RUTHFULLY YOURS

At a meeting of Sydney University’s student council last month, a motion stating that it is ‘not anti-Semitic to call for the elimination of the apartheid state of Israel’ passed almost unanimously. The motion also called for the creation of a ‘single secular democratic state across all of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea’.

Let’s be clear about what this motion really means. Realistically, the ‘elimination’ of Israel could only be achieved by the forced removal of a significant proportion of the seven million Jews who live there. You would need to be staggeringly naive to imagine that a Palestinian state might soon emerge as a ‘secular democratic’ nation where Jews would be safe to carry on living. Right now, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist terrorist outfit, which has openly pledged to slaughter Israelis. It is only thanks to Israel’s willingness to defend itself that horrors like those of 7 October 2023 do not repeat themselves regularly.

This is why the Sydney students’ motion is so disgraceful. It betrays a total indifference towards the fate of almost half the world’s Jews. Yet so far, senior figures from the university have been reluctant to forcefully condemn it. The University of Sydney itself responded to say merely that it ‘does not endorse or condone’ the views expressed at last month’s meeting.

The pretext for the recent motion is as grim as the outcome of the vote. In February, Australian universities were forced to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism after a well-documented outbreak of bigotry targeting Jewish students and academics. At Sydney University, Australia’s oldest, there were months of anti-Israel protests last year. During this period, swastikas were spraypainted on university buildings and protesters called for an ‘intifada’ (that is, a violent uprising).

The new definition states that it is anti-Semitic to call ‘for the elimination of the state of Israel’. In their furious response to this, activists have only revealed their own intolerance and idiocy. At last month’s student-council meeting, members of the (outrageously misnamed) Students Against War group claimed that Israel’s ‘entire reason for existing’ is to ‘displace and massacre’ Palestinians. Apparently, it is therefore perfectly legitimate to call for the Jewish State to be – in that cold and dispassionate phrase – ‘eliminated’.

Some Israeli students bravely pushed back against Students Against War at the meeting. Kovi Rose, a postgraduate, tried to condemn Hamas and its ‘grip’ on Gazans. ‘Why is it that you deserve a loud voice… on the topic of defining what is or isn’t anti-Semitism?’, he asked the anti-Israel students. Depressingly, large numbers of students then stood up and turned their backs on Rose as he tried to make his case.

With the spotlight on US campuses like Harvard and Columbia, where pro-Palestine protesters told Jewish students to ‘go back to Poland’, Australian universities seem to have escaped much of the world’s negative media attention. They shouldn’t have. Just 10 days ago, it was revealed that Sydney had considered ushering Jewish students into exams through separate entrances at the height of campus protests last year. A student at the Australian National University told the ABC that the anti-Semitic butchers of Hamas deserve ‘unconditional support’. Melbourne University has cancelled speeches by Israeli academics to placate pro-Palestine activists. Australian students have been proven to be every bit as despicable as their American and British counterparts.

Such poisonous views are sadly not confined to campuses, either. Since 7 October, synagogues in Australia have been burnt to the ground, the homes of prominent Jewish Australians have been defaced and the offices of a Jewish parliamentarian was targeted by arsonists.

For generations, Australia was seen as a fair and tolerant nation, where people from all backgrounds could unite around common values. Few Australians, let alone the Jewish community, really believe this now.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.