The last three years

For the last three years the Aus­trali­an Jewish community has enjoyed unpre­ced­en­ted support and under­stand­ing from the Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment, led by Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on matters con­cern­ing Israel and domestic policy.

Australia has main­tained a realistic and prin­cipled stand against recog­nising a Palestini­an State under the dys­func­tion­al Palestini­an Authority, and in favour of recog­nising west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  Australia has con­sist­ently voted against the obsessive anti-Israel res­ol­u­tions which are ritu­al­ist­ic­ally passed by the UN each year.  It stopped funding the Palestini­an Authority and cut funding to UNRWA.

Domest­ic­ally, Australia embraced the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance (IHRA) Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism and listed the whole of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organ­isa­tions.  Syn­agogues, schools and other Jewish community insti­tu­tions received unpre­ced­en­ted levels of funding to help pay for security infra­struc­ture.  Holocaust museums were funded in every State and Territory.

The new Labor gov­ern­ment

Under a Labor gov­ern­ment led by newly sworn in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and with a new par­lia­ment, the picture for the future is more mixed.

In the week before the election, one media outlet showed clips of Albanese’s par­lia­ment­ary speeches from 2000 and 2002 painting Israel as an “oppressor”, blaming Ariel Sharon alone for starting the second Palestini­an intifada, claiming that the estab­lish­ment of Israel itself created millions of Palestini­an refugees, accusing Israel of using excessive force and funding Hamas and comparing Israel’s conduct to that of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  It also showed him in 2018 sup­port­ing a notorious UN Human Rights Council move to “invest­ig­ate” Israel.

Yet despite being pho­to­graphed smiling with then UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn during a visit to the UK in 2017, Anthony Albanese has gone out of his way in recent times to make it clear that he is not Jeremy Corbyn and that the Aus­trali­an Labor party is in no way com­par­able to the Corbyn UK Labour party.  The stunning electoral defeat of UK Labour under Corbyn in 2019 seems to have had a chasten­ing effect on Albanese’s thinking, including about Israel.

In an hour-long, on-the-record interview with the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) in July 2021, which was prom­in­ently reported in the general media, Albanese denounced the Boycotts, Divest­ment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, describ­ing it as “based upon a racial targeting of a group, in this case Israel”, and slammed moves within his own party to promote BDS.

Labor’s new Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, has also repu­di­ated BDS and attempts to del­e­git­im­ise Israel.  In June 2021, she publicly slapped down a res­ol­u­tion by the Queens­land branch of the ALP accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing”. Wong described the res­ol­u­tion as “coun­ter­pro­duct­ive” and said that “viewing the conflict from one per­spect­ive would not advance the cause of peace”.

In his interview with the ECAJ, Albanese went on to reject the use of the apartheid analogy to demonise Israel as “ahis­tor­ic­al” and “offensive”, strongly endorsed the IHRA Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism, reaf­firmed Labor’s strong support of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, praised the Abraham Accords, and added that an ALP gov­ern­ment would work con­struct­ively with Israel, espe­cially over “issues we have in common” such as “scarcity of water”, and “new tech­no­logy”.

Albanese’s comments were condemned by the Palestini­an Authority rep­res­ent­at­ive in Australia and anti-Israel activists.

Yet there is also a negative side to the change of gov­ern­ment which cannot be sugar-coated.  Although Israel continues to have many long-standing friends within the ALP, they do not have the numbers within the party to carry the day on certain Israel-related issues.

The ALP’s policy platform changes and public state­ments by key ALP figures in March 2021 create the distinct prospect, although it is not an inev­it­ab­il­ity, that under its new gov­ern­ment Australia will recognise a Palestini­an State, withdraw recog­ni­tion of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, revert to a voting pattern at the UN that is less sym­path­et­ic to Israel and increase funding to UNRWA, which will in effect free up more Palestini­an funds for terrorism. These moves would be voci­fer­ously opposed by virtually the whole of Aus­trali­an Jewry, among others.

More Greens means a less friendly par­lia­ment for the Jewish community

Many staunch friends of Israel and the Jewish community will no longer be in the Federal par­lia­ment including Australia’s Jewish former Treasurer, Josh Fry­den­berg, and former Ambas­sad­or to Israel Dave Sharma.

Several newly-elected Greens can­did­ates such as David Shoebridge and Max Chandler-Mather have a one-dimen­sion­al record of cri­ti­cising Israel at every turn, joining like-minded ALP MPs like Senator Sue Lines, who is now likely to be President of the Aus­trali­an Senate, and Josh Wilson.

