This week’s’ Israel Matters explores the current state of anti-Semitism, particularly in Hungary, and the role of the church in combating it. Stephen Briggs discusses recent events, including a controversial Super Bowl ad and the reception of the Israeli delegation at the Winter Olympics. He then speaks with Sara Kulifai, who shares insights on Hungary’s historical context regarding anti-Semitism and the church’s proactive stance in fostering Jewish-Christian relations. The discussion emphasizes the importance of education, activism, and biblical understanding in addressing anti-Semitism. Israel Matters to God so should Matter to Us. The interview with Sara Kulifai is enlightening as she shows how one church with the right leadership can make disciples like Sara that can influence nations for good. Make sure you share this video widely as hopefully it will challenge many churches to look at how they are influencing at least the communities they serve.
Category Archives: antisemitism
THE RISE OF ANTISEMITISM IS JUST ANOTHER END TIMES SIGN
As we see antisemitism on the rise we need to be reminded that from 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. Think about it, using Hitler, Satan was able to takeover the entire nation of Germany and use it for his purposes. The rise of antisemitism is just another prophetic end times sign.
It is time to circulate this video widely as we approach the time of Jesus return. Get ready to rule and reign with Jesus in His Millennial Kingdom – http://www.millennialkingdom.net.
ANTI-SEMITISM: HOW IT ENDS
Marxists continue to plug the idea of Communism as the answer to all mankind’s problems – not directly, but indirectly, by criticising every fault and alleged failing of democracy, shaping the minds of university students who are influencing public life, including politics.
Gradually, imperceptibly, crazy ideas – not least, that men could become women and vice versa – took over. Rather than frankly stating that Communism was better than democracy – that the ‘collectivity’ was better than capitalism – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion were set up as laudable goals, and everything and everyone was measured against them.
This stymied opposition – people were reluctant to be accused of being against diversity, inequity and exclusion – but upon it was built a social system that banned a diversity of ideas, promoted inequity, and excluded anyone who dared to disagree.
Any criticism or even attempted debate is now treated as dangerous. Censorship, once the bugbear of the Left, is seen as the way to prevent a ‘return to fascism’ and the horrors of the Holocaust.

And yet, under this leftist domination, the very thing that leftists used to warn against – anti-Semitism – is making a comeback. As noted, the state of Israel, once seen as offering a haven to persecuted Jews worldwide, is now demonised for oppressing Palestinians, and even compared to Nazi Germany in committing genocide against them. The Left has made anti-Zionism respectable, and anti-Semitism is only a step away. Already, the two are beginning to shade into each other. Right-wing ‘influencers’ are suddenly discovering that Hitler was not so bad after all – that he has been misrepresented by Jews, who have a vested interest in demonising him in order to justify their ‘appropriation’ of ‘Palestinian’ land, facilitated in this project by their alleged dominance of the media.
Even while making anti-Semitism respectable, they may warn against a resurgence of Nazism – but the Jews are the new Nazis, after all.
The Holocaust was preceded by a rise in anti-Semitism, and although leftists have routinely attributed anti-Semitism to ‘the Right’, the many patriotic demonstrations have been marked by pro-Israel, pro-Jewish sentiment. In stark contrast, left-wing marches against Israel and ‘Zionists’ have been marked by violent rhetoric.
At this time of year, when once again we celebrate God being born as a man among men – when He chose to become a member of His Chosen People – we would do well to remember how close this world, prompted by Satan and his demons, has come to eliminating His earthly kin.
Fortunately, we do know how this all ends. Jesus returns to Earth to rescue His nation, Israel, and initiate His Millennial Kingdom so that the covenants God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be fully realised. Israel will be the lead nation of the world with its Messiah, Jesus and glorified Saints ruling with a “rod of iron”.
“From His (Jesus) mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.” Revelation 19:15
If you want to be prepared for Jesus coming Millennial Kingdom go to http://www.millennialkingdom.net
EXTREMIST ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY TARGETED JEWS AT BONDI ATTACK
Antisemitism and terrorism are both moral and national security crises that demand clear conviction and courageous leadership. On this issue, I believe our leaders have lost their moral compass. When leaders lack moral clarity, conviction falters, courage diminishes, and wisdom is absent. The result is blurred priorities, inconsistent justice, and a failure to confront the threats that truly endanger our society. I would say there’s hypocrisy at play.

