Published: 3 August 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Adam Bandt responded to a comment by the former high-profile candidate comparing Israel with Nazi Germany; Burnside’s partner apologises for attack on Frydenberg
Greens leader Adam Bandt distances party from Burnside tweet (SMH)
Greens leader Adam Bandt has moved to distance his party from a comment by former high-profile candidate Julian Burnside likening Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Nazi Germany, which drew a fierce backlash from the Jewish community.
Several leading Jewish figures accused the prominent Melbourne barrister of anti-Semitism and breaking his promise to Holocaust survivors after he tweeted on Wednesday night that Israel’s “treatment of the Palestinians looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews” during World War II.
Responding to calls from Jewish leaders to condemn Mr Burnside’s comment, Mr Bandt said the Holocaust was “one of the darkest moments in human history” and was “without modern comparison”.
“It has left an enduring and painful scar on the Jewish people, the impacts of which are still being felt today. The Australian Greens abhor racism in all its forms and are particularly concerned by the resurgence of anti-Semitism seen across the world,” Mr Bandt said.
He said the treatment of the Palestinian people could be condemned on its own facts.
Burnside said a “friend at the bar” who had lost family during the Holocaust had contacted him and explained why his comparison was offensive, which he said he accepted and then chose to remove the post.
Burnside partner apologises for attack on Frydenberg (Australian)
The partner of Julian Burnside has deleted and apologised for a tweet that was interpreted as being antisemitic and an attack on Josh Frydenberg’s ancestry, days after the Melbourne barrister issued an apology for his tweet comparing Israel with Nazi Germany.
Kate Durham had responded to a tweet by the Treasurer by writing: “As I told you once, I suspect Burnside knows more about the Holocaust and its subsequent trials than you. As a teen, the Holocaust propelled him into a concern for human rights and refugees, which can’t be said of you, you’re just a Hungarian, just a Liberal.#Fraudenberg.
Ms Durham said she was and is “unreservedly sorry for my remarks” and in defending Mr Burnside, had made things worse.
By the grace of Godwin (Crikey)
There’s an old (internet) adage that when you use the Holocaust to make a point about something unrelated, you’ve lost the argument. In fact, the phenomenon is so enduring that Godwin’s Law was created.
Godwin’s Law states that, the longer an online discussion grows, the higher the probability that someone will use the Nazis or Adolf Hitler to make their point.
The Age reports the former Greens candidate and human rights barrister tweeted that Israel’s ‘‘treatment of the Palestinians looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews’’ (it’s since been deleted). It was in reference to a report that found Israel may have committed war crimes in May, as The Washington Post reports, including three strikes on Gaza in which 62 civilians were killed.
The comparison to the Nazi regime, however, sparked accusations of anti-Semitism, which the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance says is applicable in any “comparison of contemporary Israeli policies to that of the Nazis”.
Greens leader Adam Bandt drew a fairly neat line under the whole thing with his response that the Holocaust was ‘‘one of the darkest moments in human history’’ and was ‘‘without modern comparison’’, continuing that “the treatment of the Palestinian people can be condemned on its own facts”. No Reductio ad Hitlerum required.
Photo: Julian Burnside (Arsineh Houspian)
