The commission has done much impressive work hearing the experiences of Jewish people suffering threats, intimidation and violence. The Jewish community backs Bell\u2019s commission desperately hoping for a strong report and recommendations, yet in private many are sceptical <\/a>and worried.<\/p>\n Anthony Albanese knew the immense political risks he faced in creating a royal commission \u2013 it would probe a period when Labor\u2019s leadership was widely seen as a moral and political failure after threats against Jewish people post the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.<\/p>\n From the start Bell was operating in a broken polity, dealing with an inflamed and emotional situation where 15 people had been murdered by violent Islamists. This was a failure of policing and intelligence but reflected a deeper malaise since our civic and institutional culture seemed stranded between paralysis and complacency as antisemitism erupted.<\/p>\n Hopes, reality collide<\/p>\n Unrealistic hopes were vested in the royal commission: that it would identity the evil, function as an agent of social justice, hold perpetrators to account and impose a zero-tolerance regime against antisemitism. <\/p>\n This was always too much to expect. Royal commissions are powerful but not necessarily influential, their impact depending upon the political acceptability of their recommendations.<\/p>\n The stakes, however, are enormous. Given the government\u2019s response to antisemitism was deeply compromised, any prospect the royal commission\u2019s response will be compromised or inadequate becomes a potential calamity risking even greater social division. This is compounded by the conundrum around social cohesion, with Labor\u2019s terms of reference instructing the commission to uphold social cohesion during its deliberations. That\u2019s justified. <\/p>\n \u2018Softly-softly\u2019<\/p>\n But the upshot has been a \u201csoftly-softly\u201d royal commission. <\/p>\n For two years our social cohesion has been trashed, a story that culminated at Bondi, yet the royal commission seems more interested in holding that fabric together rather than identifying what tore it apart. <\/p>\n A moving force behind the royal commission, former treasurer and Jewish leader Josh Frydenberg<\/a>, identified the expectations of the community and much of the nation: \u201cIf the royal commission is going to make a real difference and turn back the tide of antisemitism, it must lay down new red lines that say clearly that we, as Australians, have zero tolerance for the people who fan the flames of hate and the places where it is fostered. If it does not, if it equivocates, if it hesitates, our society will continue to fragment and our quality of life will continue to deteriorate. It will be only a matter of time before there is no longer a thriving Jewish community in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n Bell\u2019s commission sits at an inflection point in Australia\u2019s history. Frydenberg lays down the tests. Yet these tests cannot be met in full by the royal commission. That would require a different body, under a different commissioner authorised by a different government. That said, the royal commission has the potential to make a real difference, but probably not different enough for Australia\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n Herein is the dilemma: resolving our pervasive antisemitism, now ingrained in the far right and wide sections of progressive politics, will be a community-wide project taking many years.<\/p>\n The challenges facing the commission from a divided nation were highlighted this week in evidence from the lawyer for the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network Rita Jabri Markwell, who called Zionism an ideology of \u201cviolent extremism\u201d comparable to white supremacy or Islamic State adherence. She said: \u201cWe cannot ignore that there is a whole body of people within Australia who have been victims of Zionist political violence, and do need to be able to express their fury and their disgust and their anger.\u201d<\/p>\n At the start of hearings into the public broadcasters, Bell said: \u201cIt is not the commission\u2019s purpose to shame or to sow further division in our society, much less to try and resolve the rights and wrong of particular disputes.\u201d That makes sense at one level \u2013 but the commission is dealing with a conflict in our society that goes precisely to the rights and wrongs in how we live together. That is the real issue. There is surely value in a direct approach of putting on the stand more decision-makers and en\u00adablers of antisemitism to probe their motives and actions in the interest of the public and the nation.<\/p>\n Remember the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that ran for five years, conducted a forensic, ruthless unveiling of religious abusers, focused on the Catholic Church, pulled priests from aged care homes to be crossed-examined and exposed their crimes and deceptions with little concern for social, religious or institutional damage \u2013 a devastating display of how purposefully a commission can function with a justified cause. <\/p>\n Of course, the parallels are different. But so is the political will and setting. The Gillard government had a target in mind with child sexual abuse. So does Victorian Premier Ben Carroll with his royal commission into the CFMEU that will put former ALP premiers in the dock. <\/p>\n The setting for the Albanese government is far different. This week the government shut down the parliamentary motion from Liberal shadow minister and prominent Jewish MP Julian Leeser to extend the commission\u2019s reporting date<\/a> to hear vital evidence from key witnesses. His motion was lost 87-48 with most of the crossbench voting with Leeser. <\/p>\n Most independently minded MPs favoured the extension. Leader of the house Tony Burke said there was no dispute about \u201cthe horrific nature of antisemitism\u201d. But Labor said nothing to defend its rejection of the extension. If Bell had asked for an extension, Labor would have had to agree \u2013 but it seems neither Labor nor Bell wants an extension.