It is extremely hypocritical to voice your concern about antisemitism while allowing weekly demonstrations featuring hate-filled chants and terrorist flags, often carried by masked activists.
It is hypocritical to say you oppose terrorism while capitulating to it so completely through the recognition of a Palestinian state after the October 7 genocide. This reflects neither strength of character nor national resilience.
Misguided Policies
It is misguided to suggest that further gun control alone will prevent acts of terrorism, particularly when those intent on violence do not respect the law. A stronger focus must be placed on building a nation grounded in shared values.
Australia is a multiracial nation, and that diversity has long been a strength. Social cohesion, however, depends on shared values rather than parallel cultures.
Immigration policy should therefore prioritise integration and a common commitment to the principles that hold our society together. Clearly, this has been absent from immigration policy.
Words such as diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance, and respect ring hollow when they result in passive acceptance of a murderous ideology. Equating antisemitism with Islamophobia, and distancing terrorist organisations from religion, is naïvely at best and cowardly at worst. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but the terrorist ideology is clearly rooted in religion.
Priority of the Gospel
In saying all of this, the failure in public policy must not lead to a compromise of our Christian disciplines.
We are called to love our neighbours and bless our enemies. We must continue to shine the light of Christ to all Australians, including Muslim communities, some of whom have come to Australia as refugees escaping violence. We must share the gospel of Jesus Christ and the all-sufficiency of his grace. But we must also pray that Australia’s laws and policies will be built from a position of moral clarity. They must address antisemitism by condemning and penalising real hatred and threats of violence.
The future of a free, just, and compassionate Australia depends on those willing to defend truth and act wisely in public life, with antisemitism recognised and addressed as the urgent threat it truly is.
Now that we are fast approaching the return of Jesus Christ we need to warn our family and friends and whoever God brings into our circle of influence of the coming judgement on the unrepentant prior to Jesus return to rescue Israel and usher in His Millennial Kingdom (http://www.millennialkingdom.net).
Biblical end times prophecy is cantered upon Israel. Prior to 1948 when Israel was re-established as a nation these prophecies made no sense but once it became a nation again in all respects, including the Hebrew language, all the many Biblical end times prophecies started to play out. They are proof the Bible is God’s word, it reveals the true history of God’s world. Use it for evangelism.
BLESSINGS OR CURSE: WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE?
As Christians, let us reject the poisonous curse of anti-Semitism, stand boldly with God’s chosen people, and be among those who receive the blessing promised to Abraham.
Please pray that the Jews may come to know their Messiah and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We know that when Jesus comes all Israel will be saved but we also know that during the reign of the Antichrist two thirds of the Jews will be killed.
I choose blessing over cursing, life over death, truth over lies, and the Kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness. Please pray for repentance in the hearts of those who are cursing Israel.
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure.” Psalm 122:6

God’s Covenant Promise
When God called Abraham, He declared: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:2–3
This was not merely a promise to an individual but a covenant binding God’s people Israel to His eternal purposes. To curse Abraham’s descendants is to oppose God’s chosen instrument for blessing the families of the earth (and nations) – including the very Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came through Israel.
REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY AND ANTISEMITISM
Throughout history, theology has not only shaped Church doctrines but has also deeply influenced social and political ideas, national policies, and public opinion. Among the theological systems that have had far-reaching consequences, replacement theology stands out for its historical and ongoing influence on the development of antisemitism.
Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) remains one of the most influential voices in Western Christianity. He spiritualised the promises made to Israel, arguing that the Church was the “New Israel.” Augustine’s City of God posited that the Jews were a witness people – preserved only to confirm the truth of Scripture, but without any divine favour or future.
This “doctrinal de-Judaising” of Christianity, spearheaded by Augustine and cemented by the medieval Church, fed into the bloodstream of Western Christian thought for over a millennium.
If Augustine sowed the seeds, Martin Luther (1483–1546) watered them with toxic rhetoric. Early in his career, Luther advocated kindness toward Jews in the hope of converting them. But when Jews rejected his overtures, Luther’s tone shifted drastically. In his infamous tract “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543), Luther wrote:
“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?… I advise that their synagogues be set on fire…”
Luther’s writings went beyond theological speculation. They were political and social prescriptions. His ideas formed the theological backdrop for centuries of German antisemitism. The Third Reich found in Luther a useful ideological ally, quoting him in Nazi propaganda to justify their genocidal policies.
