The piece has been published in The Aus­trali­an Jewish News by ECAJ Research Director Julie Nathan.

The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) has just released its annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia. There were 478 antisemitic incidents logged across Australia in the 12 months to September 30, 2022.

This is an increase of more than 40 per cent over the last two years, made up of a 6.9 per cent increase during the year ending September 30, 2022 following the 35 per cent increase reported during the previous year in 2021.

Most of the incidents in 2022 comprised verbal abuse, graffiti and pro­pa­ganda material (e.g. posters, stickers), with the latter category seeing a 70 per cent increase over the previous year.

Two questions arise: What is driving the current spate of antisemitism? And what can be done about it?

A major source of antisemitism is the bur­geon­ing neo-Nazi movement which is active across Australia. It began, in its con­tem­por­ary mani­fest­a­tion, in late 2016 as a small but dedicated group named Anti­podean Res­ist­ance, which then morphed into several other groups, most notably the National Socialist Network (NSN) and its partner, the European Aus­trali­an Movement (EAM), together with other affil­i­ated groups, often geo­graph­ic­ally based.

These neo-Nazis espouse genocidal hatred of Jews and look to Adolf Hitler as their inspir­a­tion and role model. They have adopted National Socialist (Nazi) ideology, imbued with its con­spir­acy theories about Jews. They often dress up their Nazi beliefs as white nation­al­ism, with slogans such as “White Revolu­tion” and “Australia for the White Man”, in order to dupe unsus­pect­ing young males of European back­ground into joining their cause.

In the streets, neo-Nazi groups actively propagate their ideology, mainly by placing stickers on poles and leaflets in let­ter­boxes. In one brazen act, NSN/EAM members stood outside the Holocaust Museum in Adelaide and performed Nazi salutes. This act was pho­to­graphed and posted online, where main­stream media found it and pub­li­cised it.

On encrypted internet sites, neo-Nazis and their fellow trav­el­lers (a mix of white suprem­acists, Christian nation­al­ists, con­spir­acy theorists and other anti­semites) exchange their views, dis­trib­ute pro­pa­ganda material, post about their latest acts of hatred, and dream of an Australia devoid of Jews, Africans, Asians and LGBT people.

It would be wrong to dismiss them as a tiny lunatic fringe of racists. They are growing in numbers, and are led by more polit­ic­ally savvy people. They are not the head-thumping, romper stomper goons of the past. Their long-term goal is to seize political power and take over the Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment by force, as the vanguard of their so-called “white revolu­tion” to “save” Australia from non-European races. Intrinsic to their ideology is the intention, sometimes stated openly, to commit “a Holocaust” against Australia’s Jewish pop­u­la­tion.

For now, these neo-Nazis are promoting their racist ideology, producing hate pro­pa­ganda material, recruit­ing new members, and engaging in legal activ­it­ies aimed at bonding and planning, and solid­i­fy­ing the efficacy of their organ­isa­tions.

State gov­ern­ments and police have recog­nised that neo-Nazis are a growing threat and may instigate violence in the fore­see­able future. Police closely monitor many of them, and new laws have been intro­duced banning the public display of Nazi hate symbols. Although the ban will not stop neo-Nazis, it sends a message to everyone that racist hate will not be tolerated.

“Most of the incidents in 2022 comprised verbal abuse, graffiti and pro­pa­ganda material (e.g. posters, stickers), with the latter category seeing a 70 per cent increase over the previous year.”

At the other end of the political spectrum, a different threat has emerged, not one engaged in overtly anti-Jewish incidents, but one which is more insidious.

Ostens­ibly left-leaning, pro­gress­ive groups, including so-called “anti-racism activists”, are main­stream­ing antisemitism and/or actively under­min­ing the fight against antisemitism. They do this in multiple ways, either inten­tion­ally or inad­vert­ently.

Many wrongly see antisemitism as existing only in far-right circles, and ignore antisemitism emanating from other sources. Others falsely perceive Jews as wealthy and powerful, and therefore excuse any attacks on Jews as “punching-up”, and not as racism. Some ignore anti-Israel discourse which crosses the line into hateful con­cep­tu­al­isa­tions of Jews.

An example is the campaign by anti-Israel activists to oppose the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance (IHRA) Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism from being adopted by par­lia­ments, uni­ver­sit­ies and community organ­isa­tions.

This campaign has falsely claimed that the IHRA defin­i­tion prohibits free speech and any criticism of Israel, despite the fact that the defin­i­tion states expli­citly that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The IHRA defin­i­tion has been widely accepted by gov­ern­ments, the UN and other bodies, and Jewish com­munit­ies through­out the world, as a non-legally binding standard defin­i­tion and edu­ca­tion­al tool to identify and combat antisemitism in all its forms.

The oppos­i­tion to the IHRA defin­i­tion is often expressed in a way that downplays the extent and severity of antisemitism, or suggests that the concerns of the Jewish community about antisemitism should be dismissed or minimised, or implies that the broad Jewish community organ­isa­tion­al support for the IHRA defin­i­tion is disin­genu­ous, or part of a con­spir­acy.

Antisemitism cannot be erad­ic­ated – it is too ingrained in the psyche of European and Middle Eastern cultures. But it can be mitigated and thwarted.

Effective counter-action against antisemitism takes three main forms.

• First, we need the right messaging from political leaders, academics, journ­al­ists, faith and community leaders, and others in positions of power or influence. They need to vig­or­ously condemn antisemitism whenever and wherever it raises its ugly head.
• Second, we need federal, state and territory legis­la­tion that is com­pre­hens­ive and effective against vili­fic­a­tion and advocacy of violence. These laws should be com­ple­men­ted by the estab­lish­ment of a national database of hate-motivated crime.
• Third, education is required to inform people about the par­tic­u­lar­it­ies of antisemitism itself, its history and the various ways in which it manifests, so people can recognise it and act against it when they see it.

The 478 incidents doc­u­mented in the 2022 ECAJ Report on Antisemitism are only a fraction of incidents occurring in Australia. It is crucial that all incidents of antisemitism are reported to the ECAJ, or the state Jewish rep­res­ent­at­ive body, or to local CSGs.

This is essential to equip the Jewish community with the most com­pre­hens­ive and accurate inform­a­tion about incidents to take to police, legis­lat­ors, educators and others. Such inform­a­tion helps us to develop better pro­tect­ive measures for the Jewish community, and to assist in imple­ment­ing gov­ern­ment and community strategies to fight antisemitism.