<\/p>\n In an interview with this paper, former Federal Court judge and royal commissioner Ronald Sackville, while recognising the achievements of the commission, said it could use its \u201cformidable powers of coercion\u201d to probe individuals and make findings attributing responsibility in relation to antisemitism. <\/p>\n Sackville said the process could \u201cpierce the veil of secrecy behind which many perpetrators operate; hold at least some of those perpetrators accountable for their despicable conduct, and reveal to the wider Australian community the kind of people who were prepared to act in this hateful way\u201d. But the one-year timetable restricted the commission\u2019s ability to do this.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cAn obvious example is the rather unfortunate one-day hearing on the October 9 Opera House protest, an event which so traumatised much of the mainstream Jewish community.\u201d <\/p>\n More questions could have been asked about who was responsible for the hateful chants, the motives of the organisers and what they meant by calling for \u201cfree Palestine\u201d. But the issue got less than five hours of attention.<\/p>\n Moving his parliamentary motion, Leeser went to the heart of alarm about the commission: \u201cThe royal commission is, for many Australians, the only chance we will have as a nation to properly expose and address the antisemitism that has become so prevalent in this country and which diminishes us all. It is a royal commission with unfinished business.\u201d The unfinished business was holding people to account. <\/p>\n Leeser said: \u201cIf leaders and decision-makers are not held to account by the royal commission, the antisemitism that has run rampant in our institutions will only continue. The risk is that, rather than rooting out antisemitism, we send a very different message. For those who are not called and not asked to answer for their decisions and actions, the message will be that they are not responsible, that there is no consequence for the failure to lead and that there are no findings or recommendations in relation to their conduct. The powers of a royal commission exist for a reason. They should be used. <\/p>\n \u201cBut the list of witnesses who have not appeared is long. First, the arts institutions and cultural sector, the sector that doxxed and de-platformed Jews. There are Clementine Ford, Matt Chun, John Menadue and so many others. There are Wesley Enoch and Adrian Collette, the chair and CEO of Creative Australia. Why weren\u2019t they asked about their decisions to give grant after artistic grant of taxpayer money with a clear preference for artists who propagate an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish message?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Spat on, harassed, targeted, excluded\u2019<\/p>\n Second, he nominated the universities: \u201cIn the universities Jewish students were targeted relentlessly over the years. They were spat on, harassed, targeted, excluded and occasionally assaulted.\u201d He asked why the university leaders such as Genevieve Bell from the Australian National University and Duncan Maskell from the University of Melbourne were not called (Mark Scott from Sydney University gave evidence).<\/p>\n Leeser asked: \u201cWhy haven\u2019t we heard from academics like Randa Abdel-Fattah, who refuses even to be quoted in an article alongside anyone she deems as a Zionist and encourages children to support an intifada? We saw an intifada at Bondi. It means more dead Jewish bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n Third, Leeser identified the protests, asking why the organisers hadn\u2019t been called \u2013 from the neo-Nazi protest in Melbourne to Islamic preachers Wissam Haddad and Sheik Ibrahim Daoud, \u201cwho was elated by the murder, rape and torture of Jews on 7 October and immediately set about whipping up hatred of Jews here in Australia\u201d. Referring to the weekly protests, he asked where were prominent people such as Josh Lees, Nasser Mashni, Jenny Leong, senator Mehreen Faruqi and others who were not called. Fourth, he asked about the Australian Human Rights Commission, which had not been asked in any serious way to account for the failure to stand up for Australian Jews. <\/p>\n Finally, Leeser asked senior ministers including the Prime Minister to front the commission: \u201cLet us hear from you, under oath, what went wrong from the very top. Show that you are serious about fixing antisemitism into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems apparent, however, such inquiries are both beyond the feasible scale and intent of the commission. <\/p>\n There are two vital areas where the royal commission has won support and raised hopes. It has heard and honoured the experience of many Jewish people and provided an invaluable resource and record of the fierce and insidious hostility they have experienced \u2013 traits that should have no place in Australia. <\/p>\n In addition, in a range of practical areas from law enforcement, security agencies, regulating excesses of the tech companies and relations between federal and state agencies, the royal commission is expected to delivered extensive recommendations.<\/p>\n This is the realm of hands-on policy and administration where the commission can make a genuine difference.