Hearing ‘hijacked’ by fringe groups

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip has described how a parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism was “hijacked” by fringe Jewish groups, some of whom disputed that terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas were antisemitic.

On Monday, Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers MP Robert Borsak chaired the first hearing in state parliament, alongside Greens MLC Amanda Cohn and MLCs from both Labor and the Liberals.

During the hearing Ossip said that there has been an “unprecedented and shocking rise in antisemitism” over the past 20 months.

“For the first time, the Jewish community has felt unsafe and at risk not because of anything they have done, but because of who they are,” he said.

“The resurgence of antisemitism in mainstream discourse – whether through overt hatred, coded language or veiled as political criticism – acts as a corrosive force within civil society.”

The inquiry was told of reported incidents describing how students were targeted because of their Jewish identity, including one in which a student was asked, “Are you Jewish? F**king Jews. You should kill yourself”.

At one point during the hearing there was a clash between Liberal MLC Chris Rath and a member of the Jews Against Occupation ’48 group, Allon Uhlmann, when Rath asked Uhlmann, “You don’t believe that Hezbollah and Hamas are antisemitic organisations?”.

Uhlmann replied: “Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorists or not, are not antisemitic organisations.”

Ossip said it was disappointing that such an important and noble inquiry was hijacked, “and for a time descended into a farce”.

“Questions need to be asked about how the witness list and the program for these hearings were curated,” he said.

“It says it all some of these self described Jewish groups couldn’t even bring themselves to acknowledge Hamas and Hezbollah, which are sworn to the murder of Jews and the elimination of Israel, as being antisemitic.”

Australian Jewish Association chief executive Robert Gregory and community engagement director Teneille Murray told the inquiry that “Jewish institutions (now) resemble fortresses”, but it was a claim in the organisation’s submission to the inquiry about “Jewish antisemitism” and “a tiny, fringe group claiming Jewish heritage” that “parrots anti-Jewish rhetoric, rejected by the broader Jewish community” that was hotly debated.

Labor MLC Stephen Lawrence asked Gregory whether “your organisation might be falling into the trap of actually furthering antisemitism by presenting a monolithic view of Jewish people”, to which Gregory responded that it was “quite strange at a committee here on antisemitism that the Jewish groups and Jewish people are being attacked by the committee members”.