Anti-Semitism’s Signature Moment Tony Thomas
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-universities/2023/12/anti-semitisms-signature-moment/
Australian pro-Hamas petitions are swelling to a torrent. For example, “Historians for Palestine” signed by 120 academics, on top of one from 720 academics nationally. That loopy one begins:
As scholars, academics and students in Australia, a settler colony built on the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, we stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation and against Israeli settler colonialism.
There’s old petitions like the journos’ multiple efforts since 2021, the most recent garnering 320 names and continuing to amass new activist signatures. Then there’s is the arty crowd of nearly 4,000 arts “creatives” signing their own effusion.
There is even a ceasefire petition under way from “Current and Former Elected Representatives” at local, state and federal level. It says, “We stand with Palestine, the Palestinian people, including Palestinian Australians and for truth and justice.” This petition blasts Israel for rights “violations” dating to 1948 and “occupation” of Gaza since 1967 via blockades. It has just one weak phrase about “the acts of Hamas on 7 October 2023″ requiring investigation. For the real thing on October 7, see here (warning – extremely graphic).
Most sinister of all is the pro-Palestine open letter from 700 Victorian school teachers and staff, as reported today (December 18) in The Australian. The letter says that it is within teachers’ “professional and ethical duty to model an anti-violence position”. They are pressuring federal and state education ministers to advise principals that Palestinian advocacy is in line with the public sector code of conduct. (It isn’t). They claim this is required to “protect children’s and young people’s wellbeing” in regards to Palestine:
Our own students are also witnessing the catastrophic devastation unfold, which will have short and long-term effects on their social, emotional and cultural wellbeing, impeding their capacity to live and learn well,” it says. “In response to the indefensible actions causing catastrophic harm, it is essential for people and governments to take an ethical stand, including those who remain accountable to the responsibility of caring for children and young people.
The Australian quoted Teachers Professional Association of Australia secretary Edward Schuller that the group “vehemently oppose any attempt to push political agendas onto children”.
But the daddy of all rows is convulsing Australia’s top-rated Melbourne University, with 2,050 pro-Hamas staff, students and alumni slugging it out with embattled Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell. His offence was to issue a statement on October 25 correctly blaming the war on the Hamas terrorism of October 7. He called for civilised behaviour at the university “as a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-faith community”. He urged for no anti-Semitism, no Islamophobia and no racism.[1]
The irate petitioners comprise approximately 350 staff, 600 alumni and 1100 students. Staff include five professors and 11 associate professors, along with two alumni professors and one associate professor. Their demand says,
We implore The University of Melbourne to stand on the right side of history by condemning Israel’s genocidal attack against the people of Palestine … From the Holocaust to Rwanda, we often reflect with shock and horror on the genocides of the 20th century and wonder with bewilderment at how the public would accept or even stay silent in the face of such mass atrocities.
We are in this moment again. It is clear that silence and inaction is how attempted genocide was enabled then, and how it is being accepted now. The historical record will show that the students, staff and alumni of The University of Melbourne refused to look away and instead condemned the genocide we are currently witnessing.
They demand Maskell condemn alleged Israeli genocide and cease cooperation with Lockhead (sic) Martin and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They want him to re-write the university’s allegedly pro-Israel definition of anti-Semitism. They want each of the 2050 petition signers to include on their email sign-offs a diatribe against Israel.[2] Maskell’s letter, by contrast, reads,
I must underscore that, even – and especially – in these awful circumstances, there is no tolerance for inappropriate or threatening behaviour of any kind. Any such instances should be reported immediately to our Safer Community Program where confidential support and advice is available.
One of the values binding our university community is respect for each other as human beings. I appeal to everyone not to add to the distress and anguish of this terrible situation. I ask that we all continue to treat each other with care, compassion and respect.