Dispensationalism: A Biblical Defence of Israel
By the mid-19th century, a corrective theological movement arose that affirmed that God has distinct plans for Israel and the Church. This system – sometimes called dispensationalism – insists on a literal interpretation of Scripture, particularly Old Testament prophecy.
This doctrine, broadly understood, is not new. It has had high-profile supporters all throughout Church history, including Irenaeus and Tertullian.
Dispensationalists argue that the promises made to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15, 17), David (2 Samuel 7), and the prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) concerning the land, the throne, and a restored Israel are irrevocable and non-redefinable. These promises have not been fulfilled spiritually in the Church, but await literal fulfilment.
The rebirth of the modern state of Israel in 1948 is seen not as a political accident but as a prophetic milestone. Dispensationalists point to passages like Ezekiel 36–37, Isaiah 66:8, and Zechariah 12–14 to argue that Israel’s return to the land is a foretaste and beginning of the final chapter in God’s redemptive history.
By affirming Israel’s ongoing covenantal role, dispensationalism combats antisemitism at its root. If the Jewish people are central to God’s plan, then persecuting them is an affront to God Himself.
Theological Consequences and Moral Responsibility
Ideas have consequences. When churches teach that the Jewish people are irrelevant to God’s plan, it inevitably influences the moral compass of their followers. This theology has real-world consequences, including:
- The legitimisation of antisemitic ideologies.
- Apathy toward Jewish suffering.
- Opposition to the modern state of Israel.
- The loss of biblical literacy regarding prophecy.
Dispensationalism, despite being mocked by so-called theological elites, offers a necessary corrective. It upholds a high view of Scripture, recognises God’s sovereign plan for Israel and fosters a theological posture that defends, rather than demonises, the Jewish people. As a result, it insists on the necessity and priority of proclaiming the gospel to them (Romans 1:16).
Reclaiming a Biblical Theology of Israel
Christians must return to a biblical theology that respects the literal promises of God. Romans 11 offers a rebuke to replacement theology:
“Has God cast away His people? Certainly not!… For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:1, 29)
Paul anticipates and rejects the idea that Israel has been permanently rejected. The olive tree metaphor reveals that Gentile believers are grafted in—but the natural branches (Israel) will be grafted in again. Replacement theology too often skips this chapter, or spiritualises it beyond recognition.
The Church must repent of its arrogance and recognise that Israel remains central to God’s redemptive plan. This plan is not based on their righteousness, but because of God’s unchanging covenantal promises. The prophet Ezekiel, who wrote much about Israel’s unrighteousness, affirmed:
“This is what the Lord God says: It is not for your sake that I will act, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you went.” (Ezekiel 36:22)
Conclusion
The history of antisemitism is not merely a story of cultural prejudice – it is also a story of bad theology. Replacement theology, shaped by Augustine and exacerbated by Luther, laid the ideological groundwork for centuries of Jewish persecution. Its failure to recognise the ongoing role of Israel in God’s plan has had catastrophic consequences, including complicity in the Holocaust and ongoing antisemitic rhetoric today.
In contrast, dispensationalism stands as a prophetic voice, reminding the Church that God’s promises are irrevocable and that Israel’s modern restoration is not an accident but a divine appointment.
If antisemitism is indeed a “doctrine of devils,” then it has often been dressed in the robes of religious respectability. The Church must repent, realign its theology with Scripture, and embrace the whole counsel of God – including His plans for Israel. Anything less is not only theologically deficient but morally reprehensible.
This post is taken from thr article: Doctrines of Devils: Replacement Theology, Antisemitism, and the Prophetic Destiny of Israel by Peter Bain, 1 August 2025, The Daily Declaration.
PROPHESIED END-TIMES SIGNS INCREASING
It is shocking and unfathomable that the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel, October 7, 2023 — an assault not only on a nation, but on its right to exist in that small patch on the globe, the only home the United Nations has allowed the Jewish people, has resulted in antisemitism worldwide. This is spiritual warfare which fits with what Jesus said would happen to Jews and Christians just prior to His return with the glorified Saints to restore righteousness.
