As I’ve been writing, there is clearly no stomach in the Albanese government to tackle the ugly scourge of anti-Semitism that has blighted Australia for the past 18 months. Still, they are occasionally dragged, kicking and screaming, into making the smallest baby steps.
Universities and arts bodies will lose government funding if they fail to combat anti-Semitic bigotry from staff, students and artists, as part of a new strategy to combat the wave of attacks against Jewish Australians.
Under the wide-ranging plan to tackle anti-Semitism announced on Thursday by Anthony Albanese, Home Affairs Tony Burke and special envoy on anti-Semitism Jillian Segal, Australian Border Force officials would be trained to spot and deport anti-Semites.
Which would see half of Western Sydney and most of inner Melbourne cleared out, then and which, come to think of it, would be a pretty good start.
Of course, that all depends on the government actually having the will to enforce the rules, but, it ain’t gonna happen. Take, for example, it’s ‘Seen and Heard’ project.
There is a federal government body tasked with documenting racism and discrimination of Jewish and Muslim communities: the Australian Human Rights Commission through its Seen and Heard project launched after October 7, 2023, and funded by the Department of Home Affairs.
The first giveaway is the “and Muslim”. This is a constant pattern of behaviour for the government: it can never, ever, talk about anti-Semitism without immediately pivoting to ‘and Islamophobia’. As if Muslims are subject to constant hate-parades taking over the CBDs of our capital cities every weekend, or terror attacks against mosques and madrassas. Where are the Muslim children having to go to school under armed guard? Where are the repeated anti-Muslim terror attacks?
This disgusting false equivalence only underscores just how weak and mendacious the Albanese government is, in regard to anti-Semitism.
The website has three categories for anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, while anti-Semitism is listed as a single category. There is no category documenting racism targeting the Israeli community generally. This creates a misleading impression that the impact on Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities is far greater than on the Jewish community. Anyone visiting the site would conclude that Jewish Australians are far less affected by hate than these other communities. This is not only inaccurate; it is a distortion of the reality on the ground.
Anti-Semitism has always been far more prevalent than so-called ‘Islamophobia’. Since October 7, it’s only gotten worse: more than quadrupling, to over 2000 incidents in the past year. Social media has become an even worse cesspit than usual: Reports from the Online Hate Prevention Institute shows a 539 per cent increase in online anti-Semitism and a dramatic rise in incitement to violence against Jews.
Although Seen and Heard claims to be documenting anti-Semitism, the above reports do not seem to have been incorporated into its findings. Its section on anti-Semitism is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. It has engaged in a woke form of equivalence regarding anti-Jewish hate, such that it is unable to document and denounce this growing form of hatred clearly and unequivocally without ritually suggesting an equivalence with Islamophobia and other forms.
So I won’t be holding my breath, waiting for the Albanese government to actually make good on Segal’s proposals.
“Funding agreements or enabling legislation should be drafted to ensure that public funding can be readily terminated where organisations or individuals engage in or facilitate anti-Semitism,” the plan said.
Ms Segal also recommended that institutions that promote “speakers or engage in conduct that promotes anti-Semitism” should be stripped of their charity status.
In a bid to make the education sector accountable for addressing anti-Semitism, universities also face being stripped of public funding if they fail to address the scourge.
And pigs will fly, first.
