The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) today issued the following statement con­cern­ing the debate about the campaign for Boycotts Divest­ment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and the targeting of the Max Brenner chain in Australia.

Criticism of the BDS Campaign

There has been wide­spread criticism of the recent BDS protests against Max Brenner outlets in Sydney and Melbourne. The criticism has come not only from Labor and Coalition members of par­lia­ment, Federal and State, but also from some of their Greens col­leagues. The ECAJ thanks all of them for their efforts in opposing and speaking out against the Aus­trali­an arm of the global BDS campaign against Israel.
The Max Brenner chain is a legit­im­ate, privately owned business that operates in accord­ance with Aus­trali­an law. It provides employ­ment to approx­im­ately 750 Aus­trali­an workers and pays taxes that con­trib­ute to the public revenue. Its alleged ‘crime’ is to be connected in some way to a company that supplies chocolate and other food products to the Israeli army.
Recently, the Aus­trali­an Com­pet­i­tion and Consumer Com­mis­sion (ACCC) was asked by the Victorian gov­ern­ment, with the near unanimous support of the Aus­trali­an Senate (excluding the Greens), whether the BDS campaign against Max Brenner outlets con­sti­tutes a secondary boycott in con­tra­ven­tion of section 45D of the Com­pet­i­tion and Consumer Act 2010. The ACCC concluded that thus far there has been no con­tra­ven­tion because the BDS campaign is unlikely to have had the effect of causing sub­stan­tial loss or damage to the business of Max Brenner, as would be required to con­sti­tute a breach of section 45D.
Whilst in some respects that con­clu­sion is dis­ap­point­ing, it high­lights how inef­fec­tu­al and unsuc­cess­ful the BDS campaign has been in per­suad­ing the Aus­trali­an public not to patronise Max Brenner shops. Indeed, the BDS campaign has, if anything, succeeded in ali­en­at­ing broader public opinion in Australia and engen­der­ing sympathy and support for the target busi­nesses.

Racist rhetoric employed in the BDS campaign

The ECAJ is, however, concerned about some of the rhetoric that has been deployed by both sides of the public debate con­cern­ing BDS. On occasions, some of those sup­port­ing BDS have lapsed into both overt and implicit antisemitism, and some of those opposing BDS have inap­pro­pri­ately likened Greens leaders to “Nazis”. Neither infrac­tion excuses the other. We note that no members of par­lia­ment, Federal or State, on either side of the debate, have engaged in these extreme forms of rhetoric.

Inappropriate Holocaust Rhetoric

The way to combat these more con­tem­por­ary and subtle forms of antisemitism is not, in our view, to fight fire with fire. Whilst hyperbole is to be expected in any free-flowing political dis­cus­sion in Australia’s robust democracy, special care is needed to avoid comparing any Aus­trali­an political leaders or members of par­lia­ment to “Nazis” or comparing any political party in Australia to the former Nazi regime in Germany. There is, thank­fully, nothing in Australia’s history and exper­i­ence that is even remotely com­par­able to the unique evil and horror of the Hitler period in Germany and Europe.

The ECAJ is concerned that some of the media discourse has resorted to rhetoric that has been less dis­cip­lined than it should be. In par­tic­u­lar we seek to dis­cour­age the use of imprecise analogies with the Nazi regime. One must acknow­ledge that there are sig­ni­fic­ant his­tor­ic­al dif­fer­ences between rag-tag groups of BDS pro­test­ers outside Max Brenner outlets in Australia and a campaign backed by the Nazi state and enforced by state-sanc­tioned Nazi thugs who picketed shops owned by Jews in Germany in the 1930’s. Yet Nazis commenced their campaign as pur­portedly private action before there was gov­ern­ment sanction for it.

In another context which has nothing to do with the BDS issue cartoons were recently published in a syn­dic­ated newspaper depicting Greens leader Bob Brown as a book-burning Nazi, complete with swastika arm-band, Gestapo cap and SA (Stur­mab­teilung) uniform. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was similarly portrayed. Even allowing for the usual latitude accorded to political car­toon­ists, nothing can justify comment of this nature. Political leaders are fair game for all kinds of criticism, but this exceeds the bounds of fairness and dimin­ishes the uniquely evil character of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.
Some BDS sup­port­ers have also been guilty of making inap­pro­pri­ate com­par­is­ons with the Nazi era. It is not uncommon to see placards at their demon­stra­tions which depict the Israeli flag with a swastika at its centre in place of the Star of David or contain other images which, as referred to in the Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism, draw com­par­is­ons between Israel and the Nazis. Clearly, BDS leaders and sup­port­ers are in no moral position to accuse others of lacking rhet­or­ic­al virtue.
Rejecting inap­pro­pri­ate com­par­is­ons between the BDS campaign and Nazi Germany does not require us to accept the claim that the BDS pro­test­ers are merely opposed to Israeli gov­ern­ment policies and actions with regard to the Palestini­ans, but are not in any way animated by anti-Jewish prejudice. The BDS protests do not have to rise to the level of ser­i­ous­ness of the Nazi era in order, on occasion, to qualify as antisemitic.
Further, the BDS campaign is cal­cu­lated to orches­trate public hatred, an ugly and unworthy tactic regard­less of the alleged target. The fact is that an unusually high per­cent­age of Aus­trali­an Jews are survivors of the Holocaust. Nobody should callously dismiss the reaction of Aus­trali­an Jews to the sight of Jewish-owned shops once more being picketed by chanting, aggress­ive demon­strat­ors many of whose faces are contorted in hate, as can be seen on YouTube and other record­ings of BDS events. Even though the parallels to Nazi Germany are an his­tor­ic­al over-statement, those who have suggested that that reaction is contrived should be ashamed of them­selves. The reaction is entirely genuine and under­stand­able.
Nev­er­the­less, the ECAJ is asking all of our political rep­res­ent­at­ives who count them­selves as sup­port­ers of Israel and opponents of BDS, and the media, to refrain from the inap­pro­pri­ate use of analogies to the Nazis, and to provide moral lead­er­ship to others to exercise restraint in their rhetoric. This is the right thing to do even if it is a vain hope that sup­port­ers of BDS will exercise a recip­roc­al respons­ib­il­ity to eliminate express or implicit antisemitism from their rhetoric.