AJA calls for Carr’s expulsion from Labor over posts

The Australian Jewish Association (AJA) has called on Labor to expel former foreign minister Bob Carr unless he withdraws and apologises for social media posts accusing Jewish organisations of supporting what is according to him a genocide in Gaza.

In a thread posted on X on Thursday morning, Carr referred to AIJAC, the AJA “and the rest of ‘The Lobby'”, writing that their “support of the genocide in Gaza” had resulted in “79 per cent of Australians holding a negative view of Israel”.

In a subsequent post he described those organisations as extremists, writing that not a word had been raised by them in defence of children in Gaza being denied access to vaccines, nor any hint of condemnation of what he called the persecution of Palestinian families by settlers and the IDF in the West Bank.

The posts formed part of a wider thread on US foreign policy, in which Carr also criticised the Trump administration’s engagement with Hamas and North Korea, and Australian foreign policy institutions including ASPI and the United States Studies Centre.

AJA president Robert Gregory said the comments were disgraceful, defamatory and dangerous. “He has taken Australian Jewish organisations with very different views and identities, lumped us together as ‘The Lobby’, and accused us collectively of supporting genocide,” Gregory said.