In the Media

Daily Telegraph – 26 November 2025

Just hours after the October 7 terror attacks on Israel, a phenomenon took over Australia’s streets – one that continues today. Public places that should be safe for every Australian citizen became hotbeds of protest, often violent. From Islamist firebrand clerics celebrating the massacre to mobs at the Sydney Opera House, the target of these demonstrations remained the same: Israel and the Jewish population.

The feeble response of the Australian Government to these outbursts of hatred emboldened the protestors, giving them a sense of immunity.

And it showed. From that moment, assaults, fire bombings, and graffiti attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions became commonplace. Synagogues were vandalised, antisemitic graffiti spread across Jewish schools, cars in Jewish neighbourhoods were firebombed, and businesses with any real or perceived links to Israel were targeted. Even Israeli restaurants were not spared, as these purveyors of hatred ran rampant on our streets.

While these incidents were primarily driven by anti-Israel left-wing groups, the government’s impotence in confronting this hatred also emboldened radical right-wing elements. Over the past weekend, a group calling itself White Australia demonstrated in front of the New South Wales Parliament, railing against the “Jewish lobby.” It wasn’t subtle – a massive banner screamed “Abolish the Jewish Lobby” in bold capital letters, accompanied by fiery speeches invoking the Hitler Youth motto of “Blood and Honour” and accusing Jews of “destroying the nation,” “indoctrinating politicians,” and “forcing politicians to do their bidding.”

While demonstrations and protests remain a central and essential pillar of a free liberal society, even in liberal democracies free speech has its limits. Despite laws prohibiting racial vilification under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, this protest was approved explicitly targeting “Jewish lobby groups” and that should have immediately set off alarm bells. It didn’t.

How bitterly ironic, then, that this Nazi-themed protest occurred on the same weekend Jews commemorated the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, in which 91 Jews were murdered, 30,000 deported to concentration camps, and more than 1,400 synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses destroyed. In Nazi Germany, years of demonising Jews transformed hateful words into violent deeds – a precursor to the Holocaust that followed, in which six million Jews were murdered.

What we are seeing now is the horseshoe theory of antisemitism in action: far-left and far-right groups, supposedly ideological opposites, somehow united by one common element – the hatred of Jews.

So far, both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Multicultural Affairs Tony Burke have yet to comment.

This lack of serious action – including the government’s failure to implement the recommendations of its own antisemitism report, commissioned from its own Special Envoy Jillian Segal – has contributed to Australia losing control of its streets and shattering its much-vaunted social cohesion. Hatred from both extremes has become normalised.

Despite years of warnings from Jewish organisations, the result is the tragic and devastating normalisation of antisemitism in Australia. And that is not just a tragedy for the Jews, but for all Australian society.