January 13, 2025
Australia's peak Jewish body has launched a scathing attack on Anthony Albanese for saying his government has done "what we can" to tackle anti-Semitism, comparing the prime minister's record in curbing discrimination to touting "economic achievements during a depression".
The Prime Minister on Sunday defended his government's record on anti-Semitism after a year in which Labor's handling of the domestic fallout from the war in Gaza has been under the microscope.
Mr Albanese said his government had consistently invested in protecting Jewish Australians.
"We've set up the first envoy on anti-Semitism ... we've introduced anti-hate laws including outlawing Nazi symbols. We've set up a taskforce ... I've called it out at each and every opportunity," he said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.
In an extraordinary assessment of Mr Albanese's latest comments, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) accused him of failing to match rhetoric with action as Jewish Australians endured a wave of threats and attacks.
ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin told The Australian it was "jarring" to hear Mr Albanese "rattling off" his achievements.
"It's jarring to hear the Prime Minister rattling off his achievements in fighting anti-Semitism at a time when serious attacks are a daily reality for Jewish Australians. It would be the same as listing economic achievements during a depression," Mr Ryvchin said.
The ECAJ said although the government had given financial support to Jewish communities, other measures such as urgently convening a national cabinet meeting, implementing mandatory education on anti-Semitism, and directing police to strictly enforce existing laws fell short.
Mr Ryvchin further criticised the government's tendency to dilute condemnations of anti-Semitism by pairing them with generic statements addressing Islamophobia and other forms of racism.
"Senior members of the government took weeks to condemn despicable public celebrations of October 7 even when they occurred in their own electorates.
The government couldn't decide whether obviously annihilationist slogans for the destruction of Israel were inciting hatred or meant different things to different people," he said.
"They stood by as weekly rallies became increasingly brazen in their use of anti-Jewish themes and support for terrorism, and the government pursued increasingly confrontational language and policies towards Israel."
Mr Ryvchin said the actions of the government signalled to extremists that it regarded Israel as the guilty party. "Even condemnations of anti-Semitism were rendered impotent by mindless pro-forma statements about 'Islamophobia and all forms of racism' when only one group was being relentlessly attacked."
The ECAJ comments came after former treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared in The Weekend Australian on Saturday that anti-Semitism will be an election issue.
Attorney General Mark Dreyfus is due to go to Israel in coming weeks to try and mend relations with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Tensions flared last month when Mr Netanyahu accused Labor of overseeing a rise in antiSemitism and criticised Australia's support for a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But intra-party pressure group Labor Friends of Palestine (LFOP) on Friday attacked Mr Netanyahu and called him "a fugitive under ICC arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation and extermination''.
Opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Paterson said on Sunday that the recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks could have been avoided if Mr Albanese had shown leadership against the wave of hate.
"The Prime Minister might be patting himself on the back for his response to anti-Semitism but no one in the Jewish community would agree," Senator Paterson said.
"He's been ignoring the warnings for over a year about the serious national crisis this represents, and he's consistently failed to act."
