Dreyfus addresses current state of antisemitism
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus addressed a small group of Jewish community members at a briefing hosted by CSG Victoria.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said he was “not sure” he “agrees that antisemitism comes from talking about Israel”, when asked if Labor’s recent change in position regarding Israel may not be helpful in the fight against antisemitism.
Dreyfus addressed a small group of Jewish community members at a briefing hosted by CSG Victoria on Monday, during which the current state of antisemitism in Australia was discussed as well as the efforts undertaken by the Australian government to address and combat the issue.
Dreyfus said, “We had antisemitism before the State of Israel existed,” when discussing the correlation between the rise of antisemitism and the current political situation in the Middle East. He noted, however, “Sometimes antisemitism takes the form of attacks on Israel and there’s a readiness to attack Israel, and we all know this, particularly in universities.”
He called this a “kind of variant of antisemitism”.
During the discussion CSG Victoria CEO Justin Kagan asked what the greatest terror threat is in Australia at this time, to which the Attorney-General said, “There are several threats.”
He noted that the Director-General of Security Mike Burgess has spoken about the threat of Islamist terror groups, “which there are at least adherence, if not actual, terror groups themselves”, said Dreyfus.
“There are people who are prepared to send money overseas to terror groups, there are people who are prepared to at least meet and talk about committing acts of violence here in Australia.”
He said despite there being only “very small numbers of people” willing to carry out attacks in these “far-right extremist groups … but it only needs one”, as was seen in the example of the Christchurch mosque shooting.
Dreyfus also said that there are “measurable increases” of antisemitism, which is manifesting of late at universities and online.
“I don’t have the answer that I know where it comes from but it’s apparent that it is increasing.”
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