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Jew hate isn’t just one of the many hatreds poisoning Australian society and security. It’s uniquely potent. Because it inflames all the others. It’s a special poison that seeps into all the various veins of destructive malevolence.
The director-general of ASIO, Mike Burgess, gave this revealing insight during his annual national threat assessment last week.
“Sadly, and illogically,” he said, “hatred of Jews is one thing virtually all the violent extremist cohorts have in common. Neo-Nazis are antisemitic. Islamic extremism is antisemitic. Issue-motivated extremists can be antisemitic, particularly when they subscribe to conspiracy theories and stereotypes about the Jewish community.
“Nation states can be antisemitic, as we saw with the arson attacks against the Jewish communities in Melbourne and Sydney perpetrated by criminals directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Anarchists and revolutionary groups can be antisemitic.
“This gets surprisingly little media coverage, but Australian companies with perceived links to Israel are being subjected to repeated acts of vandalism and arson by far-left activists.
“I recognise [that] criticism of the government of Israel is not of itself antisemitic, but some of the threatening statements made by the perpetrators go well beyond political protest or commentary.
“All these groups have very different ideologies. They do not associate with each other – indeed, for the most part, they despise each other. The way they operate, their tactics and techniques are all different. And yet, they are united by a common hatred. My point is that violent antisemitism is not a single, or simple, intelligence problem.”
But it is a unique one that empowers all the others. If Australia can treat this specific toxin as a priority, it will help detoxify all the others. So it’s a prerequisite for keeping all of us safe and our society functional.
Hatred of Jews is one thing virtually all the violent extremist cohorts have in common.
Mike Burgess, ASIO chief
It’s one thing to be infuriated by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose ceaseless use of disproportionate violence has agitated even Donald Trump. But it’s another to blame Jewish people in Australia. They’re not responsible for Netanyahu’s wars. Does anyone hold Australian citizens worldwide accountable for the decisions of Scott Morrison or Anthony Albanese? Of course not.
As Burgess put it: “By all means condemn a government or a political party, but consider whether you should condemn a people.”
That’s the clinical analysis from the security professionals. Then there’s the personal experience of fellow Australians.
Many Jewish Australians suffer fear and trauma that’s largely invisible to the rest of us. Evidence given to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is opening a window.
The Lowy family has been a gift to Australia. Frank Lowy arrived as a refugee from the Holocaust in 1952 and co-founded Westfield, one of Australia’s most successful businesses, with 5000 employees, before selling it in 2018 for $32 billion.
At John Howard’s invitation, he reorganised Australian soccer, once dismissed as “wogball”, into a modern, professional structure. He became one of the country’s leading philanthropists, endowing, among others, the UNSW Lowy Cancer Research Centre.
His thanks? Frank’s youngest son, Steven Lowy, revealed to the royal commission yesterday that his dad, now 95 years old, has been held responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US for a quarter of a century now.
“A recurring, multi-year campaign of online conspiracy material,” Steven explained, “peaks every September.” The YouTube videos have been viewed more than 7.6 million times “blaming my father for the deaths of 3000 innocent people”. Illogical? Bizarre.
“Whenever there is a cataclysmic world event it is immediately followed by claims that the Jews are responsible for it.”
But this is not abstract. It’s a daily death threat to Jewish Australians. And while the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israeli settlements did not start the persecution, it accelerated it.
Steven Lowy gave evidence to the commission that an Iranian had been discovered conducting surveillance of his home, with no innocent explanation. Of how his family has been the target of 15,000 hostile or threatening online posts in a single year, solely for the crime of being Jewish.
“Almost at the flick of a switch,” Steven Lowy says, “Jews in Australia were no longer safe. The place that my dad and so many others came to seek refuge after the Holocaust was no longer that country. Our immediate thoughts turned to: will we need to flee at some point, just like our forefathers and mothers had to? Is this just history repeating itself? These discussions remain commonplace today in the Jewish community.”
The kids going to Jewish schools, the families worshipping at synagogues, have long needed guards from community-organised security teams. Today, they are reinforced by police.
Walls, barriers, cameras, armed guards, constant harassment and threat. This vulnerable minority of fewer than 150,000 people does not get to experience the full liberties and security that the rest of Australia enjoys. The Jewish community spends about $100 million a year on self-protection, Lowy estimated.
The worse the hatefest grows, the more it energises all the forms of violent extremism that threaten our country, as Mike Burgess pointed out.
Steven Lowy didn’t only describe the problem. He made proposals for how to improve things.
One is an idea for Australia to introduce national service, civil and military, for young people, to break down prejudice and build bonds. Another is the creation of a national education curriculum on antisemitism. A third is the formation of a dedicated police capability for the protection of Jewish communities.
He said yesterday that the royal commission gave him hope: “I feel blessed because we are living in a country that’s prepared to examine itself.”
But it’s not some distant project for commissioners and governments. As NSW Premier Chris Minns said on the weekend, “we need to confront it; all of us need to step up and say this is not acceptable.” For all our sakes.
Peter Hartcher is both international and political editor. His political column appears on Saturdays. He is a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
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Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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