{"id":454919,"date":"2025-12-18T05:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/454919\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T05:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:42:12","slug":"when-lowering-the-temperature-isnt-enough-inside-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/454919\/","title":{"rendered":"When lowering the temperature isn\u2019t enough \u2022 Inside Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early October, Britain\u2019s justice secretary and deputy prime minister David Lammy was booed and jeered<\/a> when he attended a vigil for victims of an attack on a Manchester synagogue the day before. One British Jew had been murdered and police, in the confusion, had shot and killed another, as well as the terrorist.<\/p>\n

Many in attendance accused Lammy and his Labour colleagues of culpability: by allowing antisemitism to flourish since 7 October 2023; for their criticisms of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza; and, most importantly, for recognising Palestine less than two weeks earlier. (Lammy was foreign secretary when the intention to recognise was announced.) A lot of media punditry agreed.<\/p>\n

The toll in our Bondi mass murder on Sunday is many times higher, the evil more profound, but the dynamic of the relationship between our Labor government and the Jewish community is similar. The majority of Australian Jews seem to have viewed the government\u2019s statements and actions on Israel over the last two and a bit years as betrayals. Much of the criticism over that time, most inevitably via News Corp, has at least mentioned the foreign policy decisions, with some seeming to share the Israeli prime minister\u2019s belief that any criticism of the country is antisemitic, or at least \u201crewards Hamas\u201d and encourages antisemitism at home. This, at core, seems to be the government\u2019s major crime in the eyes of most accusers.<\/p>\n

Glibly talking about \u201ceradicating antisemitism,\u201d as many including Anthony Albanese have done this week, doesn\u2019t make it any easier to achieve. But governments can always do something, and that includes setting an example.<\/p>\n

As many have pointed out, when Albanese and his ministers have been asked about antisemitism over the past two years they have trotted out a rote reply: yes, it must be condemned \u2014 as should other forms of discrimination including Islamophobia. This coupling has diluted the nature and importance of antisemitism and the Holocaust\u2019s sheer number of victims.<\/p>\n

The context is complicated by the fact that the federal opposition, particularly under Peter Dutton, has seen political advantage in the issue, as the number of exchanges in question time shows.<\/p>\n

The government would claim it\u2019s just been trying to lower the temperature, especially as some of its electorates include large Muslim majorities. The extent to which this concern morphed into crude electoral considerations before May\u2019s expected close election \u2014 specifically the fear of losing seats to single issue pro-Palestinian candidates, as its British counterpart did last year \u2014 might be in the eye of the beholder.<\/p>\n

Still, even this week, Albanese\u2019s sloganeering seems a bit off. \u201cTerrorists want to divide us, we must not let them\u201d is a clunky response appropriate to urging people not to take out their anger on the Muslim community after an act of Islamist terror. Sunday was certainly in that broad category, but the specificity of the targets \u2014 one of the killers was shooing bystanders away \u2014 makes it different. The fiercest anger Albanese is trying to contain is directed at himself.<\/p>\n

Some political leaders appear able to draw on a deep moral well, at least in public. Kim Beazley, who never became prime minister, was one. Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull as well. Not so Anthony Albanese: displaying sincerity, real or faked, is not his forte. It\u2019s not clear where this deficit comes from \u2014 decades of internal party skulduggery, perhaps \u2014 but when he\u2019s being interviewed he\u2019s always just managing the situation, resorting to talking points, staying out of trouble.<\/p>\n

That habit of extending sentences with an unnecessary phrase \u2014 \u201cat this time,\u201d \u201cin this place,\u201d \u201cgoing forward\u201d \u2014 presumably to give himself space to prepare for the next line, doesn\u2019t make for great oratory. By keeping attention on the other side, the small-target persona obviously worked at both elections he has contested as leader. But it makes for a poor ethicist-in-chief and, after Sunday, mourner-in-chief.<\/p>\n

(There was a time when our head of state\u2019s representative might have taken up some slack. Should governor-general Sam Mostyn be more active, or is she tainted by association with the Labor government?)<\/p>\n

So Sunday\u2019s mass murders have been followed by a lot of criticism of Albanese, what he\u2019s failed to do and is still failing to do. Much commentary is light-on in pinpointing exactly what he\u2019s done wrong, apart from his handling of Israel, or what he should do now. One on Thursday, headlined \u201cAlbanese Has a Moment in History to Do Something Big. He\u2019s Wasting It,\u201d ends up barking just two<\/a> orders: \u201cconfront antisemitism wherever it ferments\u201d (yes, this week apparently) and accept all the recommendations in special antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal\u2019s contentious \u201cPlan to Combat Antisemitism\u201d right now.<\/p>\n

Among the assorted litter elsewhere are some meaningful contributions. ASIO funding should be funded to upgrade its technology. It beggars belief that no automated red light went on when the older shooter\u2019s gun licence was approved, given his son had long been on ASIO\u2019s watch list.<\/p>\n

Call out Labor people like Bob Carr, who seems to take mischievous delight in deliberately using \u201cJewish\u201d rather than \u201cIsrael\u201d when describing its \u201clobbies.\u201d Get serious about preachers of hate in mosques: an old chestnut that\u2019s obviously easier said than done without draconian laws but still worth pursuing. Screen immigrants more thoroughly. Action on most of these fronts was announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The government can also talk about antisemitism with less equivocation. But any outreach to the Jewish community will be difficult, of course, given the animosity.<\/p>\n

Why, in the last four days, is NSW premier Chris Minns spared the sort of opprobrium poured on Albanese when the atrocity, and the constant threat for Sydney\u2019s Jews over two years, took place on his watch and in spite of his government\u2019s law enforcement apparatus? Partly because he has been more forceful in condemning antisemitism without caveats. He also possesses a larger dollop of those public-speaking attributes mentioned above.<\/p>\n

And generally he\u2019s been relatively pro-Israel. Most importantly, of course, state governments don\u2019t have foreign affairs responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s prime minister has been doing what he can this week to keep Australian divisions rife. This being Benjamin Netanyahu, we can assume he believes it is in his personal, as opposed to his country\u2019s, interest. \u2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early October, Britain\u2019s justice secretary and deputy prime minister David Lammy was booed and jeered when he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":454920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50,80,365,5343],"class_list":{"0":"post-454919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-religion","12":"tag-terrorism"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115738977680733476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}