The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ), the peak body rep­res­ent­ing the Jewish community nation­ally, whole­heartedly endorses federal Liberal MP Julian Leeser’s bill to establish a judicial inquiry into the surge in reports of antisemitic incidents and discourse on Aus­trali­an uni­ver­sity campuses.

Many uni­ver­sity admin­is­tra­tions have failed to acknow­ledge, let alone address, the problem. A judicial inquiry, as ori­gin­ally called for in May by Mr Leeser, would allow Jewish students and staff to give evidence in a closed hearing, without having to fear reprisals from the fanatical fringe of anti-Israel or Jew-hating students, or vic­tim­isa­tion from anti-Israel and antisemitic faculty members. There would be no oppor­tun­ity for political grand­stand­ing by any party, and the sole focus would be on getting to the truth.

We have no doubt from all the reports we and other Jewish organ­isa­tions have been receiving that the truth will shock the Aus­trali­an public.  The integrity and the quality of our world-class uni­ver­sit­ies is being under­mined by a relent­less infusion of anti-demo­crat­ic, anti-liberal and anti-western values which are com­pletely alien to our free, peaceful and tolerant way of life.

Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim AM says, “Everyone in our community should be concerned about the pre­val­ence of antisemitic acts and discourse on Aus­trali­an campuses in recent weeks, which has been out of all pro­por­tion to demon­stra­tions of other forms of racism at Aus­trali­an Uni­ver­sit­ies.

“A judicial inquiry into antisemitism on Aus­trali­an campuses, and the adequacy or otherwise of the responses of Uni­ver­sity admin­is­tra­tions, is urgently needed. Only a judicial inquiry can have the necessary focus on antisemitism and meet the require­ments of impar­ti­al­ity, con­fid­en­ti­al­ity and decorum that we would expect to be observed.

“Sadly, the Jewish community cannot have con­fid­ence that the inquiry to be conducted by the Aus­trali­an Human Rights Com­mis­sion would meet these require­ments. The AHRC’s record of public state­ments and action in the face of the unpre­ced­en­ted surge of antisemitism that has occurred in Australia, espe­cially since 7 October 2023, has been con­spicu­ously deficient. The recent record of some of the people asso­ci­ated with the Com­mis­sion has also featured a shocking level of bias. In addition, the Commission’s study will have a more generic focus.”

Download

To download this statement, please click here.