For the feral academics, Maskell’s civilised stand was anathema because he failed to condemn Israel’s alleged genocide. Within a week they had their counter-message up,. saying Maskell’s piece
…categorically misrepresents the atrocities being committed by the Israeli settler-colonial state against Palestinians in Gaza. Further, it functions to uphold dehumanising and racist discourses about Palestinian People, which furthers Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism and erasure… Maintaining relationships with companies complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous people of Palestine cannot co-exist with The University of Melbourne’s stated commitment (as set out in Murmuk Djerring: The University of Melbourne’s Indigenous Strategy) to “confront its colonial past and work towards a future where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories, and knowledges are acknowledged and celebrated.
I never like Hitler comparisons, but I wonder if the atmosphere here is now like 1930s Germany, with Jews fearful of going about in public and citizen pitted against citizen. We haven’t had our Kristallnacht yet, just some hostile stickers on Jewish businesses (latter-day versions of “Juden Unerwunscht” or “Jews out!”), mobs doing the genocide chant of “from the river to the sea”, and politicised police standing around with folded arms.
Left-leaning Jewish institutions here — as Vice-Chancellor Maskell might attest — are discovering their “friends” in the green-left-Aboriginal sectors are scorpions. Jewish patrons of Sydney Theatre Company got the message fast. Mark Leibler, of law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler (ABL), has dissociated the firm “in great despair” from the arty-trendy Collingwood Yards precinct — after giving it a million dollars’ of free legal work and substantial cash. The Yards clients were discovered making banners labelling Israelis “dumb white dogs” and worse.
In the rest of this piece I’ll largely pick up on academics morphing from their standard denigration of the Australian success story to outright support for Israel’s extinction. It’s apparent from the petitions that Hamas advocacy goes hand in hand with cloisters peddling historical “truth-telling”, Aboriginal/colonial studies, arts and climate activism and gender-diversity.
I’ve mentioned the academic petition signed by 720 academics of all stripes. Front-runners for signatures are Sydney University, 66 signers; Melbourne, 57; UNSW 55; ANU 51; Western Sydney 34; Queensland 32; Macquarie 29 and Monash 27. This 720-name petition accuses Israel of “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution and thunders “silence is not an option”:
We call on the Australian government to condemn the state of Israel and its actions, and re-evaluate its current and proposed trade agreements. We also call on the Australian government to suspend its defence cooperation with Israel and halt acquisitions of Israeli military equipment. As scholars, academics and students committed to decolonising knowledge, it is our responsibility to speak up and stand with Palestinians against the forces of colonialism, injustice and inequality and for an immediate cessation of Israeli violence in all its forms.
Another petition, Historians for Palestine, dated December 12, gives 120 names and ranks but their university is not named. Only 14 fail to flash a PhD. The list includes 15 professors and 12 associate professors. Knowing the god-status of professors in departments, promotion-hungry juniors there would best mind their p’s and q’s on Gaza.
My googling of signatories shows no significant history department without its cadre of Israel-haters and indoctrinators of students. To help history lovers avoid them, my tally includes Sydney University historians, 15 names; Melbourne 14; ANU 13; Australian Catholic University a surprising nine; UNSW, Macquarie, Flinders and UTS, six each; and Monash, five. Prominent names I notice are Sydney University’s Hon. Professor John Docker and Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick (I enjoyed her memoir of working in Stalinist archives) and Hon. Professor Ann Curthoys (ditto her writings like “What did you do in the Cold War, Daddy?”). The petition says,
As historians who study – amongst other things – settler-colonialism, genocide, apartheid, gendered and sexed violence, Jewish history, Palestinian history, Israeli history, and more, we say that this breathtaking and heartbreaking violence is unacceptable and must be opposed entirely. We know that the violence did not begin on October 7th, and is a result of long transnational histories of imperialism, colonialism, state violence, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism…
We call for the end of the occupation and apartheid, and for lasting and justice-filled freedom for all people living on the land from the river to the sea.
Additionally, our universities in Australia must be places where we have the courage to take up our responsibilities as ethical researchers and teachers: our classrooms must be spaces of historical truth-telling that seek to explain why and how this is happening and support students to express their truths, including through student activism…
Our colleagues in Palestine [including Hamas?] have called on us again and again to take action, and so we must. Telling the truth in history – as we know from our experiences in this settler-colony of Australia – is an important act of resistance, and we commit to undertaking this task.(My emphases).
