Article by Sam Salcman OAM.

By any honest measure, the past year has been one of the most con­front­ing periods for Jewish Aus­trali­ans in recent memory. Jews were massacred on Bondi Beach, and Jewish students have been harassed on campuses. Syn­agogues have required heightened security. Many Jews have felt, often for the first time in their lives here, that their place in Australia’s easy pluralism is less certain than it once seemed.

In this context, the recent inter­ven­tion by Damien Freeman, published through the Centre for Inde­pend­ent Studies, is both timely and important. Freeman is right to insist on a truth that many have been reluctant to state plainly: for most Jews, Zionism is not an optional political add-on. It is a core part of Jewish identity. When Zionism is singled out as uniquely ille­git­im­ate, many Jews exper­i­ence this not as abstract criticism of a foreign gov­ern­ment, but as a denial of their own people­hood.

Zionism, after all, is simply the belief that the Jewish people — like any other people —  have the right to national self-determ­in­a­tion in their historic homeland. It emerged not from imperial ambition, but from centuries of exclusion, per­se­cu­tion and state­less­ness. For Aus­trali­an Jews, most of whom are the des­cend­ants of refugees, this history is not the­or­et­ic­al. It is a family memory.

Freeman deserves credit for chal­len­ging the com­fort­ing fiction that hostility to Zionism exists in a neat com­part­ment, entirely separate from hostility to Jews. In practice, the line is often far less clear. When Jewish students are inter­rog­ated about their views on Israel before being admitted to social spaces, or when Jewish community insti­tu­tions are treated as proxies for a foreign gov­ern­ment, something more than ordinary political dis­agree­ment is taking place.

And yet, if Freeman is right about the ser­i­ous­ness of the problem, the Jewish community and its allies must also be careful about how they make the argument.

The defence of Zionism in Australia cannot afford to become a partisan project.

For more than a century, Jewish life in this country has flour­ished not because Jews aligned them­selves with one political faction, but because Australia itself main­tained a broadly shared com­mit­ment to liberal democracy, minority rights and mutual respect. Support for Israel and accept­ance of Jewish identity have his­tor­ic­ally existed across the political spectrum. That bipar­tis­an found­a­tion has been one of the great strengths of Aus­trali­an Jewish life.

It would be a profound mistake to weaken it now.

Zionism is not a con­ser­vat­ive idea. Nor is it a pro­gress­ive one. It is a national idea. It is the expres­sion of a people’s right to exist col­lect­ively in safety and dignity. To frame it primarily as a weapon in Australia’s internal ideo­lo­gic­al debates risks mis­un­der­stand­ing its nature and under­min­ing its legit­im­acy.

There is also a deeper strategic reality. Jewish safety in Australia has never depended solely on law enforce­ment or insti­tu­tion­al rules. It has depended on something more intan­gible but equally vital: the goodwill of neigh­bours, col­leagues and fellow citizens. It has depended on the quiet, daily rein­force­ment of the idea that Jews belong here — not as outsiders, not as inter­lopers, but as fellow Aus­trali­ans.

That goodwill cannot be commanded. It must be main­tained.

This does not mean remaining silent in the face of antisemitism. On the contrary, antisemitism must always be con­fron­ted clearly and firmly. But it does mean avoiding the tempta­tion to frame Jewish belonging as con­tin­gent on political victory over ideo­lo­gic­al opponents.

Australia’s success as a mul­ti­cul­tur­al democracy has rested on a simple principle: that people of different back­grounds and beliefs can disagree pas­sion­ately while still recog­nising one another’s equal legit­im­acy.

That principle must apply to Jews as well.

Zionism does not need special pleading. It needs a fair under­stand­ing. It needs Aus­trali­ans to recognise it for what it is: the national movement of a small people who learned, through bitter exper­i­ence, the cost of state­less­ness and power­less­ness.

Freeman has helped reopen an important con­ver­sa­tion. But the ultimate goal must not be to win an argument. It must be to preserve something far more precious: an Australia in which Jews — and all minor­it­ies — can live openly, con­fid­ently and without fear.

That is not only a Jewish interest.

It is an Aus­trali­an one.