A warning
Our community needs to know that whoever forms government after May 3 will take concrete action.
We had to check it was not yet April Fool’s Day when Greens leader Adam Bandt on Monday blamed Israel for Hamas brutally murdering Gazans protesting against its rule.
Already far beyond the pale, it seems Bandt and his band of far-left extremists have lower yet to sink. To make matters worse, with the election now called for May 3, current polls are pointing to a minority Labor government, which may well be reliant on the Greens.
It has been whispered to The AJN that recognising a Palestinian state may well be part of the price of that support. And while we can only hope the Greens go electorally backwards on May 3, if they find themselves propping up a minority government they will feel emboldened to become more extreme rather than to moderate.
Meanwhile, in the same week that Bandt issued his bilious comments, it was revealed that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declined to endorse the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s 15 point plan to combat antisemitism.
Albanese did tell the ECAJ that “antisemitism has no place in Australia and I unequivocally condemn it”. But with the election a month away, vague condemnations are meaningless.
Rather than hearing the same old platitudes being rehashed like a broken record, our community needs to know that whoever forms government after May 3 will take concrete action.
The Coalition has endorsed the plan while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in his budget-in-reply speech committed to establish a task force to address the issue.
The government, to its credit, has taken some steps such as the doxxing ban, minimum sentencing, banning Nazi symbols and establishing a federal task force to investigate antisemitic hate crimes. But it has been too slow and too reactive. Its lack of leadership immediately after October 7, 2023 allowed the problem to fester, something the government still has not acknowledged, along with how its own rhetoric on Israel may have fanned the flames.
It appointed Jillian Segal as its expert and then ignored her advice to establish a judicial inquiry into hate on campus. And now it is ignoring the ECAJ.
The prospect of the bellicose Greens pushing a weak, conflicted minority Labor government around should frighten not just the Jewish community, but all Australians.
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