Has the Australia government been asleep at the wheel regarding the welfare of Jewish students after pro-Palestine rallies made national and international headlines at universities last week?
That was the question posed by Australian Jewish Association (AJA) President David Adler, with many Israeli scholars at Melbourne University, University of Sydney, and University of Queensland now concerned for their safety.
These campuses now have pro-Palestine students in encampments on their front lawns calling out education institutions to cease all ties with weapons manufacturers they say are supplying arms to Israel.
There was a heated standoff at Melbourne University on May 2, with pro-Palestine activists staring down members of the Australian Union of Jewish Students, the latter calling for their on-campus freedoms to return.
In the United States, there have been thousands of arrests across the nation in scenes where students have taken control of entire campuses, namely Columbia University in New York, where the pro-Palestine encampment movement began on April 17.
While there hasn’t been that level of violence in Australia, Mr. Adler is deeply disappointed it has got to this point, adding stronger leadership at the federal level would have stopped the illegal encampments from expanding.
“The current federal government with [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese and [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong have been, in our view, the most hostile to Israel and the Jewish community for decades,” Mr. Adler told The Epoch Times.
“Possibly forever.
“They have made a whole series of decisions that have been hostile, and they have not shown the leadership necessary when things get out of hand.
“Take the encampments which we’re seeing at the universities now. If you decided to pitch a tent with some mates and set up where camping was not approved, you’d be tossed out.
“But no action is being taken.”
He also felt let down by the leaders at Australia’s tertiary institutions, particularly after University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott said students needed to put up with being uncomfortable in the face of inflammatory anti-Israel slogans.
These slogans have included “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and calls for an intifada against Israel.
But these phrases do not, in Mr. Scott’s view, meet a benchmark for disciplinary action.
The Epoch Times approached the organisers of a pro-Palestine rally at Melbourne University for comment on May 3 but they chose not to comment.
Free Palestine Melbourne was also contacted for comment.
Its website says it is a “group of activists, advocates, and community mobilisers—both Palestinian and non-Palestinian—who’ve come together to coordinate solidarity action and community awareness-raising for a free Palestine.”
No Place For Any Racism: Clare
Mr. Adler also said the federal minister for education, Jason Clare, has been missing in action over the university encampments.The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Clare for comment, with the federal minister for education issuing the following statement.
“There is no place for hate on our university campuses or anywhere else,” Mr. Clare said.
“There is no place for the poison of anti-Semitism, or Islamophobia or any kind of racism.
“I have made it clear to university vice-chancellors that their No. 1 priority must be the safety of students and staff.
“Universities have student codes of conduct, and they should be enforcing those codes of conduct when this type of behaviour occurs.”
A spokesperson for Mr. Clare added that Australian universities were autonomous entities responsible for their own operations, and the Australian government does not intervene in the day-to-day operations of universities or control their policies.
Mr. Clare’s electorate of Blaxland has one of the highest Muslim populations for any electorate in the country, making the Israel-Hamas issue particularly sensitive.
How This Differs From Ukraine-Russian Tensions
There is something particularly sinister about the rhetoric behind the “Free Palestine” cause, according to Mr. Adler.So much so, that the AJA president believes the freedoms historically associated with Western democracies are now under threat.
“This is something quite deep, and that is if you are pursuing an ideology that is incompatible with Western civilisation—socialism, communism, Islamism—then consciously or unconsciously you attack Israel,” Mr. Adler said.
“I don’t mind if people have views to the contrary—different views are allowed in a democracy.
“But this is deeper. And it’s the only conflict which has resulted in the reactions we’ve seen.”
Mr. Adler pointed to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the fact it has not swept the West and its education institutions in the same manner that the pro-Palestine encampments have.
“Everybody knows that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and there’s a war between Russia and Ukraine,” he said.
“In Australia, we also have a Russian community and a Ukrainian community. If you speak to them, you might find they have oppositive views on who’s right and who’s wrong in the war.
“But they’re not attacking each other. No one is harassing Russian-heritage students at our universities, and nor should they.”
Mr. Adler did not hesitate in saying he believed the pro-Palestine encampments and slogans chanted at universities around Australia were of an anti-Semitic nature.
“We’ve called out that what we’re actually seeing on our university campuses now has echoes of what the Hitler Youth and the Brownshirts did in the lead-up to the Holocaust,” he said.
“And that was to harass and intimidate Jewish students. It led to physically blocking Jewish students.
“Today in Australia, we have Jewish students who have been advised not to go to campus, but to do remote work.”
While stopping short of saying the world was on a murky path towards another major global conflict, Mr. Adler believes Hamas needs to be wiped out, particularly after its atrocities on the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that led to the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis.
“Everyone hopes it doesn’t come to that [another world war],” Mr. Adler said.
