Tag Archive for: anti-Semitism

The threat spectrum

 

Information operations

Australia has banned cybersecurity software Kaspersky from government use because of risks of espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. The Department of Home Affairs said use of Kaspersky products posed an unacceptable security risk to the Australian government, networks and data. Government agencies have until 1 April 2025 to remove the software from all systems and devices. The ban follows a February decision to ban Chinese-owned AI platform DeepSeek from all government systems and devices.

Among members of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, Canada, Britain and the United States had already announced restrictions on use of Kapersky products. The US banned sales and licensing of Kaspersky products within the US or by US citizens last year over fears of Russian control and influence over the company. Kaspersky said the US decision arose from the current geopolitical climate rather than technical assessments of its products.

Follow the money

Talks in Canberra last week over the future of Darwin Port and its lease to Chinese infrastructure operator Landbridge Group ended in a fizzle. Northern Territory officials met with federal counterparts after federal Labor member of parliament Luke Gosling said the government was examining options for buying back the 99-year lease. The federal opposition supported that proposal, citing the strategic significance of the port for Australian and US defence posture in the country’s north.

But last week’s meeting ended with no clear pathway forward. Northern Territory Infrastructure Minister Bill Yan expressed dismay that the federal government, citing election timing, declined to make concrete commitments about the port.

The meeting followed recent uncertainty over Darwin Port’s finances. Last November the Port disclosed a $34 million net loss for the financial year 2023–24. The port company also said Landbridge had defaulted on corporate bonds worth $107 million and might sell some of its Chinese assets in coming months.

Terror byte

A new report from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner reveals that between April 2023 and February 2024 Google received 258 user reports of suspected deepfake terrorist content made using its own AI software, Gemini. Commissioner Julie Inman Grant characterised these and other gaps in Google’s content moderation as ‘deeply concerning’.

The commissioner issued transparency reporting notices to Google, Meta, WhatsApp, X, Telegram and Reddit in March 2024 requiring each company to report on its progress in tackling harmful content and conduct online. X challenged the notice in the Administrative Review Tribunal, and Telegram has been fined over $950,000 for its delayed response. The commissioner’s report, released last week, finds Big Tech’s progress on content moderation unsatisfactory, highlighting slow response times, flawed implementations of automated moderation, and the limited language coverage of human moderators.

The eSafety commissioner has repeated calls for platforms to implement stronger regulatory oversight and increase transparency on harm minimisation efforts. This follows the latest annual threat assessment from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which stressed the importance of stricter content regulation in prevention against radicalization and highlighted the role that tech companies can play in this domain.

Democracy watch

The New South Wales state government introduced new hate-crime laws into parliament in response to rising antisemitic and Islamophobic violence, including a 580 percent increase in Islamophobic incidents and threats against places of worship. These laws, which the parliament passed, expanded offences of advocating or threatening violence, imposed mandatory minimum sentences and strengthened measures to prevent ideologically motivated attacks. While intended to safeguard public safety and national stability, they have sparked concerns regarding possible infringement of democratic principles, particularly freedom of expression.

While these laws aim to curb hate-fueled violence, critics argue that they may limit free expression. Others say they create loopholes. The legislation permits individuals to cite religious text in discussions, shielding certain forms of extremist rhetoric from prosecution. Additionally, the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences has been criticized for potentially undermining judicial discretion and disproportionately affecting marginalised groups.

Planet A

Tropical Cyclone Sean forced Rio Tinto to shut down Dampier port in Western Australia for five weeks in early 2025, costing 13 million metric tons in lost exports. In 2019, Cyclone Veronica closed Port Hedland, reducing Rio Tinto’s iron ore production for the year by an estimated 14 million metric tons. More recently, in February 2025, Cyclone Zelia closed Port Hedland and Dampier, disrupting iron ore shipments and halting operations at BHP, Rio Tinto, and Fortescue Metals.

An ASPI report released on the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy recommended that disaster resilience must go beyond infrastructure reinforcement. To mitigate climate risks, the country also needs advanced predictive technologies, such as satellite monitoring, and early warning systems.

Stopping anti-Semitic terrorism in Australia

In the next six months there is a greater than 50 per cent chance of a terrorist attack being planned and possibly carried out in Australia. The Director-General of Security told us so on August 5, 2024, when the terrorist threat level was raised to “probable”. The Jewish Australian community has every right to be gravely concerned that Jewish people and places, such as synagogues, might be the targets of such an attack. That this is even a possibility should shock all Australians.

We can be very confident that ASIO, the AFP, state and territory police and other agencies will do everything in their power to stop such an attack. However, history shows that while many terrorist attacks are stopped, some attempts succeed. Afterwards, commissions of inquiry typically find that governmental structures and processes were deficient, responsibilities were not clearly assigned, and information flows had broken down. Those were the lessons, for instance, of the institutional failures that occurred in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks.

