What leadership is—and is not

Last night— June 17, 2026—I had the honour of joining distinguished members of Victoria’s Jewish community, allies and friends in Melbourne to celebrate the 78th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel. Premier Jacinta Allan MP, Opposition Leader Jess Wilson MP, federal, state and municipal representatives, and Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Dr Hillel Newman, were among those present.

Many speeches inspired me. One aspect of a speech left me somewhat dispirited. The penny had apparently still not dropped: repeatedly opining about Israel’s elected leaders contributes to an environment in which antisemitism is running rampant across our sunburnt land.

Zionism Victoria President Elyse Schachna spoke proudly of the resilient Start-Up Nation—a small country that has transformed constraint into innovation, vulnerability into strength and adversity into achievement. Jess Wilson committed to restoring public order, including through stronger powers for police to move on those deliberately disturbing the peace.

Premier Allan mostly delivered a gracious speech. She announced further opportunities for collaboration and, importantly, raised a toast to Israel. Melbourne-based friends tell me that, two years ago, she declined to offer that traditional toast. Last night she did.

That matters.

A cynic might point out that 2026 is an election year. I prefer the more generous conclusion: that the patient work of many within Victoria’s Jewish community—sitting with the Premier, building relationships and demonstrating Jewish values rather than merely describing them—has had a positive effect. We usually achieve more with honey than vinegar. Progress should be recognised when it occurs.

Yet the Premier apparently could not resist inserting another rebuke of Israel’s elected government into an occasion intended to celebrate the Jewish state’s remarkable national renewal.

“We don’t need to talk about Israel less,” she said. “We need to talk about Israel more.”

No, Premier. You need to govern Victoria and focus on the wolf at our door.

I am not personally acquainted with the Premier, nor am I a resident of Victoria. I have, however, travelled here frequently over many decades. I visited the East Melbourne Synagogue before the arson attack of 4 July 2025. On 20 July 2025, I sat in my hotel room on the thirteenth floor above Swanston Street as a mob below chanted, “Death, death to the IOF.”

Friends now avoid Melbourne’s CBD, let alone wear a yarmulke or Magen David in public, for fear of their safety. I am also aware of reports that Jewish Victorians have left the state—and, in some cases, Australia—because they no longer believe Victoria is a safe place in which to raise a Jewish family.

How on earth did we arrive here? A lack of consequences for serious misbehaviour is part of the answer. So too is poor political messaging that, however well intended, normalises distortion and produces damaging second-order effects.

This was the second consecutive Yom Ha’atzmaut event at which I heard the Victorian Premier qualify her support for Israel by publicly criticising its government. Last year, I let it through to the keeper. This year—six months and a handful of days after fifteen people were murdered in the Bondi massacre, including people known to me—I cannot.

Let me make an important distinction. My concern is not that Israel’s wartime conduct against existential threats should be beyond scrutiny. Democracies scrutinise themselves, and Israel does so relentlessly. My concern is that Israel is increasingly judged not by verified evidence about its conduct, but by lies and untested allegations about that conduct.

Claims emerging from Hamas-controlled institutions are too often repeated before their provenance, methodology or limitations are made clear. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths in its published totals. Hamas operates within an information environment it controls, constrains independent journalism and has every incentive to maximise international pressure on Israel. Where journalists, officials or non-government organisations have links to Hamas or operate under its coercive authority, those realities must be disclosed and examined—not sanitised or obscured.

The role of responsible media and government is to expose propaganda, not launder it. When allegations are repeated uncritically, caveats are buried and later corrections receive a fraction of the original attention, a false public understanding hardens into accepted truth. Israel is then condemned not for what it has demonstrably done, but for what its enemies have successfully persuaded others to believe it has done.

This is where Natan Sharansky’s 3D test for antisemitism becomes instructive. Demonisation portrays Israel as uniquely evil or monstrous. Delegitimisation denies the Jewish people the right to national self-determination afforded to others. Double standards demand conduct from Israel that is not demanded of other nations facing comparable threats.

It is this double standard that concerns me most.

When Premier Allan attends Chinese New Year celebrations, is there an accompanying lecture about the mass detention and forced labour of Uyghurs in Xinjiang? More than one million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim people are estimated to have been arbitrarily detained since 2017. The United Nations has documented credible allegations of torture, sexual violence, coercive labour, pervasive surveillance and the suppression of religious and cultural identity, concluding that the abuses may constitute crimes against humanity.

Is there a denunciation of the Chinese Communist Party’s militarised artificial islands, coercion of neighbouring states and support for North Korea—a nuclear-armed totalitarian regime notorious for prison camps, starvation, repression and torture?

