Consequences finally arrive for public hate speech

Finally, there are now consequences for those who publicly espouse hate.

For too long after October 7, 2023, there weren’t. When extremists were allowed to celebrate the Hamas massacre in western Sydney, and a night later were allowed to chant “f**k the Jews” and “where’s the Jews?” at the Sydney Opera House, thus began a pattern where there was no price to pay for slandering Jews and the Jewish state.

And so the hatred mounted. The antisemitic propaganda increased. The blood libels accumulated.

And we know where that led.

Which is why, though it may have come too late to save 15 souls, it is critically important that finally, in just the last two weeks we have seen two examples of there being consequences for crossing the line.