Peter Khalil: The government’s official tightrope walker

Peter Khalil isn’t sure whether the outbreak of antisemitic attacks reflects a broadly-felt sentiment in Australian society, or is the work of a handful of extremists.

“That's a tough one,” says the government’s Envoy for Social Cohesion. “It's a tough one because antisemitism is an ancient hatred that has existed in Western society for a long time. It is part of that kind of historical reality that Jewish communities have faced in many, many countries.

“Has it always been there under the surface, and what we're seeing is an unleashing of what is already there, or is it a case of a very loud minority who are using violence to express hatred or an ideological position, which is not reflective of the wider society?"

Khalil pauses to consider his answer during our interview in his Melbourne office. “I don't know. I really don’t know. But I’d like to think it's the latter – that the broader Australian society doesn't have the same levels of prejudice that existed 30 years ago.”

He stresses that whether the spate of recent attacks in Melbourne and Sydney were by fringe extremists or, as the AFP has suggested, by criminals paid to commit those crimes by foreign actors, does not change their gravity or significance. What matters is that the attacks are occurring, he says, and they must be brought to an end.

Khalil, 51, the federal Labor member for Wills in northern Melbourne, was appointed to the newly-created role of Special Envoy for Social Cohesion in July, a few weeks after Jillian Segal was appointed antisemitism envoy, as the Albanese government stepped up its response to the escalation of targeting of Jewish and other religious institutions in response to the October 7 massacre and Israel’s war against Hamas.