Two steps forward, three back

Sometimes it can feel like two steps forward, three steps back.

Following the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre, we fought hard for a Royal Commission. The support we received from so many fellow Australians not only helped to secure that outcome but suggested that Australians were sick of the hatred and division of the previous two years.

Except, it seems not all are.

We read this week of choir members being uncomfortable performing with Jews in tribute to the victims of that antisemitic murder spree. We read of creatives supporting a man who called those victims “fascists” who were “impulsively mourned”. We read of more vandalism in Melbourne and an event defending a call for violence going ahead in Sydney.

It would seem that not even the knowledge that antisemitism is being probed at the highest level is enough to make those who espouse it think twice before hatefully injecting their poison into the public arena.