Anti-Semitism erupts across Australia Editorial
Hitler's Holocaust of European Jewry was a crime of such a magnitude, and subsequently so universally condemned, that many Westerners after World War II hoped that anti-Semitic movements would never again be capable of deceiving the masses.
Today it is no longer possible to entertain such a hope. Ever since the Iran-backed Hamas's mass-murder of innocent Jewish civilians on October 7, 2023, the most virulent anti-Semitism has erupted simultaneously across the Western world in major cities and on the campuses of our most prestigious universities.
European Jews, in particular, have come under everincreasing attack. Violent anti-Semitic assaults are once again endemic in Berlin.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, recently commented: "What an incredible disgrace: the mayor of Amsterdam, who allowed many demonstrations full of Jew hatred and failed in the shameful recent Jew hunt in her city, is now banning a demonstration against anti-Semitism on Dam Square in Amsterdam."
In November, GB News reported that leaflets with the ominous warning, "Every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered", had been widely distributed in Hendon, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in north London.
On the other side of the world, in Australia on December 6, two masked men perpetrated an arson terrorist attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne inner-suburb of Ripponlea.
They entered the building in the early hours of the morning and systematically set it ablaze before fleeing the scene. The fire spread rapidly, causing extensive damage to the synagogue interior and roof and to priceless religious artefacts.
Since that day, other synagogues around Australia have been daubed with anti-Jewish graffiti.
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which left 1,200 Jewish people dead, has revealed the hearts of many.
Even before Israel commenced its military response, crowds of demonstrators had already taken to the streets of Western capitals to voice their support for the Hamas terrorists.
Worse still was the response of many academics and students in our institutions of higher education.
American commentator Mary Eberstadt wrote: "Since October 7, many universities in the United States and elsewhere have disgraced themselves. Some students sided openly with the murder of innocents. Some administrators stayed mute out of cowardice." (First Things, October 27, 2023).
Recently, the University of Oxford's famous debating society, the Oxford Union — sometimes seen as a nursery of future prime ministers — debated the proposition that "This House Believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide".
Speaking against the proposition was a native Palestinian, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the disowned eldest son of the cofounder of Hamas. He asked for a show of hands of those in the debating chamber who, if they had had advance knowledge of the October 7 attacks, would have warned Israel.
According to Howard Anglin, a Canadian doctoral student at Oxford University, who was present at the debate: "Not even a quarter of the crowd raised their hands."
"The silent expanse of unraised hands," said Anglin, "spoke louder than the final vote" (which was 278 to 59).
"It said that a large majority of students believed that, for their country's alleged sins, Israeli citizens deserved to be raped, murdered, kidnapped, and tortured, pitilessly and indiscriminately.
"A room full of future journalists, professors, public servants, judges, and MPs openly and unashamedly endorsed the inhuman logic of a pogrom. And Jewish students who braved a hostile crowd to attend the debate were confronted with the fact that a sizable number of the people they sit next to in class would, in a fight between them and a terrorist organisation, back the terrorists to the death." (The Critic, December 2, 2024).
When crowds mobilise on the streets of our cities, or on the
campuses of our seats of learning, and call for mass murder, this
is the time when people of goodwill must unite to confront this
evil.