We must not minimise the gravity of this situation by thinking that this threat has little to do with the lives of Australians generally. Were a mass casualty terrorist attack to occur, perhaps on the scale of the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in July 1994, which killed 85 people, Australia would never be the same again afterwards. Our idea of Australia as being a peaceful and cohesive society would be transformed overnight, for the worst.

The federal government is charged with the defence of the nation, the protection of its sovereignty, and the maintenance of the “peace, order, and good government” of the commonwealth, the latter phrase being contained in the Constitution. If the government fails in any of these first duties of state, no amount of success in other fields will protect it from condemnation, today and in history’s enduring judgment.

While police and security intelligence officers, and other officials, have to grapple at the operational coalface with the complex challenge of counter-terrorism work, it is the government that has the higher and prior responsibility to prevent matters developing to the point where the nation is being riven by polarisation and social fractures, and where there is a risk that hateful beliefs might be acted upon through terroristic violence.

As in war, countering terrorism requires active and involved ministerial leadership, and the wielding of the power of ministerial office to ensure that institutional failures are remedied before tragedy strikes, and not in the aftermath.

In counter-terrorism work, it is vitally important that the architecture of roles and responsibilities is clear, especially in a federation, that governmental structures reflect this clarity, that functions are distributed accordingly, and that there is integration and unity of effort across agencies and jurisdictions. Institutional failures are more likely to occur when the assignment of roles and responsibilities lacks clarity. Reporting lines become tangled. Information flows are impaired. Coherence of effort breaks down.

At the most foundational level, it is not even clear who is the lead federal minister of the government. Under the current Administrative Arrangements Order, the document that sets out the responsibilities of ministerial departments of state, the responsibility for “law enforcement policy and operations” is vested with the Attorney-General, while the responsibility for “national security policy and operations” is vested with the Minister for Home Affairs. So, who is the minister for counter-terrorism?

This blurring of responsibilities, and the associated transfer since May 2022 of the AFP, other law enforcement agencies, and then ASIO from the Home Affairs ministry to the Attorney-General’s, were retrograde steps. They unravelled the clarity and unification of effort that had been put in place by the Turnbull government in December 2017, when the Department of Home Affairs was established in its modern form. Were there to be a major terrorist attack, this blurring of responsibilities, and the consequential weakening of the nation’s counter-terrorism machinery, would be key exhibits in any resultant commission of inquiry.

In the same way that the Minister for Defence would be expected to take the day-to-day lead in matters of war – and we would not have separate ministers for the navy, the army, and the air force pulling in different directions – the Minister for Home Affairs should lead in all matters of domestic security and federal law enforcement. The minister should have “authority over the whole scene”, as Winston Churchill used to say.

Sound arrangements were in place during the period December 2017 to May 2022, when the minister, the department, and ASIO, the AFP, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and AUSTRAC were able to work together as a cohesive team, with the minister having “authority over the whole scene”.

This is not a theoretical claim. It was our lived experience. The relevant machinery of government was integrated. Information flows were seamless. Effort was unified. Australia was safer.

In the absence of a senior minister having such authority, and the information, so that they are able to set strategic directions and to give lawful directions as might be necessary, too much of the burden of accountability in counter-terrorism is being borne by officers who, while being highly diligent and resolutely determined in their work, are not charged with being accountable to the parliament, and the people.

Only an empowered minister who has full command of all of the facts of an evolving situation can probe, question, nudge and – at times – overrule, subject to having the legal authority to do so.

This is the basis for the successful governance of Operation Sovereign Borders. It is how we would fight a war. Why is counter-terrorism being treated differently? It should not be.

Here is what needs to be done, without delay. These measures might strike the reader as being concerned with technical matters of governmental machinery. They are. Getting the machinery and processes of counter-terrorism right keeps us safe, and it is precisely these matters that any future commission of inquiry into a major terrorist attack would have to examine in painstaking detail.

First, the AAO should be amended this afternoon, assigning explicit ministerial responsibility for counter-terrorism to the Minister for Home Affairs. Accompanying instructions should be issued, also this afternoon, to the Director-General of Security and the AFP Commissioner directing them to report to the minister with immediate effect. In due course, the Department of Home Affairs should be reconstituted fully.

Second, the Prime Minister, consulting with first ministers, should declare the existence of a National Terrorist Situation, under the provisions of the National Counter-Terrorism Plan. That plan is the agreed national arrangement for dealing with terrorism, and it should be fully activated, without the government waiting for an attack to succeed. Some might quibble that a “terrorist incident” has not yet occurred. Let them. They can answer before the judgment of history.

The declaration of an NTS would open the way for the commonwealth to assume full strategic leadership of the overall anti-Semitism effort.

The states and territories have vital supporting roles to play in this regard, as they would in any national crisis. However, the severity of the situation has reached a point where the commonwealth now has to lead. Imagine no one bothering to tell Churchill in 1940 that German-speaking parachutists had landed in Sussex, because detective chief superintendent Foyle had the matter in hand!

