Why Australians Ought to Stand with Israel

There is no contradiction in an apolitical, non-Jewish, secular Australian veteran standing publicly, firmly and unashamedly with Israel and the global Jewish diaspora.

That sentence may seem obvious to some. To others, it will seem surprising, confronting, even suspicious. Why should a non-Jewish Australian, with no religious attachment to Judaism and no ethnic connection to the Jewish people, speak so openly in defence of Israel? Why should a man formed in the Australian profession of arms, who has served his country in uniform across several theatres, concern himself with Jewish safety, Zionism, antisemitism, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, or the increasingly febrile atmosphere in Western cities?

The answer is simple. There is no contradiction. There is only continuity.
I stand with Israel because I stand with liberal democracy under pressure. I stand with the Jewish diaspora because I stand with the right of decent citizens to live, worship, study, work and raise their children without fear. I stand with Israel because I have seen enough of the world to know that civilisation is not the natural state of mankind. There is only a thin veneer of the civil. It is built. It is defended. It is inherited. And when it is not defended, it is lost.

The contradiction is not mine. It belongs to those who claim to be anti-racist while indulging the world’s oldest hatred. It belongs to those who claim to be anti-colonial while denying the Jewish people any connection to their ancestral homeland. It belongs to those who claim to defend human rights while excusing, minimising or contextualising the murder of Jewish civilians. It belongs to those who claim to oppose fascism while marching beside people who glorify death cults, theocracies and terrorist organisations. It belongs to those who claim compassion while creating permission structures for violence.

That is the contradiction. It is theirs, not ours.

The first false contradiction is the claim that Israel is somehow a foreign colonial implant in the Middle East. This claim is repeated so often that many people now mistake repetition for evidence. Yet the Jewish connection to the land of Israel is not a modern public relations invention. It is religious, historical, linguistic, archaeological and civilisational. One does not need to be Jewish to understand that Jerusalem is not an incidental place in Jewish memory. It is central to it. The Jewish people did not suddenly emerge in Europe in the twentieth century and decide to colonise someone else’s story. Their story has been tied to that land for millennia.

The second false contradiction is the claim that one can oppose antisemitism while denying the Jewish people the same national rights afforded to others. Of course, criticism of any government is legitimate. Israel’s government, like Australia’s, Britain’s or America’s, can be criticised.

Policies can be debated. Military decisions can be scrutinised. Leaders can be opposed. That is not antisemitism. But when Israel alone is treated as uniquely illegitimate; when Jewish self-determination alone is recast as racism; when Jewish vulnerability is mocked, discounted or explained away; when every Jewish institution is made answerable for every action of the Israeli state — we are no longer dealing with normal political criticism. We are dealing with an old hatred wearing modern clothes.

The third false contradiction is the claim that the people who shout loudest about “peace” are necessarily the people most committed to it. Peace is not achieved by rewarding terror. Peace is not achieved by pretending that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the Iranian regime and their ideological fellow travellers are misunderstood social workers with rifles. Peace is not achieved by pressuring the democracy while excusing the death cult. Peace is not achieved by demanding restraint only from those who already have courts, journalists, elections, internal dissent and a moral vocabulary capable of self-criticism.

The fourth false contradiction is the claim that Jews are powerful and privileged while Jewish children require guards outside their schools. That is not power. That is vulnerability. That is the smell of history returning. A society that requires armed security outside synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres is not witnessing Jewish privilege. It is witnessing its own moral failure.

The fifth false contradiction is the claim that antisemitism is only dangerous when it crosses the threshold into criminal violence. This is perhaps the most dangerous illusion of all. Murder does not begin with murder. Arson does not begin with a match. Terror does not begin with a gunman on a beach, a firebomber in a city square, or a mob outside a place of worship. It begins with language. It begins with permission. It begins when decent people grow tired, bored, intimidated or embarrassed into silence.

Australia learnt that lesson at Bondi on 14 December 2025, when a public Chanukah celebration was attacked in what has been widely described as an antisemitic terrorist assault. Reporting on the subsequent inquiry has described alleged reconnaissance and preparations before the attack. That matters because it reminds us that such violence does not appear from nowhere. It grows in soil prepared by ideology, grievance and permission.
The United States learnt it again in Boulder, Colorado, where Mohamed Sabry Soliman was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the June 2025 firebombing of a pro-Israel hostage demonstration. The attack killed 82-year-old Karen Diamond and injured others. Prosecutors described it as an antisemitic act; Soliman reportedly shouted “Free Palestine” during the assault.