The historians’ arguments include laughable attempts at evidencing. For example, one para reads:
Life for Palestinians living inside Israel is not easy, as people are arrested for actions as basic as liking a social media post, people are physically injured – with a pregnant woman being murdered – and Palestinian hostages held in Israeli prisons are tortured.
The first link above (“is not easy”) goes to a long December 1 feature from Associated Press[3]. The article is headed, “Wartime Israel shows little tolerance for Palestinian dissent.” It leads with a mistaken arrest of an Arab-Israeli woman whose Instagram post a day after October 7’s massacre included a food picture, the Palestinian flag and “victory” — but she says it was just an ill-timed joke. We are told that police released her without indictment but she lost her jobs. The reporter gives similar sympathy to an arrested Arab-Israeli woman who on massacre day October 7 itself had posted “No victor but God” with an emoji of the Palestinian flag — she claims it was just a peace-loving religious prayer.
♦ The article tallied 270-plus Arab-Israeli citizens arrested for suspected or actual pro-Hamas social postings — a crackdown “on free speech” hardly surprising during an existential war following years of incoming rockets from Gaza. Low in the story is that only about 50 were indicted, while eight Jews were arrested for anti-Arab violence. One Jewish teacher was also arrested and fired for an anti-war Facebook post, the reporter added.
♦ The second link is about a heavily pregnant Arab-Israeli woman being “murdered” by stabbing. The context strongly implies that Israelis did the stabbing. Check the link and learn that the killing led to the domestic-violence arrest of the woman’s Bedouin father and brother.
♦ The third link is about Palestinian “hostages” aka “freedom fighters” being tortured in Israeli jails. (Note that the historians’ petition wants “all hostages and political prisoners” released, a triumph for Hamas). The link goes to a long complaint by an Arab prisoner of miscellaneous bad treatment, with torture deaths alleged concerning six named “martyrs”. For perspective, his complaints include
A policy of rationing has been adopted in providing the prisoners’ needs, including basic hygiene materials such as toilet paper, dishwashing liquid, shampoo, etc. Very limited amounts of these materials are provided from the closed canteen, at the expense of the prisoners. Moreover, prisoners are forbidden from keeping basic cleaning tools, such as brooms and floor squeegees in the cells!
Since October 7, prisoners’ organizational structures inside prisons have also been specifically targeted. Most notably, the prisoners’ struggle committees, national committees, canteen committees, and the representation of political factions and prison wards, have all been dismantled …
Furthermore, the attack against prisoners includes the suspension of family visits in all prisons and the confiscation of televisions, radios, books, pens, notebooks, and all possessions, such as family photos, footwear, clothes — prisoners can keep one change of clothes — in addition to removing access to mirrors, outdoor games, cold water fridges etc.
The historian’s petition preamble begins,
Since early October, we have watched Israel perpetrate attacks of an unprecedented scale on Gaza. Israel has destroyed universities and schools, cultural institutions, libraries, and archives. As historians we know this as an attack on a people’s past, present and future.
“Since early October” is a bizarre euphemism for the October 7 massacres (Warning, graphic!) Even university historians should know by now that Hamas hides fighters and weapons in normally sacrosanct places and then exploits any civilian casualties for propaganda.
The historians cite Israel’s “murder of over 20,000 people, including more than 6,150 children”. The “murders” tally must necessarily be sourced from Hamas, but the ersatz historians side-step this by referencing the professional-looking site of the Geneva/Gaza/Beirut-based “Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor”. So who are the Euro-Meds? Well, they’re kids! They call themseves a crowd-funded “youth-ledindependent, nonprofit organization” (their emphasis) with 80 per cent of staff being “young people”. Its presumably now inoperative Gazan office is significant as some of the groups’ web-pages are obvious Hamas output. For example, the historians’ 20,000 Israeli “murders” number derives from a Euro-Meds infographic headed “The Israeli Genocide 7 October to 24 November.”