Had the recent caravan bomb plot succeeded, it would have been an attack on Australia, not an attack on an individual state.

Accordingly, and third, the government should immediately establish a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional taskforce within the Centre for Counter-Terrorism Co-ordination in the Department of Home Affairs. This should include state and territory officials. The taskforce should be led by the commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator within Home Affairs. The office of Co-ordinator was established in the wake of the Martin Place siege of December 2014, and the subsequent review that was undertaken of Australia’s counter-terrorism machinery.

The taskforce should be built around these three missions: “prevent and protect” (led by Home ­Affairs); “intelligence” (led by ASIO, working with the AFP, ACIC, AUSTRAC, and other intelligence agencies); and “disruption” (led by the AFP, working with ASIO and state and territory police). This model would mirror the successful Operation Sovereign Borders model that has been in place since late 2013, with a key additional element being the integration of state and territory police, who would retain primacy for the investigation of offending that was related to state and territory laws, under the umbrella of the disruption mission.

The “battle rhythm” of the taskforce should be driven by the provision by the co-ordinator of a daily situation report to the minister, which would provide him with the latest information regarding the threat picture and the operational situation. Nothing more focuses the mind of officers than the need to work to the steady beat of ministerial oversight. This is what happens in war, and in other domestic security crises such as dealing with illegal boat arrivals. It should drive action here too. The report should be suitably classified and constructed such that those few with a comprehensive need to know everything would be able to be fully informed, while those with a lesser need to know would be informed of only those matters that fell within their responsibility. On advice, but in the end exercising his own judgment, the minister should decide what should be said publicly, and when – always balancing the obligation to inform and reassure the public with the imperative to protect operations.

Fourth, national cabinet should agree to the establishment of a national crisis committee of relevant state and territory ministers, to be led by the Minister for Home Affairs. This committee should meet weekly, or more frequently as might be necessary. It would provide a regular opportunity for the co-ordinator and others to brief ministers, and to act as required on any collective decisions that they might take. National cabinet should be primed to meet urgently, as circumstances require it.

Fifth, the co-ordinator should develop a strategy for a national community engagement campaign, in consultation with commonwealth departments and agencies, the first secretaries of the states and territories, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and others with particular expertise in the field. Special Anti-Semitism Envoy Jillian Segal should be appointed to be the principal strategic adviser to the co-ordinator and the taskforce in this and all other regards, while retaining her direct reporting line to the Prime Minister and the Home Affairs Minister. She should be given special intelligence and other briefings so she can better perform her functions.

Drawing on the best practice in countering violent extremism, and combatinganti-Semitism, including by way of better Holocaust education, the aim of the campaign would be to counter the very particular and pernicious narratives and ideologies that underpin and sustain anti-Jewish hatred.

Success in this regard will not be achieved by generalised anti-racism and anti-discrimination efforts, and well-meaning pleas for the maintenance of social cohesion, as important as these are. Anti-Semitism has to be countered specifically at the level of narrative and ideology, having regard to the particulars of this ancient hatred. Such a campaign should expose and challenge anti-Jewish tropes, memes, conspiracy narratives, signifiers, and so on. It would have to be mounted across a wide array of social media platforms, and it would ideally involve prominent Australians, including faith leaders, calling out this hatred, and standing with Jewish Australians.

Sixth, the taskforce should work with technology companies and other data providers to generate a better online “dragnet” of anti-­Semitic content, built on more powerful, lawful AI-assisted searches for such material, to address the data problems that were recently identified by Mike Kelly in these pages.

A better “dragnet” would generate more leads for intelligence and investigative work, support takedown efforts by the eSafety Commissioner, and assist in the shaping and targeting of the community engagement campaign.

Seventh, the co-ordinator, working in conjunction with the commonwealth Department of Education and the vice-chancellors of universities, should prepare a plan for the minister’s consideration on making our universities safe for Jewish staff and students. Some universities have become hotbeds of hatred. This should not be tolerated. Perpetrators should be dealt with decisively. Sit-ins and encampments should be shut down. This is not an issue of free speech. It is intimidation that has no place in civil discourse.

Eighth, the minister should convene an urgent meeting of the Five Country Ministerial grouping, which brings together the security ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US. This forum has worked very effectively to crack tough domestic security and public safety issues, doing so on the basis of the very highly classified intelligence that is shared among the Five Eyes partners. The Five Country Ministerial group should focus especially on the foreign state and other actors who are almost certainly operating in the shadows to seed and amplify anti-Jewish hatred. Special attention should be paid to Iran, which has a record of sponsoring attacks against Jewish people and places around the world. The FBI and MI5 warned of the threat of Iranian-backed terrorism in the immediate wake of the October 7 attack on Israel.

Ninth, the minister should reassure himself that effective plans are in place to deal with mass casualty bombing attacks, active shooter contingencies, siege/hostage recovery situations, and car-ramming attacks. With the Minister for Defence, he should satisfy himself that the call-out arrangements under Part IIIAAA of the Defence Act are in order, and that the ADF’s Tactical Assault Groups can be quickly deployed.