AUSTRALIA: This article reports on a recent rally; As Melbourne reels from attacks on synagogues and Israeli-owned businesses, a rare coalition of faith communities gathered peacefully over the weekend to reclaim the moral ground in a nation struggling against rising terror and intimidation.
On Sunday, in Melbourne, fifteen organisations from three different communities — Hindus, Iranians and Israelis — gathered with one unified purpose: to stand against terrorism.
The rally came amid rising violence, public apathy, and a growing ideological threat not just to Israel, but to the very foundations of Australian democracy and religious freedom. Despite the hopeful turnout, many there questioned why only a few hundred people showed up, especially after the recent terror attacks in Melbourne. Where was the outrage? Where were the crowds? Only a handful of Christians came to stand in solidarity — three from the Family First Party and a few others.
As Gideon Rozner, Policy Director at the Institute of Public Affairs stated bluntly: “No Australian should have their place of worship firebombed.” But the painful truth remains — there have been no real consequences for these acts of violence and for the chants of death and terror that have plagued Melbourne’s streets.
Since the Never Again Is Now rally in May 2024, turnout has dwindled. Each Sunday morning, only 10 to 30 people — a few brave Jews, Christians and atheists — stand quietly in the CBD. They face down noisy, drum-beating, aggressive pro-Palestinian protestors shouting: “Kill the Jews,” “F… the Jews,” “Death to the IDF.”
Instead of arresting those who threaten violence, police have moved on the peaceful crowd and even threatened them with arrest simply for being in the city.
One Sunday, a Christian woman had her Lion of Judah flag ripped from her hand. Her husband gave chase to recover it — and was pepper-sprayed by police. On another morning, an elderly woman with a flag on an umbrella was grabbed by police, their arms tightly around her neck.
Melbourne, once one of the most successful multicultural cities in the world, is now almost unrecognisable. For 21 months, it has teetered on the edge of something dangerous.
Folks we are living in the end times. God established the nation of Israel for His purposes, and despite its disobedience, God will fulfill the many promises He made that Israel will one day be the leader of the nations with its Messiah, Jesus ruling reigning over the nations from a new Jerusalem for one thousand years.

HAMAS MANIPULATED GAZA DEATH DATA AND MEDIA COVERAGE
A groundbreaking report released last month by two Australian academics reveals widespread manipulation in the casualty data disseminated by Hamas during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Their findings challenge widely accepted narratives and raise serious concerns about the use of disinformation – and the role of the legacy media – in modern warfare.
The paper, titled Hamas Casualty Reports are a Tangle of Technical Problems, published by the Henry Jackson Society and authored by Professor Lewi Stone (RMIT University) and Professor Gregory Rose (University of Wollongong), is based on extensive analysis of casualty lists released by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza between October 2023 and March 2025.
Contrary to Hamas’ repeated claims that 70% of casualties were women and children – a figure amplified by sympathetic media and international bodies – the report concludes that this figure is inflated and contradicted by Hamas’ own raw data.

“Empirical evidence shows Israeli military tried to limit Gazan civilian harm,” the authors conclude, highlighting Israeli efforts to issue over 12 million flyers, 800,000 voice messages, and 100,000 phone calls warning civilians to evacuate conflict zones.
The report also reveals major flaws in the verification and categorisation of casualties:
- 15,070 deaths were initially reported as “unidentified,” later “verified” through online submissions, often with dubious supporting evidence.
- Some reported deaths were found to include people still living.
- Natural deaths, deaths from disease, and even Hamas misfire casualties were included without distinction from Israeli-caused deaths.
- Thousands of names were removed or altered in subsequent lists without explanation.
These manipulations allowed the Hamas Ministry of Health to present a distorted picture of Israeli conduct and to accuse Israel of genocide — allegations that gained traction internationally, despite lacking statistical or documentary support.
The report highlights how foreign academics and media relied heavily on data provided by Hamas, especially in the early stages of the war. Projections from institutions like the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine overestimated Gazan deaths by as much as 440%. One controversial paper in The Lancet predicted up to 186,000 deaths from indirect causes, while Hamas’ own data showed just 38 malnutrition-related deaths by September 2024.
