Australia has a problem. A couple of days after the October 7 attacks, a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on the steps of the Sydney Opera House and chanted, “Gas the Jews.”
To reaffirm, this was weeks before Israel responded militarily against Hamas in Gaza. This was weeks before any accusations of “genocide” could be thrown at Israel, weeks before Israel responded to the barrages of Hezbollah rockets hitting the North, and weeks before Israel was able to return any of the hostages.
“Gas the Jews.” Australia should have known there and then that it had a problem.
Just this weekend, two Sydney synagogues, a home, and cars were vandalized, with one of the houses of worship also targeted with attempted arson as part of the latest in a series of antisemitic incidents in Australia.
The alarming attacks that took place are an “escalation in antisemitic crime,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said.
This comes a week after Ice Hockey Australia announced that a planned international tournament, scheduled to take place in Melbourne in April, was canceled following consultations with police and participating venues.
Australian media reported that safety concerns over Team Israel’s attendance were central to the decision.
Graffiti and anti-Jewish harassment
This itself, among many minor spates of graffiti and anti-Jewish harassment, came after a devastating fire ripped through the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in early December, wounding two people and causing significant damage to the historic building.
The Australian Federal Police in response announced Special Operation Avalite to investigate threats, violence, and hatred toward the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians.
Sky News Australia fired lead journalist Erin Molan in December, which she claimed was due to her pro-Israel stance. Molan, who received death threats for stating the truth about the war, stated that Sky News fired her “because she cared too much” about “innocent children in Gaza at the hands of terrorists who attack, kill, kidnap Jews” and her efforts “exposing the support for unfathomable evil among young people in the West.”
Molan explained why she supported Israel so staunchly: “I’m not from Israel, I’m not Jewish, I’m not American, I have no skin in this game. But, you see, I do. When hate is allowed to fester, we all lose; when stupidity isn’t called out, it becomes very dangerous.”
December saw perhaps the most damning statistics of all for the safety of Australia’s Jews. Anti-Jewish incidents in Australia rose by 316% from October 1, 2023, until September 30, 2024, compared to the previous 12-month period, according to an Executive Council of Australian Jewry report.
Some 2,062 anti-Jewish incidents were logged by community security groups, local Jewish organizations, and the ECAJ. That works out at 68 incidents a day.
If a country is registering 68 antisemitic incidents a day (against a community that makes up around 0.4% of the Australian population), you have a problem. A serious problem.
Stretching back a year, in February a number of prominent Jews in Australia had their personal information outed by pro-Palestinian activists in a doxxing incident that stunned the country. The New York Times Melbourne-based reporter Natasha Frost was responsible for the leak of personal information of over 600 Australian Jewish members in a WhatsApp group.
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has felt it necessary to weigh in on the matter, accusing Australia’s Labor government of helping to cause the rise in antisemitism thanks to its anti-Israel stance during the war against Hamas.
“Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate [the Melbourne synagogue arson] from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia, including the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel ‘to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible,’” the prime minister stated.
So, what is to be done?
Launching special operations and recognizing an “escalation in antisemitic crime” is all well and good, but these incidents are a daily issue for the Jews of Australia, a well-respected community, many of whom descend from Holocaust survivors.
Perhaps the authorities down under need to heed the words of Molan before it is too late: When hate is allowed to fester, we all lose.
Australia has a serious antisemitism problem, and it is time for the country to stand up, before it loses a community for good.
Jesus Christ is King