He should also instruct the co-ordinator to ensure that the guidance for the protection of crowded places, schools and places of worship is current, and has been promulgated effectively to the Jewish community, and to the owners and controllers of relevant physical places. Similarly, access to dangerous chemicals and explosives should be reviewed and tightened as required, and preparations made for the lawful deployment of counter-drone capabilities at certain locations, to defend against drone-mounted attacks.

Finally, the minister should direct Home Affairs to expedite the cancellation on character grounds of the visas of any non-citizens who espouse extremist anti-Semitic viewpoints. A new ministerial direction to decision-makers should be promulgated to ensure that consistently decisive decisions are being taken in this regard.

These measures have a single theme. We know, from the findings of commissions of inquiry, terrorist attacks are more likely to occur where there has been a failure of central co-ordination and direction, a fragmentation of effort, and a breakdown in information flows.

What is suggested here could be set in motion this afternoon. Doing so would not reflect any criticism of officials, and certainly not of the operational teams who are doing their job. However, they do not bear the onerous burden of being responsible for “the whole scene”. That charge falls to the government, which also needs to do its job.

As antisemitism strains Australian social cohesion, the government must step forward

Australia’s national resilience and social cohesion are under strain, with the most visible cracks seen in the alarming rise of antisemitism. Governments, most particularly the federal government, whose responsibility it is to lead national debates, desperately need to engage more forthrightly with the Australian public.

The discovery in Dural of a caravan containing explosives and, reportedly, an antisemitic message and the addresses of a synagogue and other Jewish buildings, is the latest shock that will heighten anxiety in Australia’s Jewish community and further inflame public tension.

We can give police some benefit of the doubt that they had operational reasons for secrecy about the caravan, but these decisions must be balanced against the need to confront the underlying problems of extremism and hatred, and to reassure Australians that we have national leaders who are facing up to them. If our politicians had been leading the conversations that we need, there would be greater goodwill for understanding operational decisions, rather than the fraying patience that we are seeing.

Instead of confronting extremism, radicalisation and the growing influence of ideological violence, policymakers have retreated into reticence, offering platitudes that fail to give the public confidence or deter those who seek to cause harm. This absence of leadership is a communications failure and a strategic miscalculation that threatens social cohesion and national security.

The federal government’s reluctance to educate and inform the public about terrorism and extremism is fuelling uncertainty and fear. Security agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police play a vital role in countering threats, but their mandate is to act once the danger has escalated to the level of criminality and national security risk.

The broader responsibility—explaining the ideological drivers of extremism, reinforcing shared values, and setting clear boundaries of acceptable conduct—belongs to the government. Yet, time and again, the government has abdicated this duty, preferring to let ASIO’s annual threat assessment stand as the only authoritative voice on extremism in Australia. That is not enough. National security is not just about neutralising threats but about preventing them from taking root in the first place.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hardly lifted anyone’s morale when speaking defensively about the discovery of the caravan during two radio interviews on Thursday morning. On ABC radio, he failed to mention antisemitism at all. He refused to say when he’d learnt about it, describing that as ‘operational details’, and refused to say whether the national cabinet had discussed the investigation. Most of his commentary was about what the police had said and done. The closest he gave to an expression of the government’s view was by saying: ‘We remain concerned about this escalation.’

It wasn’t until a press conference later in the day that Albanese said, unprompted, that there was ‘zero tolerance in Australia for hatred and for antisemitism’ and that he wanted ‘any perpetrators to be hunted down and locked up’.

One of the core failures underpinning this crisis is a misinterpretation of tolerance. Australia prides itself on being an open and inclusive society, but inclusivity does not mean tolerating the intolerable. Support for terrorist leaders and groups is not free speech, nor is it a legitimate expression of diversity—it is a direct threat to social stability. When governments fail to call this out unequivocally, they enable a dangerous dynamic by which extremists feel emboldened, and the broader population grows resentful and anxious. An anxious public is not a resilient one.

While the rising cost of living is at the forefront of most Australians’ minds, physical and social security must remain the government’s highest priority. People need to feel safe, and that safety is reinforced not just by policing, but by clear, decisive leadership.

The government’s approach—avoiding public discussion for fear of inflaming tensions—belongs to a bygone era. Excessive reticence was a flawed strategy even before social media, but now, in an age in which digital communications dominate every aspect of our lives, it is a liability.

Government hesitancy leaves a vacuum that is filled by those who want society to break. Without direct and frequent public engagement, we give ground to those who distort facts, push dangerous ideologies and promote violence.

ASIO head Mike Burgess was left swinging in the breeze last September after he told the ABC that the organisation assessed entrants to Australia for any national security risk, which might not cover someone who had only expressed ‘rhetorical support’ for Hamas. Amid the political controversy that followed, the government should have swung in quickly and stressed that the wider visa check would, of course, include rhetorical support for Hamas but that this wasn’t ASIO’s job. That failed to happen, leading to days of public anger and confusion.

