Commentary by ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin originally published in The Australian on 13 January 2024.

How Mr Albanese and oth­ers in his gov­ern­ment respond to what Alex Ryvchin, co-chief exec­u­tive of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry, described in The Week­end Aus­tralian as “a lot of anger in the com­mu­ni­ty about the fed­er­al government’s han­dling of what has become an anti­semitism cri­sis” presents the gov­ern­ment, and more broad­ly the Labor Par­ty, with a pro­found, sem­i­nal chal­lenge.

The link between the growth of gross anti­semitism sweep­ing Aus­tralia, and Israel’s brave fight for sur­vival against ter­ror­ism in a war it did not start, is incon­tro­vert­ible. Anti­semitism and the government’s han­dling of the cri­sis can­not, as for­mer trea­sur­er Josh Fry­den­berg said at the week­end, be oth­er than a cen­tral issue in the elec­tion. No amount of hark­ing back to his stu­dent days is like­ly to help Mr Albanese explain his government’s fail­ure “in not recog­nis­ing the dis­tinct­ness of anti­semitism, the con­nec­tion between hatred for Israel and hatred for Jews, and the need to fight it through clear rhetoric and ear­ly inter­ven­tion”, as Mr Ryvchin said.

Bob Hawke, in 1974, had no dif­fi­cul­ty in doing so when he saga­cious­ly declared: “If the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind.”

Fifty years on, there is lit­tle sign of the strong, coher­ent lead­er­ship Hawke showed in recog­nis­ing the con­nec­tion between anti­semitism and the Jew­ish homeland’s fight for sur­vival. Instead, there appears to be a wet let­tuce leaf pol­i­cy approach. Mr Albanese and For­eign Min­is­ter Pen­ny Wong, while con­demn­ing anti­semitism, have lost no oppor­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cise and con­demn Israel, our close ally for 75 years, mak­ing clear their dis­taste for the Jew­ish state and cast­ing Australia’s vote with its adver­saries at the UN. When she final­ly went to Israel last Jan­u­ary, long after many oth­er West­ern lead­ers had gone there to express sup­port fol­low­ing the Octo­ber 7 mas­sacre, Sen­a­tor Wong shied away from vis­it­ing the sites of Hamas’s blood­bath, where oth­er for­eign lead­ers had gone.

In Aus­tralia, the government’s lack­adaisi­cal, dis­joint­ed and uncon­vinc­ing response to the most hor­ri­fy­ing slaugh­ter of Jews since the Holo­caust, and its con­sis­tent­ly strong con­dem­na­tion of Israel over its fight for sur­vival in a war it did not start, has seemed to spur the evil forces of anti-Semi­tism in our midst. That is the lega­cy Mr Albanese will have to defend at a time when many Aus­tralian Jews are so dis­tressed they are talk­ing about migrat­ing.

Their fears are exac­er­bat­ed fur­ther when, as we report­ed at the week­end, extrem­ist groups with­in the Labor Par­ty – such as the Labor Friends of Pales­tine – are even incensed by the intend­ed “fence-mend­ing” trip to Israel that Attor­ney-Gen­er­al Mark Drey­fus, the government’s most promi­nent Jew, is final­ly about to make.

Mr Albanese and his col­leagues would be fool­ish not to heed Mr Ryvchin’s per­cep­tive warn­ing that “Jew­ish Aus­tralians have nev­er before vot­ed on the basis of which par­ty will do a bet­ter job of keep­ing us safe and which par­ty will sup­port Israel when the chips are down”. But that is the prospect the Albanese gov­ern­ment faces. As Mr Fry­den­berg said, since Octo­ber 7 the Prime Min­is­ter has “vacat­ed the space” on anti­semitism. He has failed to fol­low the sen­si­ble lead­er­ship over Israel pro­vid­ed by Hawke and Julia Gillard, and Australia’s future as a tol­er­ant soci­ety is on the line in the elec­tion.

Sad­ly, Mr Fry­den­berg could not be more cor­rect as the elec­tion draws clos­er. Meet­ing the pro­found, linked chal­lenges of anti-Semi­tism and the Jew­ish homeland’s fight for sur­vival against ter­ror­ism will need more than Mr Albanese recall­ing his stu­dent days.