Double standards

At a time when the left is at pains to find discrimination and hurt feelings everywhere, why is there a double standard when it comes to action against the Jewish community? By Alan Tudge.

The most serious concern with the tweets about Israel and Jews by Julian Burnside and his wife is not that they were deeply offensive. Rather, their actions seem to be indicative of a growing anti-Semitism from the green-left in Australia. This apparent anti-Semitism is open, transparent and even seen as a signal of virtue among some.

Last week, Burnside tweeted a post where he equated Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with the actions of Nazi Germany. Burnside is highly educated and knows full well that Israel has no policy of exterminating Arabs, as the Nazis did in relation to the Jews.

Twenty per cent of the Israeli population is Arab and has full voting rights. Arabs serve in Israel’s courts, its parliament and its defence force. No doubt these comments won the applause of left-wing followers on Twitter.

When Josh Frydenberg rightly pushed back on behalf of Holocaust victims, Burnside’s wife, Kate Durham, branded the Treasurer as “just a Hungarian, just a Liberal”. Frydenberg is proudly Jewish and proudly Australian. So when did it become acceptable on the far left to attack the children of Holocaust survivors?

When Jews are attacked from the far right, it is often done in the dark. A swastika spray-painted at night when no one is watching; anti-Jewish sentiment expressed anonymously on social media. Sometimes it leads to violent outbursts against Jews or the degrading of Jewish students that we saw in Victorian schools last year.

On these occasions everyone calls out these behaviours as vile and despicable. But when attacks come from the far left, it seems to be supported openly and with pride. How else to explain the hundreds of likes and retweets and comments of support, even after Burnside apologised?

Burnside and Durham have removed their posts and Durham also has offered a qualified apology. This occurred, however, only because of their profile and the attention their comments attracted.

Most anti-Semitism on the left, however, goes by with little publicity. Members of the left think they are being clever, thinly disguising their anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism. But it is just the latest mutation of the oldest hatred in history.

On some university campuses anti-Semitic sentiment has become rife using the anti-Zionism mantra. Jewish students report they are prevented from joining some clubs, particularly progressive ones such as an LGBTI club, because Zionism is said to be contrary to the club’s mission. But these are Australian students like anyone else and they are not responsible for the State of Israel or the actions of the Israeli government or any other government.

The risk in Australia is that this left-wing anti-Semitism goes more aggressively into our major left-leaning political parties, as it did under Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in Britain.

The signs are not good. Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt failed to condemn Burnside and Durham, despite Burnside being a candidate at the 2019 federal election (against Frydenberg) and contesting Senate preselection last year.

Other Greens candidates have promoted the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as part of their political campaigns for election.

In the Labor Party, member for Cooper Ged Kearney recently joined a rally of Labor students, some of whom were proudly calling for Israel’s destruction. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, they stated, echoing a Hamas slogan used as a call for driving out all Jews from the region.

The Queensland Labor conference this year passed a resolution condemning the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians”, a clear sign the Corbynite faction is growing in strength within the ALP.

At a time when the left is at pains to find discrimination and hurt feelings everywhere, why is there a double standard when it comes to action against Jews?

There is now a draft international definition of anti-Semitism that includes the most egregious actions such as calling for the killing of Jews, but also more subtle examples such as drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis or holding all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.

The Greens and Labor Party would do well to study and formally adopt this definition and call out those actions when they see them as a way of combating some of the vile conduct that is creeping in.

On Australia Day in 1960, prime minister Robert Menzies said: “There is absolutely no room in Australia for anti-Semitism, no justification for it, and that I believe there is no real substance in it.”

Those comments are true today as they were then. We must call out discrimination when we see it, including that against Jews, be it from the right or the left.

Alan Tudge is Federal Minister for Education and Youth. This article was first published in The Australian.