Equally dangerous is the government’s willingness to indulge in false equivalencies. Responding to attacks on Jewish Australians by condemning ‘all forms of hate’ or vaguely mentioning ‘antisemitism and Islamophobia’ is both politically weak and strategically harmful. Each act of violence or intimidation should be condemned for what it is—without hedging, without lumping disparate issues together, and without fear of offending those who sympathise with extremists.

This failure of clarity extends to the review of Australia’s terrorism laws, where there is discussion about removing the requirement for an ideological motive. Instead of diluting definitions, the government should lead the discussion on what ideology is, why it matters, and how it fuels extremism.

The government’s refusal to deal with reality is at the heart of this crisis. There is no neutral ground when it comes to national security. Attempting to placate all sides by responding too slowly and downplaying threats only emboldens those who seek to justify intimidation and violence.

Everyone accepts that history and geopolitics are complex—not least in the Middle East—but there is no justification for bringing foreign conflicts onto Australian streets. Like it or not, the federal government’s faltering responses have facilitated a false equivalence between Israel and Islamist terrorist groups, emboldening extremists who now see Australia as a battleground for their ideological struggles.

Australians can see the world is unstable and don’t appreciate being dismissed or misled. The government’s failure to engage honestly is backfiring. Public trust erodes when people feel their concerns are ignored, and social cohesion weakens without leadership. To maintain our national resilience, the government must step up, speak clearly and reassert the values that make Australia a safe and united society. Silence is not a strategy—it’s a surrender.

Silence from Canberra on threat to national security

They say silence breeds contempt but the reticence of the Australian government about national security threats is more akin to the quote attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer when resisting Nazi Germany: that ‘silence in the face of evil is itself evil’.

The government is not responsible for individual violent incidents across our cities, but it is responsible for informing, reassuring and protecting the public. Yet the current malaise of leadership is feeding anxiety and infecting the social cohesion that has stood Australia apart from much of the world despite decades of global terrorism and conflict.

Australia remained united in the face of terrorist plots from al-Qaeda, attacks by ISIS, wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the malicious rise of China, and Russia’s war in Europe. But we are cracking; rising anti-Semitism and national fear shows domestic division is even more insidious than international incidents.

The government’s systemic abdication of responsibility, cloaked in silence and evasive justifications, is not a one-off relating to the caravan plot against Australia’s Jewish community but a troubling trend, exemplified by the tactic of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and ministers only commenting if asked by media and, even then, answering with non-statements.

Australians are not naive. We understand the need for operational secrecy in matters of national security and that classified intelligence should not be divulged lightly. But ‘operational details’ cannot be a catch-all excuse to deflect legitimate scrutiny or hide truth.

Uncertainty breeds fear so governments must be on the front foot. Almost within the hour of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, US president Franklin Roosevelt was instructing his press secretary to immediately inform the media. While not comparable events, the principle is key: keep the public informed and confident that its government is in control even in the most challenging times—even more important in the digital age.

Albanese’s refusal to address questions about the explosives-laden caravan, due to ‘ongoing investigations’, added to confusion, anxiety and speculation. A stonewalled public is not a secure one. Similarly, his reluctance to clarify whether he discussed China’s sonar pulse attack on Australian navy personnel in a meeting with Xi Jinping just days after the incident in November 2023, citing the confidentiality of diplomatic talks, simply resulted in doubt and more questions.

While discretion in diplomacy is essential, selective silence is inconsistent given the broad topics of leaders’ meetings, if not the exact words, are usually published, and suggested he just didn’t want to admit he had inexcusably failed to raise the matter.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s handling of the case of Yang Hengjun, the Australian arbitrarily detained in China, is equally disconcerting—failing to even acknowledge on 19 January Yang’s sixth year of detention, and previously insisting on being ‘constrained for privacy reasons’, despite Yang’s own desire for public advocacy. Hiding behind the veil of privacy appears less about protecting Yang’s interests and more about protecting the government’s.

This week marks one year since Beijing sentenced Yang to death so a comprehensive condemnation and demand for release is required. Similarly, Wong omitted to mention China in her readout of January’s discussions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in contrast to Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya’s honesty that China was a central part of his meeting with Rubio.

Meanwhile, when asked about the United States and European countries reviewing the security risk of Chinese-made smart cars, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said no such review would happen here as the priority was consumer choice. On that basis, we’d welcome Russian gas or perhaps Iranian nuclear know-how, not to mention that prioritising price now will mean consumers in the future will have few choices but Chinese-made smart cars.

The pattern of evading, ignoring or downplaying security threats is itself a security threat. It erodes public trust—and cynicism can quickly turn to conspiracy. It creates an information vacuum to be filled by conspiracy theories and speculation, leading not just to an uninformed but a misinformed public. And it has the potential to weaken Australia’s strategic position by reducing the confidence of our allies and increasing that of our rivals.

