Aboriginal elder apologises for ‘antisemitic’ tweet
Aunty Tracey Hanshaw said she now realises that many Jewish organisations in Australia have publicly supported the Yes campaign.
A group campaigning in favour of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum has apologised for a tweet that was labelled antisemitic.
Aunty Tracey Hanshaw, an Awabakal/Gaewegal woman who heads the advocacy organisation Justice Aunties, responded on Twitter to comments from right-wing Jewish lobby group the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) opposing the Voice by saying they should leave their religious views out of the referendum.
“If you don’t like the laws in this country then go back to Jerusalem and continue your attacks on Palestinians, because we won’t tolerate them on First Nation Australians,” her tweet said.
AJA president David Adler said, “Her first few words, were ‘leave your effing religious views’. Now that is antisemitic, there’s no way of spinning that as not antisemitic.”
But Hanshaw told The AJN that was not her intent, as she was just responding to the AJA, whose name she thought implied they were speaking for all Jewish Australians.
“Just as First Nations people, we can’t speak for all Aboriginal people, so I should have perhaps applied that methodology to the statement, and I didn’t, and I’m at fault. I can’t apologise strongly enough,” she said.
The name “Australian Jewish Association” has been controversial since the group was formed in 2017.
At that time, then executive director and now co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Peter Wertheim, said it would be objectionable if a new organisation purported to represent the Australian Jewish community as a whole.
Adler said his group’s name should not confuse anyone as its website clearly states it is a centre-right organisation.
“That by definition, does not encompass everybody. We don’t hide our values, and we don’t pretend to represent the entire community,” he said.
He said he believes in the principle of teshuvah, so Hanshaw’s apology should be listened to, although he said he is not certain she addressed the issue adequately.
Adler believes there is a radical element among some inner-city Aboriginal activists that tend to be hostile to Israel and occasionally the Jewish community.
“One of the things we think needs to be discussed more in our community is the risk that people who are hostile to Israel and hostile to the Jewish community could be influential in the proposed Voice, and I think that what Justice Aunties has done is that they’ve given us an example of that,” he said.
The Justice Aunties head said she now realises that many Jewish organisations in Australia have publicly supported the Yes campaign.
“I’m so grateful that we have the bulk of the Jewish community in Australia supporting us, and I’m sorry, in my heart, our hearts, if I did offend any of our brothers in the Jewish community, because that’s not what the intention was,” she said.
Hanshaw said none of the pro Yes groups or people she knows are anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli, but her attitude is, “We’re not going to be treated in this country, in Australia, as the First Nations peoples, the same as Palestinians have been.”
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