ECAJ takes antisemitism warning to J7

Australia has recorded the largest proportionate increase in antisemitism of any country in the world since October 7, Jewish community leaders told UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in London on Monday.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Daniel Aghion said the figure put to Miliband was a 230 per cent increase, with other countries also recording triple-digit rises.

“Australia leads the world, and that is not a race that we want to win,” Aghion told News Corp’s Sophie Elsworth outside the Foreign Office.

He and ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim represented Australia at a meeting of the J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism, which comprises major Jewish organisations from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Argentina and Australia.

Wertheim told Elsworth that governments had been frank about not having done enough.

“That’s why we’re waiting on the recommendations of the Royal Commission with great interest, and why it’s important that effective measures are taken as recommended by the Royal Commission, or even outside those recommendations, to make sure that the problem is addressed and that we don’t have another Bondi,” he said.

“The doxing of creatives and artists, and that whole series of events that we saw from late 2023 onwards, culminating in Bondi — it wasn’t just that one thing. It’s a sickness in the soul of Australia, and not just in Australia, but other countries as well.”

Miliband agreed at the meeting to host an inaugural gathering of ministers from the seven countries, to begin establishing an international intergovernmental task force on antisemitism. The proposal came from the J7, and the body would take on the themes raised in the meeting.

In a statement afterwards, the J7 said it had expressed serious concern about recent UK government measures and rhetoric targeting Israel, and the detrimental impact that had in their own countries and communities.

Representatives raised the sharp rise in global antisemitism, the threat posed by the Iranian regime and its proxies, the growing proliferation of online hate, and the continued demonisation of Israel, “including in rhetoric from many of those in elected office and public life, which all too often serves as a vehicle for antisemitic rhetoric, incitement and behaviour”.

The group welcomed Miliband’s description of a motion against Zionism at the recent Green Party conference as abhorrent, and his affirmation of the importance of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.