We’ve seen it before. The flood of illegal boats from 2008 and refusal to acknowledge pull factors created not only a backlash against illegal immigration but reduced confidence in legal immigration and emboldened criminal organisations. It was only by being upfront about the illegal immigration problem that confidence was restored in Australia’s strength as a migration nation.

Importantly, division is distinct from difference. Different opinions, including on world leaders or policies, are to be promoted as the basis of freedom of speech. But support for terrorist groups and acts of intimidation and violence are not free speech.

Only a transparent government can be accountable to the people it serves. A silent government shows no confidence in itself or the people.

In 1962 president John F. Kennedy said: ‘We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts … For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.’

Our longstanding national resilience means the cracks can’t be papered over but can be resealed quickly by a government willing to lead, including with some good old-fashioned naked truth.

The geopolitics of Holocaust memory

The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army is an occasion marked by angst as well as sadness. Anti-Semitism is back with a vengeance around the world, as if the lessons of the Holocaust had evaporated with time—or, even worse, had never been fully integrated into our collective consciousness.

This unprecedented crime, perpetrated by one of the most advanced and cultivated societies on earth, was the most extreme example of the horrors humans can inflict on one another. When pushed by a combination of fear and hatred, people can become monsters.

The current resurgence of populism and nationalism makes it all the more important to commemorate the victims of Auschwitz. But, 75 years on, the duty to remember is doubly threatened: by the political instrumentalisation of the Holocaust, and by the natural human proclivity to forget the past or become indifferent to the suffering of others.

More than ever, we are witnessing what could be called the geopolitics of Holocaust memory. Five years ago, in 2015, the only commemoration of the camp’s liberation took place in situ at Auschwitz, under the aegis of the Polish government. (In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to address the gathering.) This year, however, there has been a competition between two commemorations: one in Jerusalem at the behest of the Israeli government and the European Jewish Congress, and the other, sought by the Polish government, at Auschwitz.

Poland, where the horror took place, sent no delegate to the Jerusalem ceremony, after its president, Andrzej Duda, refused to attend. Duda had not been invited to speak at the event, whereas Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Britain’s Prince Charles were.

Having to choose between Russia and Poland, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t hesitate—even though Russia now considers World War II to have started in 1941 instead of 1939, when the Soviet Union seized Polish territory under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. Poland’s increasingly nationalistic treatment of history in recent years also no doubt influenced Netanyahu’s decision.

The Jerusalem commemoration represented an undeniable diplomatic victory for Israel. Not since the 1995 funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had so many world leaders gathered in the city. But the event also constituted a success for Russia, with Putin’s presence confirming his country’s new indispensable status in the Middle East.

With the passage of time, the real heroes of the Auschwitz commemorations are becoming ever fewer. But they are in no position to resist this instrumentalisation of their suffering.

Of course, instrumentalising the memory of the Holocaust is nothing new. During the Cold War, Eastern and Central Europe’s communist regimes emphasised the crimes that had been committed by fascists against anti-fascist patriots, thereby relativising or even denying the Jewish origin of the overwhelming majority of the victims. Today, with the rise of populism, any sort of criticisms of ‘local populations’, or of their ‘complicity’ in the crimes committed by Nazi Germany, have become punishable offenses—starting in Poland.

This approach shows no respect for historical truth—and often contradicts it. It suits people who also have suffered deeply, but do not want to confront their responsibility for the suffering of others. Since Netanyahu has been prime minister, the instrumentalisation of the memory of the Holocaust has played a central role in Israeli diplomacy as well, while the Iranian regime, with its repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, seems to be doing its best to encourage such a stance.

The memory of the past is threatened not only by its instrumentalisation, but also by a powerful combination of ignorance and forgetfulness, not to mention the Holocaust-denial camp. One-fifth of young people in France under the age of 24 have no idea what the Holocaust was. And the ignorance of some feeds the fear of others: polls indicate that 34% of French Jews feel threatened in their country.

Tackling this problem is above all a question of education. But there is a broader issue as well, namely the contrast among young people between their legitimate preoccupation with the planet and their lack of interest in politics. The young climate activist Greta Thunberg, for example, has helped to mobilise millions of people. But how can we convince them that ecological awareness is not a substitute for concern about freedom and democracy, but rather complementary to it?

The memory of the Holocaust should be seen as a kind of ultimate bulwark against the politics of hatred at a time when democracy and its institutions are being eroded. But it is not easy to defend the principle of ‘never again’ when social networks are spreading so much atavism and ignorance.

Immediately before the Jerusalem events, I was in Berlin, the city where the ‘Final Solution’ was conceived. When the rebuilding of the Stadtschloss (city palace) is complete, it will house the Humboldt Forum, a cultural centre named in honour of brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who embodied the Enlightenment spirit. It has taken 75 years to erase the physical traces of Hitler’s genocidal folly. Is that the time it also takes to forget the lessons of history?