Of course not. Nor should every cultural celebration be converted into a political indictment of a foreign government. Yet Israel alone appears to attract this ritual qualification.

Ambassador Newman served with distinction in the Muslim-majority nations of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. By his account, he found those countries considerably more accommodating towards Israel and Jewish people than Australia increasingly appears to be.

Let me state this clearly: rabid Jew-hatred in Australia is worse than in societies many Australians would instinctively regard as less liberal and less tolerant. It has worsened further since Bondi.

I acknowledge that Premier Allan has moved. People I trust tell me that her care and concern after the Bondi murders in December 2025 were genuine. The toast and collaborations announced last night are evidence of that. The question is whether Victoria’s Premier is moving quickly enough to meet circumstances deteriorating at a far greater pace.

Leadership is not simply changing direction eventually. It is recognising the speed at which danger is approaching and acting before events overtake you.

The Premier’s words and silences help shape the public environment. Every unnecessary qualification, every contextless rebuke of Israel and every failure to confront hatred within her jurisdiction adds to a permission structure. Together, they tell activists that Israel remains the accused, Jewish Australians remain answerable for it, and the intimidation they experience is somehow secondary.

The Premier is also contributing, however unintentionally, to misinformation and poor public understanding of what Israel is—and what it is not.

Israel is the Middle East’s only durable liberal democracy, with competitive elections, independent institutions, a vigorous press and citizens who challenge their government through parliament, the courts, the ballot box and public protest. Israelis hardly require lessons in criticising their leaders. As Premier Allan knows, they are exceptionally good at doing so.

Israel extends political, civil and religious rights across a remarkably diverse society. Jewish, Arab Muslim, Arab Christian, Druze and Circassian citizens vote, serve in parliament and public institutions, practise their faiths and participate openly in national life. The Bahá’í Faith maintains its world spiritual and administrative centre in Israel. Gay and queer citizens enjoy legal protections and the freedom to live openly to a degree unmatched across the region. In many surrounding countries, same-sex relationships remain criminalised; in several, consensual same-sex conduct can attract corporal punishment, lengthy imprisonment or even death.

The contrast elsewhere is stark. Israeli citizens are prohibited from entering Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A because of the danger. In 2000, two Israeli reservists who took a wrong turn into Ramallah were lynched and their bodies mutilated by a mob. Across numerous Muslim-majority nations, once-flourishing Jewish communities have dwindled to tiny remnants, while open Jewish life remains heavily constrained, virtually impossible or fraught with danger.

This does not make Israel perfect. No democracy is. It means that context matters. Criticism that obscures these realities does not educate Victorians. It misleads them.

Premier, please stop the political “me too” ritual of joining each fashionable rebuke of Israel. It is not helping Israel. It is hurting Victoria.

Jewish schools require formidable perimeter fencing and armed guards. Community events cannot always be publicly announced. Families calculate whether displaying a Star of David, wearing a kippah or speaking Hebrew might attract abuse—or worse.

This is happening in Melbourne, on your watch.

I have heard speculation that some union resistance to stronger move-on powers may arise from concern that such powers could later weaken industrial action. I cannot verify that claim and express no view on its accuracy.

Whatever the institutional arguments, behaviour I have witnessed on Melbourne’s streets is plainly disturbing the peace. Chants such as “from the river to the sea”, “globalise the intifada” and “death to the IDF”, when directed at Jewish communities amid intimidation and disorder, are not harmless theatre. They create fear, normalise menace and test how much society will tolerate.

Leadership is not likership. It is not measuring moral judgement against applause, favourable headlines, opinion polls or social-media approval. It is doing what is right when doing so is unpopular. It is recognising danger before another funeral forces everyone else to acknowledge it.

Premier Allan, I believe you stand with Israel. Last night provided evidence of that, and I acknowledge it. But friendship is not demonstrated only by attendance, collaboration or a toast. It is also demonstrated by refusing to repeat fashionable formulations that distort reality and embolden those who have made Jewish Australians feel unsafe.

Language from leaders can strengthen an environment in which Israel is demonised and Jewish Australians are intimidated. The pace of your response must match the pace of the danger.

Please look again at what is happening in Victoria on your watch. Restore order. Protect Jewish and non-Jewish Victorians. Confront educational and media dishonesty. End consequence-free intimidation. Make clear through your words and conduct that demonisation, delegitimisation and double standards will no longer receive political respectability.

Leadership begins with personal action. Demonstrate it yourself, and courage may ripple outwards through your government, our institutions and the wider community.

Victorians deserve that leadership. Respectfully, I expect it from you.

Colonel Michael Scott CSC Ret’d is a former Australian army officer and the founder of The 2023 Foundation, an initiative dedicated to combating antisemitism.