United Nations agencies like UN-OCHA initially echoed Hamas’ 70% figure for women and children casualties, only to later revise these numbers downward by nearly half – an implicit admission of prior error.
Importantly, while the IDF reported having killed some 20,000 Hamas and allied fighters, the Gaza-controlled Ministry of Health (MoH) listed none of its casualties as combatants. The result is a public dataset that treats all deaths as civilians, regardless of combat status, cause of death, or source of injury.
The report’s authors stress that, despite their technical sophistication, Hamas’ casualty datasets were weaponised as tools of strategic disinformation. Leveraging the cooperation of a willing international media, they exploited public trust in data to misrepresent Israel’s military operations and sway global opinion.
Free Palestine’: All about Slaughtering Jews
It’s a demonic chorus. Hell’s equivalent of a church hymn.
But the incantation has nothing to do with freeing Palestinians, and everything to do with slaughtering Jews. It’s not sung as a chant aimed at ending suffering. It’s sung as a shared, communal fantasy about igniting a second Jewish holocaust.
The pro-Palestinian mob would chant “gas the Jews” – indeed, they did outside the Opera House on October 9, 2023 – except that such honesty would dismantle who they’re pretending to be. They pretend to be on the side of the downtrodden. They pretend to be on the side of righteousness. “Free Palestine” serves only as a fig leaf to (barely) cover their bloodlust.
WHAT IS BEHIND HAMAS AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
Jonathan Cahn exposes the dark secret behind the movement to destroy Israel that goes back to Hasan al-Banna, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was enamoured with Hitler and his intent to destroy the Jewish people and went to Germany to work for Hitler.

For both Hitler and al-Banna, the first principle is not that all Jews are evil but that all evil is Jewish. Therefore, the Jews must be hated and ultimately exterminated. For the Jihadists of the Brotherhood, it is, indeed, a holy act pleasing to God and, therefore, a religious duty.
Before proceeding to Hamas, a few words must be said about the Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas stems and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the tie that binds Hitler to Hamas.
When King Farouk granted asylum to Nazi war criminal Haj Amin al-Husseini on 20 June 1946, al-Banna hailed the former Mufti of Jerusalem as a hero and a great Jihadist. Al-Husseini also had meetings with Sayyid Qutb, the man who would become the Brotherhood’s most influential Jihadist ideologue. In al-Husseini, then, we have an important link between the Nazis and Hamas.
Following their own ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, Hamas understands itself to be waging the same war. To Hamas, it is, indeed, a holy war waged against the satanic God of the Jews.
OUR UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES ARE DOMINATED BY A CORROSIVE HATRED OF OUR OWN SOCIETY AND TRADITIONS
Why have universities, once the cradle of our civilisation, become such engines of hatred, obscurantism, foolishness and hostility? It is largely because their leaders and professors are godless intellectuals carrying out the commands of the Prince of this world, Satan, who is intent on ridding the world of all Jews, the one nation that God established for His purposes. Moreover, it is another of the Biblical end-times prophecies being fulfilled in our day. The world reports it differently. The following report is from The Australian Newspaper.
Niall Ferguson wrote recently that Western universities have become devoted to “the intellectual organisation of political hatreds”.
When you look at the disgusting, so-called anti-racism conference at the Queensland University of Technology, with all its fevered presentations and gross hostilities, it makes you ask a couple of questions. Why are taxpayers required to fund this rubbish? And why do universities regard their proper vocation now as, in part, the conscious fostering of vile and destructive hatreds?
The Albanese government should hold a royal commission into anti-Semitism at Australian universities. God knows we’ve had countless judicial inquiries into vastly less important subjects.
It would take some time. It wouldn’t solve the crisis of anti-Semitism, now or even in the future. But it would shed light on one of the great contemporary engines of the oldest and worst social hatred of them all.
Ferguson and others have pointed out that Western universities, in their acute emphasis on political hatreds, have become a kind of mirror of the Nazi attitudes to universities.