Answering a pre-election ques­tion­naire from the ECAJ, the Greens expressed a “com­mit­ment to com­batting antisemitism and all forms of racism”. However, the Greens are the only party rep­res­en­ted in the par­lia­ment not to endorse the IHRA Defin­i­tion.   For many in the Jewish community the Greens’ decision not to endorse IHRA puts into question the value of that com­mit­ment.

Greens spokespeople have no dif­fi­culty con­demning racial forms of antisemitism and Holocaust denial from neo-Nazis and other white suprem­acists, but seem to be emo­tion­ally and ideo­lo­gic­ally incapable of recog­nising more con­tem­por­ary forms of antisemitism from the “pro­gress­ive” side of politics, including the rejection of Jewish people­hood and the Jewish people’s col­lect­ive right of national self-determ­in­a­tion.

The Greens are also the odd ones out on BDS. In their answers to the ECAJ’s pre-election ques­tion­naire, the Greens stated “Boycotts, Divest­ment and Sanctions is not Aus­trali­an Greens policy”.  Every other party, including Labor, responded to the same ques­tion­naire by express­ing clear oppos­i­tion to BDS.

Whilst the Greens will not be part of the gov­ern­ment, their increased numbers in the par­lia­ment will enhance the political voices who are hostile to Israel and opposed to values and policies which are over­whelm­ingly supported by the Jewish community.

The teal Inde­pend­ents

The biggest change to have been brought about by the election is the rise of a new third force in Aus­trali­an politics.  A group of Inde­pend­ent can­did­ates succeeded in wresting from the Liberals six of the seats in Sydney and Melbourne which have tra­di­tion­ally been part of the Liberals’ heartland.

Known as the “teals” after the blue-green campaign colour they each adopted, this group combines economic and foreign policy con­ser­vat­ism, signified by the Liberals’ blue colour, with social pro­gressiv­ism, including “green” views on the need for action against climate change.

All six teal MPs are highly-educated, accom­plished pro­fes­sion­al women.  Their election seemed to punish the Liberal Party for its long-standing reluct­ance to promote gender equality among its preselec­ted can­did­ates, and Prime Minister Morrison’s apparent tone-deafness to com­plaints of sexual abuse of women within the par­lia­ment and the issue of domestic violence against women and children.

Answers to the ECAJ pre-election ques­tion­naire were provided by two of the most prominent of the new teals MPs, busi­ness­wo­man Allegra Spender, and Zoe Daniel, a former journ­al­ist for the Aus­trali­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­por­a­tion (ABC).

Allegra Spender and, perhaps more sur­pris­ingly Zoe Daniel, gave clear and defin­it­ive answers opposing uni­lat­er­al recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state and sup­port­ing Australia’s recog­ni­tion of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Australia’s current voting pattern favour­able to Israel at the UN.  They both rejected BDS and gave unequi­voc­al support to the IHRA defin­i­tion. They also expressed strong support for the Jewish community on domestic issues such as expanded security funding and beefed up education about the Holocaust and against prejudice.

Some within the Jewish community expressed doubts about the sincerity of the teal inde­pend­ents’ stated positions in support of Israel.

At a can­did­ates’ forum co-hosted by the ECAJ, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and Aus­tralasi­an Union of Jewish Students two weeks before the election, Allegra Spender sought to dispel those doubts, force­fully dis­so­ci­at­ing herself from an anti-Israel activist who had been one of her prominent sup­port­ers.

Zoe Daniel has evidently been less suc­cess­ful in con­vin­cing her critics in the community of her pro-Israel cre­den­tials. In May 2021, she joined other journ­al­ists and com­ment­at­ors in signing the now-notorious “Do Better on Palestine” letter, which in effect called for journ­al­ists not to report even-handedly on the Israel-Palestini­an conflict and to give priority to “Palestini­an per­spect­ives”.

Ms Daniel sub­sequently said she does not agree with everything that appeared in the letter she signed, and would have worded it dif­fer­ently, but will not withdraw her signature.

So the doubts have persisted.  It will be inter­est­ing to see how Ms Daniel’s answers to the ECAJ’s questions on Israel will be received by her co-sig­nat­or­ies to the letter, and indeed by many of her former col­leagues in ABC news and current affairs, who have long practised the kind of reporting on Israel that the letter called for.

Both Allegra Spender and Zoe Daniel have reached out to the ECAJ and the Jewish community seeking deeper engage­ment, which we welcome.

Con­clu­sion

The extent to which Jewish community issues influence the way Jews vote has long been the subject of spec­u­la­tion and study.  Judging by the care and detail that went into the answers provided to the ECAJ ques­tion­naire by the parties and inde­pend­ents, it seems that they see these issues as highly important.

Peter Wertheim is co-CEO of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, the peak national rep­res­ent­at­ive body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community.