I have recently been wondering what my father, prisoner number 159721 at Auschwitz, would have made of these 75th anniversary commemorations. He probably would have felt pride at not being forgotten, and sadness at how the Holocaust has become an event to be ‘spun’ for political gain in a world that has learned virtually nothing.

Why is anti-Semitism returning to Germany?

Though the British Labour Party’s anti-Semitism scandal has dominated headlines in the United Kingdom of late, there is a more profound debate with the same theme taking place in Germany. Most worryingly, the fundamental tenets of vergangenheitsbewältigung—the collective project of coming to terms with the country’s World War II past—are shifting.

This historical reckoning was hard won. During the early post-war era, Germany went through various stages of denial about the horrors committed during the Nazi regime. But in 1968, an intergenerational culture war exploded, as the children of Nazism faced up to the responsibilities of their parents—culminating in the violent excesses of the Red Army Faction. As historical scholarship documenting the crimes of the Nazi regime continued to pile up in the 1980s and 1990s, the German political establishment reached a consensus that the country’s historic guilt and responsibility must be a central part of its national story.

But since 2015, when Chancellor Angela Merkel announced her policy of Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) and opened Germany’s doors to refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, unease about resurgent anti-Semitism has been growing in the German establishment, and particularly in the Jewish community.

Just in the past year, a stone was hurled through a synagogue window in Gelsenkirchen, Israeli flags have been burned at demonstrations, and a Berliner wearing a yarmulke was assaulted in the street. Worse still, these attacks—sometimes by immigrants—have coincided with the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. The AfD is now using its position as the main opposition party in the Bundestag to question the culture of responsibility, even as it promises to protect German Jews from Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism.

Attacks on Jews have sparked outrage from the many Germans who thought such scenes had vanished forever from their country’s streets. But, in addition to the more visible abuses, German Jews have also begun to talk about more subtle changes in their everyday lives as major German cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin grow more multicultural.

Four parallel trends are now challenging Germany’s vergangenheitsbewältigung. First, the Holocaust is passing from memory into history. As the last survivors and perpetrators die, younger Germans feel less of a real connection to the past. Having a parent who may have been complicit in Nazi crimes is not the same thing as having a great-grandparent who was. It is not surprising that younger Germans feel less historically responsible.

Second, immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries now constitute a growing share of the population. Members of this cohort have no personal links to past German crimes, and they have often been subjected to anti-Zionist indoctrination by regimes seeking legitimacy through solidarity with the Palestinians.

Third, most Germans have never, and will never, meet a Jew, for the simple reason that Jews constitute a vanishingly small share of the population. Frankfurt, home to the country’s second-largest Jewish community (behind Berlin), has only 7,000 Jews, out of a metropolitan-area population of 5.7 million.

Finally, the Israeli government’s increasingly radical and nationalistic embrace of Jewish identity above all else is changing the dynamics of anti-Semitism globally, as anti-Israeli sentiment becomes blurred with hostility towards Jews.

Many who have been observing these trends from a distance—or even from within Germany—are listening for echoes of the 1930s. But, as someone of Jewish heritage who is currently reclaiming his German citizenship, I would argue that the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in Germany has more to do with the country’s global future than with its murderous past. Between the growing talk of Heimat (homeland) and the excommunication of Germany’s star soccer player over his photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it is clear that Germany is trying to figure out how to adapt its national story to a global age.

I recently met with the directors of a Jewish museum in one of Germany’s major cities, and I was struck by the thoughtfulness with which they are approaching the anti-Semitism problem. For starters, their aim is to ‘de-Israelify’ the Jewish question, to show that Jewish history is German history, as evidenced by countless studies of Jews’ historical contributions to German culture.

Germany’s Jewish community also understands the need to move from a focus on Germany’s special responsibility to talk about coexistence, multiculturalism and interfaith dialogue. The goal is to get more young Germans to meet and engage with Jews.

Most powerfully, the Jewish community is pursuing outreach specifically geared towards new (Muslim) immigrants, who must be made to understand that Jews have historically been the victim, not the oppressor. This effort entails drawing parallels between the discrimination met by immigrants today and that suffered by Jews historically. The hope is to build interfaith bridges within a common culture of the oppressed.

As Germany confronts ever more complex debates about its identity, the country’s elites will need to adopt this philosophy, and do more to encourage dialogue within an increasingly diverse population. The problem that is emerging from today’s identity politics is not just anti-Semitism, but racism in general. And that is just as true in Germany as it is in the UK and other Western countries.

Tag Archive for: anti-Semitism

PM’s timid reply to antisemitic terror is dangerous. Silence is surrender

Australia’s national resilience and social cohesion are under strain, with the most visible cracks seen in the alarming rise of antisemitism. Governments, most particularly the federal government, whose responsibility it is to lead national debates, desperately need to engage more forthrightly with the Australian public.

