Australia/Israel Review

It would probably not surprise readers that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was not exactly happy with US President Donald Trump’s plan to evacuate the Palestinian population from Gaza and rebuild it as a “Riviera”. But the reasons may not be what you think. 

Many pro-Palestinian Western commentators and journalists took it for granted that PA leaders reject moving Palestinians out of devastated Gaza to Arab countries while the Strip is rebuilt because they think Gazans must remain in their homeland so they can be part of a future Palestinian state. 

No. Many PA leaders said instead they want Gazans to be used to “flood” Israel, and presumably destroy it – as per the legally-baseless “right of return” that is so central to Palestinian nationalist ideology. 

For instance, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told official PA-TV (Feb. 15): “If the Americans want a solution, the only place they [the refugees] need to return to is their cities and villages from which they were expelled during the Nakba [i.e., ‘the catastrophe’, the establishment of Israel]…” 

The PA official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida meanwhile editorialised (Feb. 7): “Instead of uprooting the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, why don’t you return the Israelis to the countries from which they came?”

Meanwhile, Abbas Zaki, a Central Committee member of the PA’s ruling Fatah party, wrote an open letter to “all Arab parties” denouncing the Trump plan in which he not only explicitly insisted that returning Palestinians would “flood” Israel, but added that this will result in the end of the “Zionist enemy” in “Palestine”.

Denouncing Trump’s “rare insolence”, Zaki wrote (Facebook, Jan. 29, 2025]:

“Is it not time to resolve the most complex conflict by ending the occupation of our land, Palestine, by the Zionist enemy? We await the great day when our Palestinian people will flood towards their villages and cities in occupied Palestine (i.e., Israel) from which it has been expelled for more than 76 years.”

I remind readers once again that these statements come from the “moderate” Palestinian Authority – which is often contrasted with the extremism and rejectionism of Hamas. There is a tendency among too many people to make simplistic contrasts between the two, assuming the PA favours a two-state resolution but Hamas rejects it. However, as the above quotes make clear, the PA does not really want a two-state solution – it believes “justice” means Israel’s destruction. It may be more open to the possibility of a two-state resolution as a sort of political way station than Hamas is. Yet even then, the PA treats the legally baseless and historically unprecedented “right of return” to Israel as absolutely sacrosanct – even though it is completely incompatible with any genuine two-state resolution. 

(Quotes above from Palestinian Media Watch). 

What mainstreamed antisemitism looks like

Readers may be aware that the US-based Anti-Defamation League published its once-a-decade global survey of antisemitic attitudes, known as the Global 100, in January. The results were not pretty. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the global wave of antisemitism that has been apparent since October 7, 2023, antisemitic attitudes were way up. In 2014, globally, 26% of those surveyed agreed with a majority of 11 stereotypes about Jews put to them. In 2024, it was 46%. That’s a 77% rise in people classified by the ADL as holding “elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes.”

Australia was not atypical. We went from having 14% of those surveyed showing “elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes” in 2014 to 20% last year – a rise of 43%. According to the survey, we are now the most antisemitic country in the Anglosphere. 

And, let’s be clear, none of the questions in the Global 100 are about Israel or Zionism. The only statement that even mentions Israel is “Jews’ loyalty is only to Israel.”

Some of the answers to the survey questions should be simply shocking. Globally, 35% of those surveyed said the proposition that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” was “probably true” or “definitely true”. Twenty-one per cent of Australians agreed with that insane, conspiratorial claim. Meanwhile, 35% of Australians said the proposition that “People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave” was probably or definitely true. 

Given the way a lot of people insist Jewish complaints about antisemitism are only a way to shut up criticism of Israel – which is itself an antisemitic trope in most cases – it seems worth calling attention to what the daily antisemitism looks like in one of the many countries where it is endemic. 

Let’s use some examples from a country many people may not think of as a major purveyor of antisemitism – Turkey. Here are excerpts from three articles that appeared in major Turkish newspapers in a single week:

From the Islamist major newspaper Yeni Akit (Feb. 11): 

“Did you say Jews? They are the cursed ones who do not hesitate to set the world on fire to fry eggs.”

From Yeni Akit (Feb. 8):

“It is not possible to come across any other nation other than the Jews that has been consistently exiled throughout the recorded history of humanity… Regardless of the nation, humanity has performed various surgical operations throughout history to rid its body of this malignant tumour…”

From the regional daily Corum Haber (Feb. 6):

“According to the Jewish belief, according to the distorted (altered) Torah, the God of the Jews created all people to serve the Jews… the Jews are the masters and the others are their servants, which is the Jewish terminology. In other words, the dominance of the world belongs to the Jews… When examined, it will be seen that the Jews are the rulers of the world economy…” 

[Hat Tip: Elder of Ziyon]

None of this blatant antisemitism caused a stir, in Turkey or outside it, because it is routine there – as in many other countries. Those of us living in countries where such blatant antisemitism is taboo need to be aware that places like Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Russia and even China are pumping out material like this – and it is inevitably making its way to Australia and other liberal democratic countries.