30^th April 2013
by Peter Wertheim and Julie Nathan
WHEN the Uni­ver­sity of NSW surveyed staff and students about which new stores they wanted on campus, a Max Brenner chocolate shop was the equal second most popular choice. This has not deterred the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine UNSW from seeking to impose its own pref­er­ences on the rest of the campus community.
They accuse UNSW, and pre­sum­ably staff and students who voted for Max Brenner, of sup­port­ing “Israeli war crimes” and “apartheid”.
Beyond this baseless calumny against Israel, local Max Brenner shops are wholly Aus­trali­an owned and operated.
Yet if that was the extent of SJP’s response, it would hardly rate a mention. But what began as student activism, has ended up in a social media campaign of anti-Jewish vili­fic­a­tion, to the point where many Jewish students on campus feel unsafe.
The Facebook page RALLY! Say no to Max Brenner at UNSW was set up by SJP via the Boycott Max Brenner at UNSW Facebook group. It has hosted dozens of comments that cover the gamut of anti-Jewish ste­reo­types, claiming that Jews are cursed by God, are money-hungry, control the media, and are dirty and evil.
Other posts deny the Holocaust and sim­ul­tan­eously, with textbook cognitive dis­son­ance, blame the Holocaust on the Jews.
The racist postings include a reference to “evil greedy money-loving nature of Jews”, and the claim that “Only news (that) Jews are happy with goes through via media”. Another post reverts to classical religious bigotry: “Of course I have a problem with Jews. You are not the cursed people and were not Banished from the holy land for nothing lol.” Non-Jews who defend Jews come in for oppro­bri­um with the comment: “Tip rats = Jew lovers.”
An espe­cially vicious post rails against “the dirtiest most evil people on earth using the holocaust to their advantage as leverage to establish the state of israel. it was all planned.”
The UNSW Student Rep­res­ent­at­ive Council Ethnic Affairs Officer, Charlotte Lewis, was so shocked she posted: “Reading over these comments has left me gobsmacked at the out­rageous antisemitic slanders mentioned on this event. If I see one more antisemitic comment, I’m taking this to the Uni­ver­sity.”
In a later post, Lewis stated: “I am the Ethno-Cultural Officer, meaning I need to look out for any hate speech towards any ethnic group. I have witnessed many accus­a­tions that the Holocaust didn’t exist, and that Jews are money-hungry pigs. Due to this, several Jewish students actually feel unsafe to step foot into the Uni­ver­sity, meaning I actually DO need to solve this problem.”
Lewis informed the page owners that the UNSW Chan­cellery had been made aware of the page, and its anti-Jewish content, but the uni­ver­sity admin­is­tra­tion appears not to have taken action.
The present National Anti Racism campaign slogan, “Racism, it stops with me”, seems to have fallen on deaf ears among the admin­is­trat­ors at UNSW, which has one of the most cul­tur­ally diverse campuses in Australia.
It has been left to other UNSW students who share Lewis’s disgust to establish their own Facebook page Defend Max Brenner at UNSW, featuring screen­shots of the anti-Jewish posts on the RALLY page to highlight the racism it has spawned. These students posted their own comments on the RALLY page, protest­ing its antisemitism and demanding an end to the anti-Jewish vitriol. For the most part, their demands went unheeded. Some anti-Jewish posts were deleted, but were replaced by others.
SJP has yet to ask itself why it provides a sym­path­et­ic home for naked Jew-hatred. SJP organ­isers wax indignant at the merest sug­ges­tion they are complicit in fomenting antisemitism. Instead, they accuse anyone who points out the raw racism they attract of trying to “censor” them with the intim­id­at­ing charge of antisemitism. It is difficult but necessary for them to under­stand their own role in attract­ing and hosting content which expresses racism against Jews. It is easy, but false, simply to assume any claimed offence is merely feigned for political or other advantage.
Peter Wertheim is Executive Director and Julie Nathan is Research Officer of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, the national peak body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community.