Hallelujah! I opened my newspaper on Friday to read, in black and white, the two words I never thought I would hear any Australian academic or Labor appointee ever dare utter. Two words I have spent the last 15 years of my life writing about, warning about, raging against, and shaking my head in despair about. Two words that have poisoned this country, two words that have torn this country asunder, and two words which have been ignored, mocked and denied.
Progressive antisemitism.
In June 2014, I published an article in The Spectator Australia called Dinner Party Antisemitism in which I warned, quote, how ‘even otherwise intelligent and normal people will often reveal their hatred over a few glasses of wine’.
I went on to define ‘dinner party antisemitism’ and how to spot it. I wrote: ‘Dinner party antisemitism crosses all political boundaries, age groups, geographical and socio-economic divides, and is just as likely to occur in a trendy inner-city restaurant, at a Western suburbs barbeque or within the elegant confines of a plush North Shore dining room.’
In other words, progressive antisemitism. That was over 12 years ago. And I have often spoken at many functions, on TV shows, in print, at conferences, and, yes, at dinner parties, about how the so-called left-wing progressives – I actually think regressive is a far more accurate description – but those of the so-called intellectual left – there’s another oxymoron for you – the luvvies, the lefties, with their moral posturing and self-assured sanctimony and eagerness to tolerate Islamist and third world antisemitism posed a terrifying threat to this country. Frequently I was laughed at, more often simply ignored, especially when I was on the ABC.
But this morning – finally – Jillian Segal, the antisemitism envoy, has belled the cat, with an updated and damning report into Australian antisemitism, in which she says…
‘Modern, progressive antisemitism is the most pervasive manifestation of antisemitism facing Australia today. It serves to justify and legitimise antisemitism, providing it with intellectual and cultural credibility and, ultimately, making it fashionable. It does this by effectively laundering far-left antisemitism and Islamic extremism through a progressive lens, such as social justice and human rights, together with traditional antisemitic tropes, giving fundamentally extremist ideologies an apparently acceptable face.’
Finally. There you have it folks, from the official Labor-appointed antisemitism envoy. As the Australian newspaper continues…
‘“Progressive antisemitism” has been identified as the most corrosive form of anti-Jewish hate in Australia, under special envoy Jillian Segal’s sweeping new agenda to drive discrimination and bias against Jews out of universities, the health sector, media, and the arts.’
It then goes on to list Jillian Segal’s recommendations, including replacing the internal ABC and SBS ombudsman with an external independent watchdog to oversee the public broadcaster, part of which she says should involve reviewing their entire back catalogue. Then there’s the recommendation to set up a healthcare antisemitism taskforce to implement training and best-practice governance, in, I suspect, response to the ghastly affair of the Bankstown nurses. Then there are recommendations about the need to audit visa decisions and review how judges approach anti-Jewish discrimination as well as introducing ‘enforceable conditions’ for taxpayer-funded arts organisations and, a crucial recommendation, to terminate grants where artists are clearly promoting antisemitism.
Music to my ears, as it were, and it should be to yours too. Especially when you consider the disgraceful treatment of Deborah Conway and others, or the recent biennale which was, in my opinion, a putrid orgy of pro-Palestinian propaganda dressed up as art. A classic manifestation of ‘progressive antisemitism’.
Back in my 2014 Spectator article, I warned about these progressive antisemites. ‘Intelligence is irrelevant,’ I wrote. ‘One conversation I had was with a woman who was completing her Masters at Sydney University, who concluded her vile rant against Jews with the absurd claim that: “There must be something wrong with the Jews. Otherwise why would so many civilisations have tried to wipe them out?”’
But back to Ms Segal’s new report. According to the Australian, ‘Ms Segal proposes legislative reforms to launch a sweeping audit of visa decisions, which need to take into consideration antisemitic views that individuals might bring to Australia…’ And she recommends the establishment of ‘a dedicated group within the Home Affairs Department…’ to undertake ‘a risk-based review of a subset of previous visa grants where there are credible concerns the visa holder may hold antisemitic views’.
Progressive antisemitism. Well done Jillian Segal. And I’ll take that thought even further. In my opinion it is the political parties, institutions, and individuals that pride themselves on their progressive credentials that you are most likely to find antisemitism lurking, brewing, metastasising: our most prestigious universities, our wokest corporations, and of course the Labor party, the Greens, the Teals, and the public broadcaster.
Progressive antisemitism. Someone in a position of authority has finally belled the cat. How sweet it is that it is someone appointed by the Labor Party itself. To quote Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah!
The post Australia’s shameful era of progressive antisemitism appeared first on The Spectator Australia.
