism in the past 12 months—about 5.4 every day.
Hate Gaining Traction in a Vacuum
Prominent Melbourne-based Rabbi Laibl Wolf says the problems stem from a radical minority.
“I don’t think there’s a large, significant uptake in antisemitism,” Rabbi Wolf told The Epoch Times. “I think that there are minority groups who have taken advantage of the political situation.”
“I think the government has fostered an environment where the minority groups can cause a lot of damage to the Jewish entity,” he said.
Wolf is a lawyer, academic, and published author. He says the small groups—who are extreme left, or pro-Hamas, and not necessarily supporters of Palestine—capitalised on the Labor government’s reserved position on Israel.
Labor has had to walk a tightrope between competing interests domestically.
Labor happens to hold key electorates in western Sydney—home to the country’s largest Muslim population—and are competing with the Greens for several inner-city electorates where pro-Palestinian sensibilities are also strong.
Incidentally, Labor is still receiving pressure for its position with the grassroots campaign group, Muslim Votes Matter, claiming Labor is too weak on its support for Palestine.
Yet Wolf believes Labor’s attempt to win votes in every direction would ultimately fail. He also believes the millions in funding for Jewish communities should be rejected.
“Jews should not accept any money from the Australian government at the moment,” he said.
Another Example
As Albanese pledged extra support for the Jewish community in the wake of the Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing, Foreign Minister Penny Wong came out with a statement that angered and confused many in the Jewish community.Wong spoke about the Middle East democracy during the Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia, where she accused Israel of breaking international law in the same breath as Beijing and Moscow.
“In trade and beyond, we want our region and our world to operate by rules,” Wong said.
“We expect Russia to abide by international law and end its illegal full-scale war on Ukraine. We expect China to abide by international legal decisions in the South China Sea. We also expect Israel to abide by international law.”
Her comments have drawn the ire from multiple sources, including the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s Executive Director Colin Rubenstein, who accused the minister of “factual confusion.”
Former Labor Minister Mike Kelly told Sky News that “the fire is burning” on antisemitism in the nation, and the government needed to respond with aggressive policing and intelligence.
However, he said the root cause that needed to be addressed was Australia’s current approach to foreign policy.
“To point to Israel and say, ‘You’re in the same league with [Beijing and Moscow], it’s just outrageous,” he said.
“[Israel] is on our side, and they’re making it possible for there to be a reset in the Middle East, taking on the entire responsibility themselves and putting their lives on the line to do that.”
“The message you are sending back here to Australia is that ... ‘Israel and their supporters in the Jewish community are bad guys who deserve everything they get, effectively.’”
Kelly warned this would fuel extremism locally.
“It starts with burning synagogues but it doesn’t end there, it'll be burning temples and churches next.”
International Law Not Always Morally Correct
Academic, and director of the Institute for Judaism and Civilisation Rabbi Shimon Cowen is critical of Wong’s comments and also recent U.N. resolutions against Israel.“Whose international law?” Rabbi Cowen asks.
“Hitler made laws. Stalin made laws. The International Court of Justice is not law if it violates universal principles.
“We’ve seen all too often the weaponisation of justice,” he told The Epoch Times.
Rabbi Cowen said Wong should call out the terror group Hamas, who forced Israel into war through violent terror.
“She claims Israel violated human rights, it’s not substantiated,” he said. “Hamas is using its own citizens as human shields, while they also deny Gazans shelter in tunnels.
A Matter of Faith
Rabbi Cowen takes a more spiritual look at antisemitism. Cowen is an advocate of the Noahide Laws—a set of universal moral principles given by God to Noah.“Jewish people as individuals are not all perfect. We make mistakes like other people,” Rabbi Cowen said.
But senseless hostility to Israel, which spills over into global antisemitism, he says, is an attack on key values.
“Those who attack the Jewish people, attack their moral mission,” he said.
Cowen’s perspective goes all the way back to antiquity—the handing over of Israel to the Jewish people from God, the message delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the instruction for humanity to choose to do good.
Rabbi Cowen says the legitimacy of Israel is apparent in every sense—the spiritual where it was granted by God, the legal where it was declared by the United Nations in 1948.
“This is in addition to a universal law throughout the rest of the world that if a piece of land is conquered—even offensively, which is not the case with the modern state of Israel—it becomes a possession after the event.
Rapid Surge of Antisemitism: Report
While hate crimes against Australian Jews have remained at steady annual levels for the past decade, the number of physical attacks recorded in the past year has skyrocketed.The rate of attacks on Australian Jews has risen 316 percent in the past year, with cases of physical assault against Jews up 491 percent, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
The Executive Council noted acts such as assault, vandalism, abuse, and hate messaging.
According to the report, many of the incidents were carried out by anti-Israel groups, Arabic and Muslim groups, or those identifying as politically left-wing.
Cases of physical assault in the report include a 44-year-old man being set on in a Sydney park by three other men who punched and kicked him in the head repeatedly while yelling slurs.
On another occasion, a 77-year-old woman was spat on, threatened and kicked by protesters opposing a rally against antisemitism outside Parliament House, Victoria.
Some of the messages listed in the report include threats to behead Jewish Australians.
The report also referenced comments made by Greens MP for Newtown, Jenny Leong, who stated that Zionists are involved in every community event and that “their tentacles reach into the areas that try and influence power.”
Leong’s comments were likened to antisemitic tropes, including a Nazi propaganda cartoon showing Jews as an octopus with tentacles spread over the globe.
The Greens MP later apologised.
Victoria, which houses the nation’s largest population of Jews, had the dubious honour of being the state with the most antisemitic attacks, with 905 reported incidents.
Victoria was followed by New South Wales with 795 reports, while the Australian Capital Territory recorded 118, and Western Australia 116.
Jews Urged Not to Travel to Australia
The Jewish Human Rights Organisation, the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, issued a warning on Dec. 9, laying blame on the feet of Australian authorities for failing to maintain order.In official correspondence penned to Australia’s Ambassador to the U.N. Kevin Rudd, by Rabbi Abraham Cooper expressed his concerns for the Jewish community.
“The Simon Wiesenthal Center is placing a travel advisory on Australia for Jews the world over considering travel to your country to exercise extreme caution,” he said.
“We are not convinced that Jews are safe as the authorities have failed to take necessary measures to protect Jewish communities from increasingly belligerent and violent targeting by Islamists and other extremists.”