The discovery in Dural of a caravan containing explosives and, reportedly, an antisemitic message and the addresses of a synagogue and other Jewish buildings, is the latest shock that will heighten anxiety in Australia’s Jewish community and further inflame public tension.

We can give police some benefit of the doubt that they had operational reasons for secrecy about the caravan, but these decisions must be balanced against the need to confront the underlying problems of extremism and hatred, and to reassure Australians that we have national leaders who are facing up to them. If our politicians had been leading the conversations that we need, there would be greater goodwill for understanding operational decisions, rather than the fraying patience that we are seeing.

Instead of confronting extremism, radicalisation and the growing influence of ideological violence, policymakers have retreated into reticence, offering platitudes that fail to give the public confidence or deter those who seek to cause harm. This absence of leadership is a communications failure and a strategic miscalculation that threatens social cohesion and national security.

The federal government’s reluctance to educate and inform the public about terrorism and extremism is fuelling uncertainty and fear. Security agencies such as ASIO and the Australian Federal Police play a vital role in countering threats, but their mandate is to act once the danger has escalated to the level of criminality and national security risk.

The broader responsibility – explaining the ideological drivers of extremism, reinforcing shared values, and setting clear boundaries of acceptable conduct – belongs to the government. Yet, time and again, the government has abdicated this duty, preferring to let ASIO’s annual threat assessment stand as the only authoritative voice on extremism in Australia. That is not enough. National security is not just about neutralising threats but about preventing them from taking root in the first place.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hardly lifted anyone’s morale when speaking defensively about the discovery of the caravan during two radio interviews on Thursday morning. On ABC radio, he failed to mention antisemitism at all. He refused to say when he’d learnt about it, describing that as “operational details”, and refused to say whether the national cabinet had discussed the investigation. Most of his commentary was about what the police had said and done. The closest he gave to an expression of the government’s view was by saying: “We remain concerned about this escalation.”

It wasn’t until a press conference later in the day that Albanese said, unprompted, that there was “zero tolerance in Australia for hatred and for antisemitism” and that he wanted “any perpetrators to be hunted down and locked up”.

One of the core failures underpinning this crisis is a misinterpretation of tolerance. Australia prides itself on being an open and inclusive society, but inclusivity does not mean tolerating the intolerable. Support for terrorist leaders and groups is not free speech, nor is it a legitimate expression of diversity – it is a direct threat to social stability. When governments fail to call this out unequivocally, they enable a dangerous dynamic by which extremists feel emboldened, and the broader population grows resentful and anxious. An anxious public is not a resilient one.

While the rising cost of living is at the forefront of most Australians’ minds, physical and social security must remain the government’s highest priority. People need to feel safe, and that safety is reinforced not just by policing, but by clear, decisive leadership.

The government’s approach – avoiding public discussion for fear of inflaming tensions – belongs to a bygone era. Excessive reticence was a flawed strategy even before social media, but now, in an age in which digital communications dominate every aspect of our lives, it is a liability.

Government hesitancy leaves a vacuum that is filled by those who want society to break. Without direct and frequent public engagement, we give ground to those who distort facts, push dangerous ideologies and promote violence.

ASIO head Mike Burgess was left swinging in the breeze last September after he told the ABC that the organisation assessed entrants to Australia for any national security risk, which might not cover someone who had only expressed “rhetorical support” for Hamas. Amid the political controversy that followed, the government should have swung in quickly and stressed that the wider visa check would, of course, include rhetorical support for Hamas but that this wasn’t ASIO’s job. That failed to happen, leading to days of public anger and confusion.

Equally dangerous is the government’s willingness to indulge in false equivalencies. Responding to attacks on Jewish Australians by condemning “all forms of hate” or vaguely mentioning “antisemitism and Islamophobia” is both politically weak and strategically harmful. Each act of violence or intimidation should be condemned for what it is – without hedging, without lumping disparate issues together, and without fear of offending those who sympathise with extremists.

This failure of clarity extends to the review of Australia’s terrorism laws, where there is discussion about removing the requirement for an ideological motive. Instead of diluting definitions, the government should lead the discussion on what ideology is, why it matters, and how it fuels extremism.

The government’s refusal to deal with reality is at the heart of this crisis. There is no neutral ground when it comes to national security. Attempting to placate all sides by responding too slowly and downplaying threats only emboldens those who seek to justify intimidation and violence.

Everyone accepts that history and geopolitics are complex – not least in the Middle East – but there is no justification for bringing foreign conflicts onto Australian streets. Like it or not, the federal government’s faltering responses have facilitated a false equivalence between Israel and Islamist terrorist groups, emboldening extremists who now see Australia as a battleground for their ideological struggles.

Australians can see the world is unstable and don’t appreciate being dismissed or misled. The government’s failure to engage honestly is backfiring. Public trust erodes when people feel their concerns are ignored, and social cohesion weakens without leadership. To maintain our national resilience, the government must step up, speak clearly and reassert the values that make Australia a safe and united society. Silence is not a strategy – it’s a surrender.