ECAJ calls for leadership from universities and government
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry is monitoring the deteriorating situation on US campuses and events at Australian universities, particularly the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne.
Daniel Aghion
Its gravely concerned president Daniel Aghion has issued the following statement.
“The establishment of encampments on several American campuses has served to mobilise anti-Israel and antisemitic fervour, endangering Jewish students and academic staff and posing a direct threat to the basic right of students to assemble and learn in peace, free from intimidation, racially motivated hatred and support for terrorism.
United States President Joe Biden referred to events at several US universities as ‘blatant antisemitism [which] is reprehensible and dangerous – and has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.’
In the past few days, we have seen similar attempts to form anti-Israel encampments at several Australian universities. We have also seen anti-Israel activists at Melbourne University entering lectures and photographing students who fail to agree with their positions on the Israel-Hamas war. At Sydney University, adults openly encouraged children to chant in support of Palestinian suicide bombings and to declare Israel as “haram” (forbidden according to Islamic law).
These disturbing events must be met with resolute leadership from university administrations and government. Universities must be centres of learning achieved through the free and respectful exchange of ideas. Seeking to intimidate, harass and exclude those who fail to conform to a rigid ideological position is the very antithesis of this. Foremost, universities must remain places where students and academics can engage with each other in safety. Support for proscribed terrorist organisations, instances of racial vilification, intimidation and harassment must be dealt with by universities and law enforcement.
AUJS and the ECAJ have been in regular contact with the Federal Education Minister, the Shadow Education Minister and Vice-Chancellors to convey the experiences and concerns of Jewish students and academics.
We call on the Federal Education Minister, state education ministers and Vice-Chancellors to take immediate action to ensure the safety of all students and staff. A failure to do so risks permanently degrading the reputation of our world-class university sector and turning campuses into no-go areas for Jewish students and academics. The encampments must be dismantled.”
The statement follows a “Families for Palestine” protest organised by activist academic Dr Randa Abdel Fattah at Sydney University, home to a pro-Palestine encampment.
In social media post videos, young children lead others in well-known pro-Palestine chants.
Senator James Paterson told Sky News: “Young children were indoctrinated in, frankly, my view, incredibly hateful slogans against Israel and the Jewish people.
For what purpose is there to have five-year-olds chanting about intifada, which is a terrorist campaign, or from the river to the sea, which is to wipe out the modern state of Israel between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea?
Although I suspect that the toddlers aren’t quite up on their geography. And you ask them if it was the Red Sea or the Mediterranean Sea, or the Euphrates River or the Jordan River, they wouldn’t be able to tell you, but they are being told that you need to hate Israel, and by extension, many of them will feel that you need to hate the Jewish community.
And that’s very distressing. Let’s remember that these are universities that have set up safe spaces that are protecting students from micro-aggressions, that think there’s nothing more important than protecting people from being harmed by words, not just actions. They tolerate this on their campuses. Imagine if any other group in our society, any other minority group in our society, was targeted in the way the Jewish community is being targeted right now. Imagine if these were protests against the Asian Australian community. Imagine if they were protests against the LGBTI community. How long do you think a university would permit this kind of thing to happen, and how quickly do you think they would shut it down if it was a different group?”
Disgraceful when it’s come to this……
When you consider the Jewish war veterans who have fought for Australia and our way of life.
Maybe they should re-instate national service.
The copycats at Melbourne and Sydney Universities are like sheep, not suitable at all for acceptance as students for tertiary study. Using children, as those at Sydney University did, to chant for Intifada and for wiping Israel off the map is an abominable thing to do. Adults responsible for children should be protecting them in their immaturity, not foisting upon them poisonous ideology. Shame on them.
Thus far our leaders have been weak and inept in the handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrators taking over the streets of Australian cities; they’ve taken the easy way out by advising or asking Jewish citizens to keep out of the way. This kind of escalation at the universities shows what weak leadership and lack of authority shown by police does. Time to stop the tit for tat ‘proportional’ rhetoric of our politicians, placing Islamophobia beside antisemitism when responding to an antisemitic incident. Time to say it how it is.