Antisemitism fear spikes as students return to school

Published: 4 February 2025

Last updated: 5 February 2025

Australia continues to face a spate of antisemitic incidents. Schools heightened security as students returned to school this week, the federal government stepped in to ban a neo-Nazi group and QUT apolgised for an incident at an antiracism conference. Commentators blamed foreign policy, online radicalisation and the length of the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza for the spike in antisemitism.

Homes, cars attacked in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne

There were cases of vandalism across Australia over the weekend:

A home in the western Perth suburb of Dalkeith was targeted with antisemitic graffiti, including a Nazi swastika and the words “Fuck Jews.”
A home in Middle Park, Melbourne was marked with several Stars of David and other graffiti.
Cars and garage doors in Randwick, Sydney were sprayed with antisemitic obscenities

The egging of five young women in Bondi was initially reported as an antisemitic attack but police now say the incident was a random attack. Two teenage boys have been charged.

Two teens charged over egging of women in Bondi as police confirm incident not antisemitic; more cars and buildings have been spray-painted in Sydney East (ABC)

Antisemitic graffiti sprayed onJjewish business family's home (Herald Sun, paywall)

QUT apologises for antisemitism at anti-racism conference

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has privately apologised to a Jewish academic who felt threatened at its anti-racism conference.

QUT senior deputy vice-chancellor, Professor Robina Xavier, wrote to Associate Professor Yoni Nazarathy, a lecturer in mathematics and artificial intelligence at the University of Queensland, to “apologise for your reported treatment at the symposium.”

“It was unacceptable for any audience member to feel intimidated at the event,” she wrote in an email.

Nazarathy told The Australian that he felt unsafe at the conference, due to extreme anti-Zionist vilification, public intimidation,and endorsement of violence.

Xavier said all material from the conference will be subject to an external review.

The conference included a presentation by the Jewish Council of Australia's Sarah Schwartz, who displayed a slide referring to "Dutton's Jew". Schwartz said the slide was part of a presentation about and the far-right's racist and reductive concept of Jewish people and Dutton's use of antisemitism as a political football.

When Peter Dutton and the Coalition use the Jewish community as political footballs it makes all of us less safe (Guardian)

Online neo-Nazis group Terrrorgram outlawed

Terrorgram, an online network for neo-Nazis that advocates acts of violence, has been hit with counter-terrorism sanctions by the federal government in response to escalating antisemitic attacks in Australia.

The sanctions make it a criminal offence to use or deal with Terrorgram's assets, under the threat of up to 10 years in jail and hefty fines. It is the first time Australia has imposed counter-terrorism financing sanctions on an online entity.

"We have to use all the tools of government to prevent the rise of extremism, to confront antisemitism and to confront hate in all its forms, and we are doing that," Foreign Minister Penny Wong told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

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Extremist groups tipped to sidestep terror sanctions (The Canberra Times)

Dutton blames online radicalisation for antisemitism

The latest antisemic attacks come as federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton put major tech companies in the firing line over concerns young people are being radicalised amid the spate of antisemitic attacks. Social media platforms profiting off kids need to do more to keep them safe online but failed to do so because of a focus on profits, he said. "Our kids are on their devices constantly, the same rules should apply online as they do in the real world," he told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.

Asked about the responsibility of X owner Elon Musk for this radicalisation, Dutton said he "had a battle for over a decade against people like Elon Musk and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and others who were making money out of our kids", which he said needed to be done in a "responsible way".

Leibler blames foreign policy for sparking antisemitism

Ahead of the upcoming parliamentary sitting week, the ZFA's President, Jeremy Leibler, has written an opinion piece in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, blaming the Labor Government for “allowing its genuine opposition to antisemitism to be tainted by its political fear of the Greens. And in doing so, it has failed the Jewish community at a moment when leadership was needed most.”

Leibler noted that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that Australia’s shift in voting at the UN is to blame for the explosion of antisemitism is simplistic and unhelpful. While Australia’s UN shift is fundamentally flawed and indefensible, the real issue isn’t what the government has done, but what it has refused to do – challenge the hate speech that is powering this wave of hatred. Antisemitism has found a foothold because it has been unchecked, and simply blaming it on foreign policy lets those spreading it off the hook.”

Leibler concluded that “until Australia’s foreign policy returns to a rational, principled footing – where the government can unequivocally rebuke these ways in which Israel is being demonised, and Jews who support its right to exist are slurred as racists or genocide supporters – the Jewish community will not feel that the government is taking the threat of antisemitism seriously. If a government is willing to sacrifice decades of bipartisan support for a fellow liberal democracy to satisfy certain electorates, why should Jewish Australians believe it wouldn’t also deprioritise their safety for political gain?”

Extremism reseach blames length of Gaza war for antisemitism

An extremism researcher who has studied links between a rise in antisemitism and conflicts in the Middle East says the Israel-Gaza war has in part contributed to an "unprecedented" wave of antisemitic incidents. While a spike in hate crimes after a trigger event was normal, the protracted nature of the conflict in the Middle East has led to a "wave" of antisemitism, Extremism academic Matteo Vergani from Deakin University told the ABC. "What is special is the incredible duration, and let's say, recrudescence of the conflict, which of course, created a unprecedented wave of antisemitism in Australia," he said.

Dr Vergani said Australia has proven mostly successful in preventing antisemitic attacks and hate crimes by disrupting incidents before they happen. "Australian law enforcement agencies are really good at monitoring people at risk of engaging in violence, disrupting attacks, organised attacks, before they happen," he said. "Australia is actually a successful story seen from overseas in this regard."