Another Infographic purports to explain the cruelty of the Israeli “blockade” of Gaza since 2006 — coyly ignoring Israel’s voluntary departure from the strip in 2005, and reciting every Israeli military strike and (alleged) civilian-casualty numbers since then. There is no mention that the IDF was responding to thousands of Hamas rockets, plus incursions, kidnaps and other aggressions.[4] I have to wonder if the 15 history professors fact-checked anything at all before signing.
The historians’ message was diabolical, saying
our classrooms must be spaces of historical truth-telling that seek to explain why and how this is happening and support students to express their truths, including through student activism
Recall that last September five Jewish ex-students of Brighton Secondary College won $435,000 damages from the Education Department for years of anti-Semitic taunts and bullying in violation of the Racial Discrimination Act. How much liability will education departments and universities incur in coming years to their Jewish students, now that antisemitism has gone mainstream among student societies, teachers and lecturers?
Meanwhile, the carry-on by the arts community dwarfs even that of the unhinged academics. The Creatives for Palestine ceasefire petition of December 10 has snowballed to nearly 4000 names. It actually starts and ends with the call for genocide of Israel: From the River to the Sea # Always Was Always Will Be.” The arty petitioners call themselves “First Nations and settler migrants of all generations and ancestries and identities”, demand a Hamas-favorable immediate and permanent Gaza ceasefire, and boast that “Our resistance will not be overwritten, censored or ignored.”
We’re here, unified in ‘Australia’, a colonised country built on the genocide and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from colonialism, apartheid & ethnic cleansing…
Shame on institutions that make moral compromises in preference for coddling their donors and subscribers. We refuse to be ushered into silent complicity.
Whether graceful, justifiably angry, digital or live— it is increasingly clear that to stand for the right for Palestinians to live liberated and safe, is not only punishable but must be apologised for. The show mustn’t go on as usual when people are being massacred. From The River To The Sea. Always Was Always Will Be.
Many of the petitions make reference to the war’s deaths of journos and media workers, now totalling 64. Nearly all were either targeted or collateral victims of Israeli strikes. The fatalities data is from tracker Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which noted the IDF refuses to guarantee journalists’ safety in Gaza. CPJ classifies all the journalists as civilians. Whether Hamas-affiliated journalists are civilians or part of terrorist infrastructure is a moot point — Hamas’ key weapon is its propaganda feed to gullible Western media such as the ABC. It would be surprising if the IDF views Hamas media staff as civilians rather than targets. To give you the idea, the CPJ list cites a couple of dozen such people, including
♦ Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq, “a social media manager for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV”
♦ Abdelhalim Awad, “A Palestinian media worker and driver for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV”
♦ Yahya Abu Manih, “A journalist with Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa radio channel”
♦ Duaa Sharaf, “Palestinian journalist, host for the Hamas-affiliated Radio Al-Aqsa”
♦ Jamal Al-Faqaawi, “a Palestinian journalist for the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Mithaq Media Foundation” and
♦ Several journalists affiliated with Hezbollah.
However the Gaza war proceeds, the civil unrest in Australia is of a dimension not seen since the (failed) 1951 Communist dissolution referendum and the Vietnam uproar. Never in our history have so many Australians sided with such a death cult as Hamas and its overwhelming majority of Palestinian supporters. Heaven help us.
Tony Thomas’s new book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95 from Connor Court here
[1] Dr Maskell’s stand is so admirable that I now apologise for sending him up as “Dr Masculine” in a piece about adopting road-kill mains for Melbourne University banquets.
[2] A change from Melbourne University emails’ current sign-off about
traditional Owners of the unceded land on which we work, learn and live: the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong peoples, the Yorta Yorta Nation and the Dja Dja Wurrung people (etc).
[3] The same once-respected news agency that grabbed a $US8 million payola last year from leftist billionnaires to boost its climate coverage
[4] For example: 10 May 2021 – Israel launches an 11-day attack on Gaza, killing 254 Palestinians [how many were fighters?], including 66 children, and injuring 1,948 others. 9 May 2023 – Israel launches a 5-day military campaign on Gaza, leaving 33 Palestinians killed, including 6 children and 3 women.
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