In recent months, there has been a disturbing rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia, including the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.
This attack, which occurred in December last year, was an act of hate and terror against the Jewish community, an alarming escalation in antisemitic sentiment that has been brewing in the wake of global events such as the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Jewish leaders have decried the lack of immediate and unequivocal action from the Australian government, emphasizing that this violence is a direct result of unchecked hatred towards Jews.
In light of such events, the statements by key political figures, including Foreign Minister Penny Wong, have raised significant concerns.
Wong has advocated for strong criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting that he should be treated with the same level of scrutiny as authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, given concerns about their human rights records.
Wong remarked, “The actions of Netanyahu should be scrutinised with the same seriousness as those of Putin and China, particularly in the context of human rights abuses”. This comparison is part of her broader criticism of international figures she perceives as violating human rights or acting in an authoritarian manner.
However, Wong’s position on global human rights is important, the focus on Israel in this context has been interpreted by many as unfairly singling out the Jewish state while deflecting attention from the escalating antisemitism within Australia itself.
For example, Wong has refused to single out the barbarism and murderous record of (now former) Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad whose reign in Syria has been defined by widespread violence.
Al-Assad’s regime was responsible for the deaths of approximately 500,000 people during the ongoing Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011. This death toll includes those killed through direct military action, such as airstrikes, artillery shelling, and chemical attacks, as well as the many who died as a result of torture, starvation, and disease in regime-controlled prisons.
The growing moral equivalence drawn by political leaders between antisemitism and Islamophobia is problematic on many levels. While both forms of hatred must be condemned, the emphasis on equating the two can obscure the very real, and increasingly dangerous, rise of antisemitic attacks in Australia.
Statistics from the past year show that antisemitic incidents, including violent attacks on places of worship like the Adass Israel Synagogue, have reached alarming levels, yet political leaders often fail to address this trend with the urgency it warrants.
By frequently drawing false moral equivalencies between Islamophobia and antisemitism, figures like Wong and Albanese, despite their well-intentioned calls for unity, inadvertently let antisemites off the hook.
This approach minimizes the unique and dire threat posed by antisemitism in Australia, undermining the importance of strong, targeted action to protect Jewish Australians.
Instead of drawing parallels between these distinct forms of hatred, Australian political leaders must focus on the realities of rising antisemitic violence and ensure that Jewish communities feel supported and safe.