This is where we must talk about the mental tricks people play on themselves.

Human beings are capable of dressing up almost any appetite, resentment or cruelty in noble language. The paedophile tells himself he is expressing love. But to the law, to morality, and to any sane adult mind, he is abusing a child. The self-justification is not evidence of innocence. It is part of the pathology.

I use that analogy carefully. Not because every antisemite is the same as a child molester, but because both examples reveal something important about moral self-deception. People can convince themselves that evil is virtue if their internal story is strong enough. They can rename hatred as justice, cruelty as resistance, cowardice as compassion and bigotry as liberation.

Once someone is pathologically committed to abuse, society has learnt over centuries that gentle persuasion is not always enough. Different societies have tried different answers: denial, concealment, transfer, treatment, incarceration, even physical or chemical interventions in darker or more severe eras. Some approaches were too lenient. Some were too severe. Some were catastrophic failures, including the disgraceful moving of abusers from place to place within institutions that should have protected the innocent.
There is a lesson here for antisemitism. I am not suggesting identical remedies. I am suggesting that societies must take pathology seriously before it becomes violence. When Jew-hatred is treated as a regrettable opinion rather than a civilisational warning sign, we should not be surprised when the rhetoric hardens, the crowds grow bolder, the targets become more visible, and eventually people are shot, stabbed or burned.
There are gradations. Not every person misled by propaganda is beyond reach. Not every university student chanting slogans understands the ideological sewer into which they have stepped. Not every journalist repeating fashionable distortions intends harm. Not every activist waving a placard has thought through the world they are helping to build.
That is why persuasion still matters. Education still matters. Lived experience still matters. Contact still matters. Exposure to truth still matters. We must distinguish between the persuadable, the confused, the cowardly, the opportunistic and the truly possessed.

But we must also stop pretending that all hatred can be reasoned out of people by a better panel discussion. Some people are not confused. They are committed. Some do not want peace. They want victory. Some do not want coexistence. They want Jewish silence, Jewish fear, Jewish exile or Jewish death.

A serious society must know the difference.

This is where Australians must recover moral clarity. Standing with Israel is not a contradiction of Australian values. It is an expression of them. We are not required to import every ancient hatred into our own civic life. We are not required to tolerate imported fanaticism because it arrives wrapped in the language of victimhood. We are not required to sacrifice the safety of Jewish Australians on the altar of ideological fashion. We are not required to commit national suicide to demonstrate compassion.

Nor is there any contradiction between caring for innocent Palestinian life and standing with Israel. Serious people can grieve for civilians in Gaza while still understanding who started this war, who embeds among civilians, who celebrates martyrdom, who refuses coexistence, and who benefits when Western audiences lose the ability to distinguish between tragedy and culpability. Compassion without discernment is not virtue. It is vulnerability.

The contradiction is theirs.

They/them say they oppose racism, yet excuse antisemitism.

They/them say they defend Indigenous connection to land, yet deny Jewish indigeneity.

They/them say they support women and minorities, yet march beside those who would crush both.

They/them say they oppose fascism, yet excuse theocratic terror.

They/them say they want peace, yet reward those who make peace impossible.

There is no contradiction in a secular Australian veteran standing with Israel. The contradiction would be seeing what is happening and staying silent. The contradiction would be claiming to love Australia while ignoring the intimidation of Jewish Australians. The contradiction would be pretending that Bondi was an isolated eruption rather than a warning. The contradiction would be believing that what begins with the Jews will end with the Jews.

It never does.

The Jewish people are not asking Australians for special treatment. They are asking for equal treatment. Equal safety. Equal dignity. Equal seriousness when their children are threatened, their synagogues are guarded, their businesses are targeted, their students are harassed, their dead are mocked, and their homeland is uniquely demonised.

That is not too much to ask. It is the minimum test of a civilised society.
For my part, I will continue to stand where conscience, experience and duty require me to stand. I stand with my Jewish friends because they are my friends. I stand with Israel because Israel is a frontline democracy in a dangerous world. I stand against antisemitism because history tells us what happens when decent people look away. And I stand as an Australian because the safety of Jewish Australians is inseparable from the safety of the nation my children and grandchildren will inherit.

There is no contradiction.

Only clarity.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks warned, “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.” That is not merely a Jewish warning. It is a civilisational one. And in our time, on our watch, we would be fools not to heed it.

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.