In the Media

The Algemeiner – 26 November 2024

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a genocidal war on Israel, terrorizing, massacring and raping innocent civilians. This attack was not isolated but part of a broader war, as terror groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis and militias in Iraq and Syrian joined in – all coordinated by the chief terror architect and enabler, Iran. Including the Iranian-funded terror gangs in the West Bank, Israel is now fighting on seven different fronts against enemies committed to its destruction.

But there is an eighth front too – one that extends far beyond the Middle East. This front targets not just Israel, but all Jews worldwide.

In Amsterdam, Jewish and Israeli football fans were violently targeted and attacked in what can only be described as a pogrom.

One day before the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany’s mass pogrom in 1938, in the same city where Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution, Jews had to once again hide from mobs seeking to harm them.

This is not normal.

While some argue this is about opposition to Israel, not Jews, that is not true. On the available evidence, the attackers in Amsterdam were not Palestinians.

Antisemitism has been on the rise for decades. The October 7 massacre was not fuelled by political grievances but by deep primal hatred – the same hatreds driving antisemitism globally today.

Antisemitism is known as the “oldest hatred” because at any given time in history, Jews have been targeted either for their religion, culture, ethnicity or beliefs.

Today, this hatred is often expressed by attacking “Zionism”, the belief in Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland, Israel.

It is a hatred that spans the political spectrum. Extremists from the far-left to the far-right, who otherwise oppose each other, unite in their disdain for Jews. For example, white supremacist David Duke has voiced support for anti-Israel protests, citing a shared hatred of “Jewish supremacism”.

This has been made worse by the trend toward weak leadership and moral confusion prevalent in Western democracies, which fails to distinguish between aggressors and their victims.

France, Britain and Canada have initiated limited arms embargoes on Israel, claiming concern about supposed violations of international humanitarian law. Yet 17% of all France’s arms exports go to Qatar – a major human rights violator and key sponsor of Hamas.

Meanwhile, the Australian Government often claims it is a steadfast friend of Israel, yet its actions belie that description.

It continues to reverse longstanding bipartisan positions by voting in favor of biased and one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations. It ahistorically labels Gaza, east Jerusalem and the West Bank as “Occupied Palestinian territory,” signaling to the Palestinians that negotiations aren’t necessary and everything  they want is theirs by right without any need to compromise.

It even doubled its funding to UNRWA, despite UNRWA’s long history of spreading antisemitic propaganda and incitement to violence through its schools, and UNRWA employees’ direct involvement in the October 7 atrocities.

Australia says Israel must listen to the international community. Yet it was that same international community that facilitated much of the funding that let Hamas turn Gaza into a giant terror base. It also allowed Hezbollah to build up a massive rocket arsenal in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, meant to both disarm Hezbollah and keep it well away from Israel’s border.

The current Australian Government is suddenly obsessed with trying to force a two-state solution right now, as if this is currently feasible with Hamas controlling Gaza and the corrupt Palestinian Authority having lost control of many of the cities of the West Bank. The message of this obsession is to reward Hamas’ terrorism on October 7 and encourage the Palestinian leadership to continue the rejectionism with which it has met every two-state peace offer Israel has ever made.

The Government’s calls on Israel for restraint and ceasefires, as if Israel initiated the October 7 conflict, while demanding comparatively little of Hamas, help fuel the “eighth front” war against the Jews.

When Jews are afraid to walk their own streets, when Jewish students are unable to go to university campuses, when Jews are abused in the streets of Townsville and cars are defaced in Sydney, it is a sign that the social cohesion that Australia likes to boast about has been eroded.

Israel is not above criticism, and criticizing its policies is perfectly legitimate, as it would be to criticize any country. However, such critics cross a line when they apply a double standard to Israel to which no other country is subjected, all while ignoring the unique security challenges it faces.

Western leaders who fail to clearly support democratic partners like Israel embolden those who wish to destroy it, and their weakness in confronting domestic manifestations of antisemitism makes Jewish communities worldwide vulnerable to hatred and violence.

Long after the guns fall silent along the seven fronts on which Israel is fighting, the eighth front will continue to rage, fueled by weak leadership that lacks both the wisdom to tell the difference between right and wrong and the courage to confront the longest hatred.

Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).