Over the last year or so, far right groups in Australia, mimicking those in the US, UK and Europe became increas­ingly open and virulent in express­ing hatred of Jews as a group, and increas­ingly brazen in calling for their murder and genocide.

The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) Report on Antisemitism in Australia documents both anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Semitic discourse. The ECAJ report for 2018 recorded a 59% increase in anti-Semitic incidents over the previous twelve month period, far out-stripping the 10% annual increase over each of the two previous twelve-month periods. In the 2018 period, there were 366 incidents, up from 230 in the previous period.

One group, Anti­podean Res­ist­ance, was respons­ible for 133 (36%) of the year’s total incidents. This was an increase from 50 incidents by the group in the previous twelve month period, and accounted for more than 60% of the increase in incidents overall. Its activ­it­ies were pre­dom­in­antly in the form of posters, stickers, graffiti, murals and one act of vandalism. They are of concern not only because of the greatly increased frequency with which they occurred, but also because they were well-organised and highly targeted.

Anti­podean Res­ist­ance is a neo-Nazi group which ori­gin­ated in Melbourne in October 2016. From small begin­nings it now has members across many parts of Australia. After only two years it accounts for more than one third of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia. The group expli­citly embraces Nazi ideology, sub­scrib­ing to the long-dis­cred­ited pseudo-sci­entif­ic racial theories of a superior “Aryan race” and a sub-human “Jewish race”. Jews are portrayed as operating with a single col­lect­ive mind, plotting to control and dominate the world, and are thereby accused of threat­en­ing the superi­or­ity and dominance of the “Aryan race”. Anti­podean Res­ist­ance names its solution as “White Revolu­tion” – code for the genocide of Jews and the sys­tem­at­ic sub­or­din­a­tion of “non-white” races.

Much of the pro­pa­ganda of Anti­podean Res­ist­ance consists of posters calling to “Legalise the execution of Jews”, warning of “Jewish Poison” and blaming Jews for non-white immig­ra­tion. Other posters, copied from Nazi German pro­pa­ganda in the 1930s and 1940s, depict Jews as Ungez­iefer (‘Vermin’) and glorify the gassing of Jews and the burning of their bodies in Nazi crem­at­or­ia. They incite hatred and violence against Jews with the aim of laying the political and psy­cho­lo­gic­al ground­work for the physical anni­hil­a­tion of Aus­trali­an Jews. Anti­podean Res­ist­ance posters also demonise and incite violence and the murder of homo­sexu­als.

Several far right indi­vidu­als in Australia who were formerly fixated with hatred against Islam and Muslims during 2015 – 2017 have now switched their focus towards Jews. These political activists have not just embraced anti-Semitism but many have also adopted Nazism and a ven­er­a­tion for Hitler.

With classic inversion, neo-Nazis and other white suprem­acists accuse “the Jews” of orches­trat­ing the “genocide” of  European races, “White Genocide”, through the “import­a­tion” of non-Europeans, espe­cially Africans, Asians and Arabs, into Europe, North America and Aus­tralasia, in order to destroy European culture and to subjugate and decimate those of European ethnicity.

In the warped minds of those who have succumbed to the myth of “White Genocide”, the murder of Jews of any age or any back­ground, anywhere and anytime is justified. This is the ideology sub­scribed to by many at the “Unite the Right” rally in Char­lottes­ville, USA, in August 2017 when they chanted “Jews will not replace us.” This is the ideology sub­scribed to by Robert Bowers who shot dead eleven Jews in a synagogue in Pitt­s­burgh, USA, in October 2018.

Online there has been a surge in posted comments calling for the exterm­in­a­tion of Jews world-wide, and of graphic images of Jews being killed – through stabbing, shooting and hanging. Most of this incite­ment occurs on Gab, a Twitter-like platform, which is a haven for extrem­ists and racists. Some of these online haters belong to groups such as Anti­podean Res­ist­ance; others are indi­vidu­als going online to have their hateful and murderous views rein­forced. The depravity of these “keyboard warriors” extends to graphic ideation­al fantasies about how they want Jews to die. They leave no doubt about their murderous aspir­a­tions and inten­tions.

Words, mere words, one may say. Yet history teaches that when people say they want to kill Jews, they usually do – today, tomorrow, next week, or next year. The warning signs are there for those who wish to see them. The far right have called for blood! Lots of blood. Anti-Semitism may start as a simple hatred of Jews, but it often ends in violence, and even­tu­ally mass murder. Ulti­mately it leads to the dev­ast­a­tion of the whole of the society that has been infected by it. What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.

As the political far right emerge from its dark crevices and increas­ingly becomes emboldened and more active, and as far right groups publicly denigrate, demonise and incite violence against Jews, among others, it is incumbent upon political and other leaders to demon­strate that anti-Semitism, and all other forms of racism, are totally unac­cept­able in Australia, and to ensure that coun­ter­vail­ing policies, laws and other measures are adopted and enforced.