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The first week of the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion delivered two perfect snapshots of how deep the rot has set in. Not just how brazen the antisemites have become, but just how eagerly the Albanese government panders to it.
A man who sparked outrage after he was removed from outside the antisemitism royal commission in Sydney when he was spotted wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a Nazi swastika has been charged by police.
The man, who gave his name as Ian Minus of Killarney Heights to the media and wore a shirt depicting the slogan “Anti-Semitism: proud to be accused, speak up!”, was issued a move on by police, which he complied with about 11am on Wednesday.
With more front than Myers, he claimed not to know he was outside the royal commission. He trotted out the standard, threadbare Pallywanker bullshit about ‘Zionism’, peddling the usual antisemitic lines straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and even brazenly tried to deny that the symbol was “clearly a swastika”. No doubt his bullet-headed mates and the keffiyeh-clad tilty-heads lapped it all up.
Even worse, though, was the action of the Governor-General. Governor-General Sam Mostyn, a Labor-appointed mate of Anthony Albanese, chose the very first day of the royal commission to host not Jewish community leaders reeling from the Bondi massacre, but Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, president of the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC). The pair reportedly discussed ‘a joint commitment to social cohesion, religious freedom and mutual respect’, which is as bizarrely ludicrous as Joseph Goebbels donning a kippah and fronting up to the Wailing Wall.
‘Social cohesion’, apparently, now means platforming a preacher banned from Denmark and initially refused entry to New Zealand for his extremist views. Alsuleiman has openly supported sharia law, condemned homosexuality in inflammatory terms and urged victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan while promoting jihad. He was in charge of organising youth events at Lakemba Mosque when al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki delivered a sermon to young Muslims via phone link. This is the man the Governor-General prioritised for a cosy chat while the royal commission heard evidence about the deadliest attack on Jews in Australia since the Holocaust.
The ANIC’s own track record makes the optics even worse. The council has repeatedly downplayed October 7, focused on Palestinian grievances from day one and vocally demanded Labor bar Israel’s President Isaac Herzog from visiting the Bondi massacre site. They rejected the invitation, accused Herzog, a non-political figurehead, of ‘widespread war crimes’ and whinged about NSW laws cracking down on ‘peaceful protest’ after two years of weekly anti-Jewish rallies that Rabbi Nochum Schapiro rightly called out as direct incitement.
This isn’t fringe extremism: it’s mainstream institutional Islam in Australia being courted by the head of state on the very day the nation pretends to confront antisemitism. Albanese’s government installed Mostyn. Albanese’s government has form in tiptoeing around Islamist sentiment while Jewish Australians endure a post-October 7 explosion of hate. The message couldn’t be clearer: certain communities get kid gloves and official audiences; others get royal commissions after their people are gunned down at a beachside Hanukkah event.
The swastika-wearing provocateur was at least arrested. The institutional pandering continues unchecked. While the commission grinds on, the Albanese regime signals whose sensitivities really matter. Jewish blood on Bondi Beach? Tragic, but let’s not upset the sheikhs. Open Nazi cosplay outside the inquiry? Offensive, sure: but hosting preachers who’ve hosted al-Qaeda recruiters? That’s ‘social cohesion’.
Is Mostyn just catastrophically tin-eared or blatantly dog-whistling to Western Sydney? Because neither inspires much confidence.
To damn him with faint praise, at least a creep like ‘Ian Minus’ is open about his antisemitism.
Australia once had the moral clarity to call this what it is. Now we stage royal commissions while the Governor-General breaks bread with the very currents feeding the poison. The royal commission’s interim report will no doubt wring its hands about ‘far-right’ this and ‘Islamophobia’ that. The real test is whether anyone in power has the spine to confront the howling Islamic antisemitism being mainstreamed under their watch.
Week one made it brutally clear: the problem isn’t just on the streets with T-shirts. It’s in the corridors of power, where old mates and electoral calculus trump principle every time. Australians deserve better than this selective blindness dressed up as tolerance.