<\/p>\n But the deeper dissection of the cultural and political roots of Australia\u2019s antisemitism doesn\u2019t fit neatly into a royal commission framework. <\/p>\n Contemporary antisemitism exists in both right-wing and left-wing ideologies in Australia, the latter being more influential. This situation is made more complex by the bizarre alignment between radical Islamist movements, deeply hostile to Israel and to its existence, and rising left-wing progressivism that demonises Israel as an illegitimate, settler-colonial society, a bastion of white privilege occupying Palestinian land \u2013 a distortion at multiple levels. These two movements are naturally opposing ideologies, yet they have found common cause in a campaign against Zionism.<\/p>\n A recent paper, Path to Perdition: How Israel Went from Peoplehood to Pariah, by University of Sydney professor emerita Suzanne D. Rutland and published by the Centre for Independent Studies, goes to the essence of antisemitism and why it will be so hard to eclipse. <\/p>\n Israel and the Jewish people have undergone a moral recoding in which they are no longer seen as Holocaust victims deserving their own nation but as architects of a new Holocaust against the Palestinian people. Islamists and the left have turned the Holocaust on its head. <\/p>\n Rutland said: \u201cThe Palestinian tragedy had to be inflated into a new and even more horrific Holocaust instigated by Israel itself. Zionism was allegedly responsible for this terrible and unique crime.\u201d <\/p>\n Zionism was cast as worse than fascism, more hateful than imperialism. Pivotal to the moral recoding is the relentless campaign to depict Israel as an agent of genocide against the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s ruthless military campaign in Gaza allows Jews to be depicted as baby killers, the embodiment of \u201cabsolute evil\u201d.<\/p>\n Rutland documents how far this Nazi-Zionist nexus has taken hold across Western societies, with many mainstream journalists now routinely calling Israel\u2019s action \u201cgenocidal\u201d \u2013 the inevitable consequence being to encourage incitement against Jewish people. <\/p>\n Once Zionism is tied to genocide, then most Jews who are also Zionists become fair game with hostility towards them vested in a moral exhortation.<\/p>\n The elimination of Israel as a state can be achieved only by war and violence. Yet in our public debate this reality is usually ignored, deliberately dodged or regarded as too impolite to mention. Why? We seemed frightened of penetrating to the essence of our social fracture. It is another commentary on our decline: while untruths are paraded as new truths, real truths are best forgotten. <\/p>\n This entire reversal is a flawed moral project but a project that in Australia inspires a fanaticism against Israel and is believed by many good-natured but poorly informed people. Both sides of Australian politics reject the idea of Israel as a racist state and support the principle of a two-state solution in the Middle East. <\/p>\n But these once-accepted ideas are under assault. Polarisation in Australian society has many causes but the elevation of the Middle East conflict into a frontline issue now fused with the Bondi massacre deepens that polarisation and impoverishes our country. <\/p>\n The challenge inherent in the royal commission\u2019s capacity to address these cultural and political forces was captured last month in an article published in The Financial Review by RMIT professor Sinclair Davidson: \u201cThe civilising institutions of our society have failed. Schools, universities, political parties, media organisations, religious institutions, professional bodies and civil organisations all shape the moral vocabulary of public life. For too long, too many have rewarded the habit of seeing politics through inherited identity, collective guilt and group grievance. Our institutions now speak the language of \u2018inclusion\u2019 while classifying people by ancestry, power, guilt and grievance. That is how obvious bigotry got laundered into acceptable politics. <\/p>\n \u201cAntisemitism has been repackaged as justice, resistance, decolonisation and anti-imperialism. The words change but the old hatred remains; it is now respectful and vaguely intellectual.\u201d<\/p>\n The royal commission was charged with \u201cinvestigating the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in institutions and society\u201d and examining \u201creligious and ideologically motivated extremism\u201d, but that mandate can never be honoured by pretending it will be sailing on smooth water.<\/p>\n This situation was best put by my colleague Henry Ergas in his submission to the commission: \u201cIn the end, every liberal democracy, if it is to endure, must give its enemies enough rope to hang themselves \u2013 but not enough rope to hang others. <\/p>\n \u201cStriking the balance demands a cold, hard view of the world as it is. We have adamantly refused to take it. Unless we open our eyes, it is only a matter of time before the social cohesion of which this country could be rightly proud is a thing of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large on The Australian. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of the paper and he writes on Australian politics, public policy and international affairs. Paul has covered Australian governments from Gough Whitlam to Anthony Albanese. He is a regular television commentator and the author and co-author of twelve books books including The End of Certainty on the politics and economics of the 1980s. His recent books include Triumph and Demise on the Rudd-Gillard era and The March of Patriots which offers a re-interpretation of Paul Keating and John Howard in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While a royal commission following the worst political massacre in our history was needed, the idea that 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<\/a>Paul Kelly<\/a>Editor-At-Large<\/p>\n