I was surprised when I saw how many young people were involved in recent anti-semitism, and pro-Palestine demonstrations across Australia. However, after a little research, I discovered Antisemitism is not a new phenomenon in Australia. In fact, it has a long history. Israel was established by God and of course, the God of this world, Satan has been intent on destroying it. Just look at its history, in particular the Holocaust.

Emergence of prominent anti-Jewish voices

There have been Jews in Australia from the time of British settlement. As research has shown, they arrived as convicts in chains, yet with the absence of institutional antisemitism in the colonies, they were able to thrive. In fact, a Jew was elected to the Legislative Assembly in Western Australia in 1848, a full decade before the first Jew was elected to Britain’s parliament.

Australia, however, was not immune from what the historian Robert Wistrich has described as “the longest hatred”. Open antisemitism started to become prevalent in the 1880s with the emergence of Australian nationalism and the campaign for federation. It was further fuelled by fears of an influx of Jews fleeing the pogroms in Russia.

Anti-Zionist agenda influenced by Soviet propaganda

After the war, The Bulletin, in particular, continued its anti-Jewish immigration campaign with cartoons depicting Jewish stereotypes. The sentiments around immigration were summed up by Henry (“Jo”) Gullett, a Liberal member of federal parliament, who said: “We are not compelled to accept the unwanted of the world at the dictate of the United Nations or anyone else. Neither should Australia be a dumping ground for people whom Europe itself, in 2,000 years, has not been able to absorb.”

In response to the anti-Jewish hysteria, Arthur Calwell, the newly appointed minister of immigration, introduced administrative policies that ensured the Jewish community remained a tiny minority (0.5%) of the population. These restrictions included a 25% limit on Jewish passengers on ships bound for Australia, which was later extended to planes.

This cartoon, from The Bulletin in December 1946, shows Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell playing on the Jew’s harp and, as with the Pied Piper, bringing in the Jews as ‘imports’, while pushing out white Australians as the ‘exports’. 

Locally organised antisemitism also emerged in the 1950s and 60s. A young journalist, Eric Butler, promoted the Douglas Social Credit movement, which blamed the banking system for the Great Depression and, by implication, the Jews.

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, some on the far left in Australia began promoting an anti-Israel agenda, particularly on university campuses. In 1969, the Sovetskaya Rossiya newspaper compared Zionism with fascism, implying Jews were Nazis. It also published an article saying “Zionism is the ideology that justifies war, killing, and oppression”. The official Soviet newspaper, Pravda, referred to “the Israeli barbarians” and “a reactionary Zionist doctrine”.

The impact of this anti-Zionist rhetoric often morphed into antisemitism on Australian campuses. The Australian Union of Students, for example, had come under Trotskyist and Maoist influences in the early 1970s and proposed anti-Israel resolutions. Members of the Jewish Students movement who campaigned against these resolutions were physically attacked.

This first picture shows the Jews in the UK demonstration against the anti-semitism of the UK Labour Party.

After the Hamas attacks on October 7, this anti-Israel narrative developed by the Soviets decades ago has again become part of the antisemitic discourse we’ve seen both in Australia and around the world. It coalesces with the theme that Zionism is the new Nazism. These issues have again been magnified on university campuses.

Research into current antisemitism has demonstrated it takes three principal forms. It begins with religious anti-Judaism, then mutates into racial antisemitism, and, most recently, political antisemitism associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which ostensible criticisms of Israel can morph into an irrational hatred of Jews.

Those with antisemitic beliefs continue to propagate traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes, such as the “international Jewish conspiracy” and “Jewish-Nazi analogy”, linked to Holocaust denial. Conspiracy theories emerged again during the COVID pandemic, with some right-wing groups claiming it was a Jewish plot.

We know that this hatred of the Jews will only escalate and apart from Jesus returning to rescue the nation at the battle of Armageddon the Jews would be exterminated.

The Battle of Armageddon is described in more detail in Revelation 19:11-21, where it portrays a dramatic confrontation between the forces of good, led by Jesus Christ (the rider on a white horse), and the forces of evil, led by the Antichrist, and the false prophet. The Antichrist gathers “kings” in a place called Armageddon. These kings, loyal to the antichrist, will gather their armies to wage war against the people of God. Jesus soundly defeats them. This battle results in the defeat of the enemies of God and the ultimate triumph of righteousness.

We also know that Jesus will rule all nations from Jerusalem. Israel the nation God established will be the ruling nation for the last 1000 years of this cursed Cosmos. People will still be born and die during Jesus’ Millennial reign, but they will live longer, so we know the curse is not entirely lifted from our Cosmos. For more on Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom go to my latest website http://www.millennialkingdom.net.