Published: 3 June 2025
Last updated: 4 June 2025
Many Jews whether religious or not, believe in the idea of the messiah delivering for the Jewish people. The way some Jews campaigned at the recent federal election, it seemed they cast Peter Dutton, a vocal supporter of Israel, as that messiah, expecting he would become the new prime minister and cast out the "evil" Albanese Labor government.
Australian Jewish leadership, historically politically neutral virtually bet the house on Dutton winning, and a large and loud section of the Jewish community banked on them being right.
It was a dramatic failure: the Australian community rejected what the Liberals were selling, by a large margin.
The election campaign must be seen as a massive failure by the leadership of the Jewish community in political management, powered by what can only be described as an extraordinary level of arrogance.
The anti-Labor campaign
The events of the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel and the subsequent shocking rise in Jew hatred in Australia has of course had a massive and profound impact on all of our community. The dismay and the anger directed toward the government has been felt by Jews of all political persuasions.
Let’s be clear, the government warranted strong criticism. The Jewish community has justifiably felt shaken to the core by the rise in antisemitism in Australia. Many Jews now question our place in this society.
For the first time ever, many Jewish voters considered this the central and only issue in determining how they might choose to vote. By the end of 2024 and especially following the Adass synagogue fire-bombing in Melbourne a huge chunk of Jewish Labor voters was for the first time in their lives considering not voting Labor.
Comments7
John Lefebure15 July at 10:19 pm
There has only ever been one Messiah, who was, who is and is to come. What is his name? The only name under heaven given onto me by which we will saved.
Brian stagoll4 June at 01:04 am
Very useful analysis The same applied Wills for Peter Khalill, but from the green’s support for”Free Palestine”,with a vicious campaign of abuse, threats and defacings against Khalill .This backfired badly:civility and tolerance won for the ALP .Thanks Henry
Ian Ossher3 June at 10:57 am
The extent to which the Liberals, together with their Liberal funded Better Australia, Advance Australia and Australians for Prosperity, tarnished the election with their hate-filled vitriol against the incumbent member for Wentworth was nothing short of disgraceful. With Dutton weaponizing anti-semitism as a political tool to draw support for his Liberal candidate, failed nevertheless in its absence of policy and the antogonistic, ‘I will be in the cabinet’ candidate who lied and sneered her way through the election, stoking the fear and anxiety of many members of the Jewish community to behave shamefully whenever and wherever they could. There were many of us ‘other’ Jews simply stupefied, ashamed and gutted by this behaviour. The thrill of the Liberals being downgraded to a nothing party nevertheless is a Pyrrhic victory, the vitriol unabated, the shameless still unashamed. Fortunately for Wentworth, their member returns to Parliament, a friend still to all her constituents, a policy driven intellectual with the capacity for empathy and sympathy for all.