By Jeremy Salt

Murdoch’s television arm, Sky News Australia, is covering the issue of anti-semitism the same way, making no attempt to distinguish between real anti-semitism and hostility to Israel over the genocide.

Benjamin Netanyahu was quick off the mark in exploiting the arson attack on the Adass Synagogue in the inner Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea in the early morning of December 6. His own attack focused on the federal Australian government.

“Unfortunately it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israel position of the Labor government in Australia,” he said.

This included “ the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel ‘to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as quickly as possible’ and preventing a former Israeli government minister from entering Australia. Anti semitism is anti semitism.”

The resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state was passed by the General Assembly on December 3, Australia voting with a 157-8 majority, alongside seven abstentions.

The UN position was strengthened by the formal ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories seized in 1967 is unlawful and should be ended “as rapidly as possible.”

In his infuriated response, Netanyahu said that “awarding anti-semitism and terrorism with a state in the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland and cradle of civilization will invite more terrorism and more anti-semitic riots at campuses and city centers including in Australia.” Referring to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, he said “it is a shame that the current Australian government wants to award (reward) these savages with a state.”

The pointed references to the “Labor” government of Australia and the “current” government are designed to exploit the current embattled state of the Albanese government and the strong likelihood that it will be defeated in next year’s federal election by the opposition Liberal party, led by Peter Dutton, an unquestioning supporter of everything Israel says and does, including the genocide in Gaza.

The Murdochian media rejects all international criticism of Israel and Netanyahu, including the finding of “plausible” genocide by the ICJ and the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arrest and prosecution of Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

It has backed the Israeli lobby’s exploitation of anti-semitism to the hilt, and its deliberate melding of anti-semitism with anti-zionism, as these recent headlines on the internet front page of the Australian, Murdoch’s media flagship in Australia, on December 7 indicate:

‘PM must declare synagogue attack a terror event’; ‘Netanyahu points finger at Labor over synagogue firebombing’; ‘A letter to the PM: enough is enough on anti-semitism’; ‘Albanese is facing the consequences of his failure to protect Jews’; ‘It’s time to examine your conscience, Prime Minister.’

Murdoch’s television arm, Sky News Australia, is covering the issue of anti-semitism the same way, making no attempt to distinguish between real anti-semitism and hostility to Israel over the genocide which – along with the Australian – it has been reporting totally from the perspective of a government headed by a prime minute wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The ‘former minister’ mentioned by Netanyahu is Ayelet Shaked, who was scheduled to talk at a conference organized by the Israel lobby group, the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) until refused a visa on the grounds that she would “vilify Australians” and “incite discord.”

Although the decision can be challenged on the grounds of the right to free speech, there is no doubt that is what Shaked would do.

Although she is now formally out of politics, her background is consistently extreme right-wing. “We need all two million to leave,” she said after October 7. “That is the solution for Gaza.”

In 2014, she shared a Facebook post on remarks by the journalist Uri Elitzur that all Palestinians are enemy combatants, including the mothers who should follow their sons to hell – “nothing would be more just. They should go as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

In the aftermath of his outburst over the arson attack on the synagogue, no one in the Australian media knew or had the courage to point out that the genocide in Gaza orchestrated by the man outraged by the firebombing of one synagogue has included the total destruction of or damage to up to 1000 mosques, including 73 in the first 51 days of the Israeli onslaught.

The better-known mosques targeted by Israel include the Great Mosque of Gaza (the Great Omari), dating back to the 7th century and built on the site of a Byzantine church; the Khalid bin Walid mosque, commemorating a famous military commander in early Islam; the Bani Saleh mosque in Khan Yunus; and the 12th century Sayyid al Hashimi mosque. The destruction includes ancient libraries and fittings.

Churches bombed include the Byzantine church of Jabalya, 1700 years old, and in the process of being restored until the Israeli attack, and the Church of St Porphyrius.

The Victorian police have described the attack on the Adass Israel as a terrorist event and are looking for three suspects. If they are neo-Nazis any synagogue would do; if carried out in the name of the genocide, nothing could be more damaging to the Palestinians and their struggle.

One curious aspect of this attack is that Adass Israel is a small, reclusive religious community that was only drawn to unwanted public attention in recent years by the prosecution of one of its teachers, Malka Leifer, over the molestation of three female students.

It keeps out of politics and is “as far removed from the Gaza conflict as any Jewish group in Australia can be,” one of its members, Nomi Kaltmann, wrote in the online news outlet Crikey.com.

Ultra-orthodox and non-political, Adass Israel believes, like Neturei Karta, that the Jewish people should not create a country until the coming of the Messiah. Accordingly, it is anti-zionist and does not recognize the state of Israel.

There are other bigger and better-known synagogues that closely identify with Zionism and the state of Israel so if the genocide was the motive for the attack, why would the small synagogue of an anti-zionist and anti-Israel community be chosen?

Clearly the Victoria Police have to keep a very open mind in the search for those responsible.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press) and The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923 (University of Utah Press, 2019). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.