This is especially so in their anti-Semitism. One of the main breeding grounds of anti-Semitism today is left-wing ideology, especially the noxious mingling of the ideology of “settler colonists”, identity politics and intersectionality. The settler colonist slur can be used against any modern society, for almost every human being occupies a space on the planet where human beings of other races at one time or another predominated. Identity politics is really just contemporary Marxism, in which one class of people – generally people of colour in this ideology – are always victims, and another class of people, so-called whites, are always oppressors. These ideological categories have no regard for history or facts. It doesn’t matter that Jews have been continuously present in Israel for thousands of years. Nor does it matter that plenty of Jews, from Ethiopia or Morocco or Iraq or many other parts, are dark-skinned.
Ideology always has an Alice in Wonderland quality – white oppressor means just what I say it means. Whereas in Nazi universities Jews were irredeemably the villains and could never be “Aryan”, now in many Western universities Jews are again always the villains and can never be the victims. They are associated with “settler colonist” Israel and white privilege. So it doesn’t matter what they do or don’t do as individuals. When the left says someone should be opposed because they benefit from structural privilege, it’s morally and intellectually the equivalent of the Nazis saying a Jew can never be a good German.
The intensity of this perverse belief was a Nazi innovation. German Jews served with distinction and honour in the German army in World War I. The hatred of Jews evident on many campuses in the West today, whether lightly disguised as hatred of Zionism or simply seen in all its naked barbarism as in “F..k the Jews”, is an innovation of contemporary left-wing ideology.
Poster at the so-called anti-racism conference at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
Anti-Semitism is so monstrous today partly because it’s fed by three toxic, virulent sources. One is traditional, Nazi, racist anti-Semitism, which demonises Jews for being “other”, for being an alien presence in the West. Though this ideology is insane, and is not now held by any respectable person or group, it persists in the swamplands of conspiracy and personality disorder.
A vastly more powerful source of anti-Semitism is found in left-wing ideology. This inverts the Nazi hatred of Jews. In this ideology Israel is hated in part because it is seen as a central part of the West. It’s seen as a living specimen of Western colonialism.
The left in its attitude to Israel is something like the New York District Attorney in Tom Wolfe’s satirical novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities; too often having to prosecute black offenders he’s always on the lookout for “the great white defendant”.
The left can see in Israel a combination of everything it claims to hate – colonialism, militarism, capitalism, etc. In this demonology Jews and Israel are interchangeable. The presence of Jews in our society, especially on campus, gives the left some actual real human beings to hate. The presence of real, physical human beings to hate and abuse is always deeply satisfying for an extremist ideology.
The ideological left is not remotely concerned with human rights. It’s barely heard of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Somalia, or North Korea. It holds no demonstrations for LGBTQ rights under Hamas.
The third great source of anti-Semitism is the distinctive Arab and Islamist strain of anti-Semitism. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was notoriously Adolf Hitler’s greatest ally in the Middle East in World War II.
All three of these streams of hatred flow into the crisis of anti-Semitism Australia is experiencing today. At no point has the Albanese government ever understood or acknowledged the depth and importance of this crisis. It’s also politically paralysed in responding to the crisis in another way. Much of the left-wing ideology, which gives rise to distinctive left-wing anti-Semitism, is widespread in the left-activist circles that make up a serious portion of the ALP base, and which dominate the Greens’ base. Lots of these people of course would decry anti-Semitism in the abstract. But they sign up to all the points that lead to hatred of Jews – the wild demonising of Israel beyond anything that is reasonable, the grotesque ideological misinterpretation of Israel, the fixation on Jews in our society as somehow or other responsible for all the alleged sins of Israel, and so on. So to really tackle the crisis of anti-Semitism would involve trying to change the culture of the left.
Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley did this in terms of the culture of the Labor activist class in relation to the United States and the American alliance. Hawke and Beazley repudiated the anti-Americanism that had infected Labor from the disastrous split in the 1950s through the calamitous Whitlam years and was still dominant until Hawke took the leadership of the Labor Party.
Anthony Albanese and Labor’s current generation of leaders, though still living off the Hawke legacy, are not remotely capable of anything similar.
A final reflection. Anti-Semitism is a profound and terrible crisis in itself.
But the role of universities in generating new forms of this ancient hatred underscore the even wider crisis in our civilisation represented by the universities, which in many areas beyond technical subjects have come to be dominated by a corrosive and anti-intellectual hatred of our own society and its traditions. That’s intensely destructive.