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December 11, 2024
Jewish leaders have accused Penny Wong of waging a "deeply cynical" and obsessive campaign against Israel after she compared the actions of Benjamin Netan yahu's democratic government with those of dictators Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
With Labor's relationship with Jewish Australians at rock bottom, the Foreign Minister was charged with conflating Israel's fight against terrorists with Russia's and China's "blatantly illegal" conduct on the world stage.
The Coalition also accused Senator Wong of smearing and vilifying the Jewish state after she declared in a speech dedicated to longtime friend of Israel Bob Hawke that Australia expected Jerusalem to comply with inter national law as it did Moscow and Beijing. The backlash came as Anthony Albanese sought to repair Labor's frayed relations with the nation's Jewish community by making a belated visit to a firebombed Melbourne synagogue where he declared the attack "an act of terrorism ... fuelled by anti-Semitism".
The Prime Minister, who was heckled by some synagogue members, was accompanied by local Labor MP Josh Burns, who said on Tuesday that not enough had been done to fight anti-Jewish hatred.
Senator Wong used her Hawke Lecture to the University of South Australia to defend the government's stance on Israel, just days after the country's Prime Minister accused Labor of stoking antiJewish sentiment with an "extreme anti-Israeli position".
She cited the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism, which says "criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic".
She said it was not anti-Semitic to expect Israel to comply with international law, to call for children and civilians to be protected in Gaza, or to seek a two-state solution to enable Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace.
"We expect Russia to abide by international law and end its illegal full-scale war on Ukraine," Senator Wong said in the speech on Monday night. "We expect China to abide by international legal decisions in the South China Sea. We also expect Israel to abide by international law."
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council's executive director, Colin Rubenstein, accused Senator Wong of "equating Russia's blatantly illegal, imperialist and arguably genocidal invasion of Ukraine and China's blatantly illegal activity in the South China Sea with Israel's entirely lawful war of self-defence". "Senator Wong's ongoing obsession with one-sidedly chastising Israel is not only undermining forces for reconciliation in the Middle East but also severely compromising Australia's social cohesion and our security relationships with our true allies, especially the United States," he said.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry's head of legal, Simone Abel, said: "Australians know double standards when they see them.
"It's deeply cynical for Foreign Minister Penny Wong to deploy the definition of anti-Semitism against the Jewish people to argue that there is no double standard in Australia's foreign policy towards Israel." She said the criticism of Israel came despite its relative silence on Hamas' executions and torture of alleged collaborators in Gaza, and its muted criticism over the years of the murderous regimes in Syria, Iran and Yemen.
"It's always Israel. That's the definition of double standards," Ms Abel said.
Senator Wong defended the speech on Tuesday, declaring: "The point I was making ... is that international law applies to all of us. It applies to Australia. It applies to all nations, and it's very important to Australia to continue to advocate for the rules and norms that we are part of."
But opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the minister's criticism of Israel was encouraging anti-Semitism and threatening the safety of Australian Jews. "It's clear the Albanese government has learned nothing at all from the terrorist attack last week," Senator Paterson said. "For the Foreign Minister to compare Israel, a friendly liberal democracy, to two authoritarian states, is an outrageous slur.
"It continues Labor's campaign of vilification against the Jewish state and contributes to the climate of fear Jewish Australians are feeling right now. The Foreign Minister should tone down her attacks on Israel before it gets even worse."
Mr Albanese's visit to Melbourne's Adass Israel Synagogue in suburban Ripponlea came four days after it was gutted in an arson attack, and followed his announcement on Monday of a joint police-intelligence taskforce into hate crimes towards Jewish Australians. In a crush of community members and reporters, the Prime Minister vowed the perpetrators of "this evil crime" would receive no benefit from it in the form of further community division.
"We're a country that needs to come together and unite. We are a country that respects people of different faiths and are enriched by our diversity here," he said.
In the wake of the arson attack, the government announced $32.5m to strengthen security at synagogues and Jewish schools.
Mr Burns, who is Jewish and represents the synagogue community as the member for McNamara, conceded the government's response to rising antiSemitism since the October 7 massacre, last year "clearly ... hasn't been enough".
"People are upset. It should never have gotten to this," he told the ABC. "For months and months, we've been warning of the rise of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community has been screaming, saying that we're really worried about this, that this has been escalating. "We need to stamp this out. We need to throw the full resources of government to ensure that these anti-Semitic incidents are crushed."
His comments follow a global warning to Jews to reconsider non-essential travel to Australia following the synagogue firebombing. The American-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, made famous by its hunt for Nazis, has requested a meeting with Australia's ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, to outline its concerns over recent "patterns of violence against Jews" in Australia.
Labor frontbencher Ed Husic warned Islamophobia was also on the rise, comparing the synagogue attack to an incident in Sydney in January when an improvised "bomb" made of a jerry can, rags and a disposable lighter was placed on the car in the driveway of Palestine supporter.
"Should we turn a blind eye to Islamophobia? Is that what the Coalition is saying?" the Science Minister and western Sydney MP told Sky News.
"Because the Coalition has frontbenchers who have said Islamophobia is not a problem, like, which is just ridiculous."
Mr Netanyahu blasted the government following the synagogue firebombing, blaming its policies, including its support for pro-Palestine resolutions in the UN and its visa ban for a former Israeli justice minister, for the "abhorrent act of anti-Semitism".
"Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia," he said on X.