Outrage at antisemitic attacks on Frydenberg
There has been strong reaction both within the Jewish community and without to a tirade of antisemitic tweets against federal Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Josh Frydenberg
The Twitter attack was launched by Brisbane financial planner James Howarth in response to Frydenberg backing a move which would see upfront commissions for financial planners cut back.
james Howarth Photo: Twitter
“The Australian” has reported that Libertas Financial Planning has terminated Howarth’s company Retirement Wealth Advisers “authorised representative status”.
Proposals to change the way life insurance companies operate include upfront commissions being reduced from 120% to 60% by 2018 and ongoing commissions to be limited to 20% of the premium by the beginning of next year according to The Australian.
The newspaper also reported a Howarth tweet stating “Get your Josh Frydenberg ‘Central Planning Jew’ punching bag AB. I ordered 5000 in on the next Cargo flight out of ShenZhen”.
The Australian reported that Howarth had deleted tweets one of which asked Frydenberg if he was “afraid for Australia to know he’d a Jew”.
According to The Australian Howarth “stood by his comments and defended his right to ‘free speech’.
Robert Goot, president of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry told J-Wire: “”The antisemitic comments made by James Howarth relating to Minister Frydenberg’s Jewish religion and race are disgraceful and totally unacceptable.
They reflect adversely on Howarth and not the Minister.
His statements do not address the Government’s policy with which he is apparently concerned, but crudely attack the Minister in a very nasty case of playing the man not the ball.
The fact that he has refused to withdraw his racist abuse or to apologise is shocking, especially for someone in his position. We would hope that the body that regulates financial advisers in Australia takes a close look at this behaviour”
Chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Dvir Abramovich added: “I am outraged and disgusted by this ugly tirade. This type of grotesque religious bigotry has no place in Australian politics and debate. It is deeply troubling that Mr Howarth has injected race and religion into a legitimate public discussion, and has employed hateful descriptions that play into classic antisemitic charges of powerful Jews controlling and wanting to centralise financial markets.
The invoking of such stereotypes and the levelling of such accusations against Jews have been used for centuries to justify the scapegoating and vilifying of the Jewish community. I am appalled that in today’s age we still see this kind of prejudice, and know that our leaders will not stand for such expressions and will unequivocally condemn this repugnant attack on Mr Frydenberg. I also hope that Mr Howarth wakes up to the severity of his comments and apologises.”
Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson told The Australian that Howarth’s tweets were “disgusting and outrageous”.
CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Vic Alhadeff joined in the Twitter stream stating that Howarth’s tweets were “despicable”.
Josh Frydenberg told J-Wire: “This nasty, personal and derogatory language is not becoming of a financial adviser, let alone anyone else, and is completely over the top.”
James Howarth – Would you buy a used car from this man?!?
Howarth’s insidious comments tap right in to the old lies about Jews and money markets. I question that a man of such nasty prejudice, and lack of feeling for people who have long endured the pain of anti Semitism, can ethically help others invest their savings. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see an investigation into his own practises and what it would turn up?
Glad this story made the papers (I saw it in the Australian). Let the public see this and think about it. Some thinking people will ask: Would Howarth have said this if Frydenberg was Catholic or Protestant? Those that enjoy race hatred will not often change, but speaking out against prejudice in a calm and logical manner, talks to those who decide on issues for themselves. I always try to address those people.
In any case, legal action against anti Semitism is needed where possible – that will bring the hatred home to where it originated! (Of course, I don’t know if it could be done in this particular case.)
Great to see the company which employed this useless moron has given him the boot.
As 41% of the federal cabinet, which approved these financial reforms initiated by Matthias Cormann and Arthur Sinodinos, is said to be Catholic, does the decency-challenged James Howarth also consider this to be a Catholic-Communist conspiracy? Or does he prefer to stick with the anti-Semitic Lynch mob at Sydney University for his bigotry kicks?
This has nothing to do with Lynch or any anti-Israel rubbish. This is good old fashioned anti-Semitism about Jews and money, and by attacking the Lynch mob, you take away the real cause of these racist acts and thus destroy all credibility. But I would have thought that Josh would take solace from his colleague, the attorney-general George Brandis, when he declared that bigots also have rights, when arguing for repealing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which all the conservatives fought so hard for to defend freedom of speech.
Henry! What this ugly individual had to say about Josh (it could have been any Jewish person for that matter) has EVERYTHING to do with Israel! You can’t just take his antisemitic comments out of the WHOLE picture!
Antisemitism is anti-Jewish which is anti-Israel which is anti-Jews with money or without money (I could go on and on….) which is ALL good old-fashioned (NEW FASHIONED!) ANTISEMITISM. This man needs to be charged under the Racial Discrimination Act. Wrong is wrong and in this case needs to be acknowledged by the perpetrator. (If this had have been on the AFL field and had have involved an Aboriginal that would have been the end!).
This man and anybody else like him needs to see you don’t go around behaving like this. Charge him, fine him, put him in jail. We have to start somewhere. Where is the moral relativity here? Wrong is wrong!
It has a lot to do with The University of Sydney Peace and Conflict Centre.
Its intramural as well as public antisemitic campaign, originating in an ostensibly respectable university, gives credibility to its campaign of hatred and anti-social behaviour.
That, in turn, emboldens the previously reticent antisemites; after all, if The University of Sydney tolerates and gives licence to the Australian supporters of the genocidal Hamas, an antisemitic movement “par excellence,” why can’t every Australian non-entity loser jump on the bandwagon and reveal his true self?
Why would anyone respond to what you say Mr Poddebsky or take you even half seriously when you make up the history to suit your myopic views.
To watch the delightful Mr. Josh Frydenberg during question time in parliament is a delight. I hope he will be Prime Minister of Australia one day.
The institutional antisemitism of The Sydney University Peace and Conflict Resolution Centre is a major engine of hatred in Australia.
It is encouraging antisocial behaviour and legitimising it in the eyes of the ignorant, the simple and the predisposed.
No decent person should give The University of Sydney a single cent in donations or bequests while it harbours that nest of vipers.
I fully agree! This cancer that is Jew Hatred is a contageous one. Even though my alma mater is Syndey University, the bequest I had planned for them has been cancelled.
Well done, Rita.
The Australian Jewish community leadership has allowed the issue to fade. That is a big mistake and will embolden the Sydney University’s antisemites.
And they don’t all reside within Lynch’s gang.
NO MONEY for the university that harbours Hamas supporters and other antisemites.
Anecdotally: A few years ago, a Professor in Classics from Israel who was to give a guest lecture at Sydney University – had to sign a paper dissociating himself from “the politics of Israel”before he could do so. His colleague who told me that was aghast and said that the greatest irony of this shameful charade was that the lecture was in the Classics (nothing to do with politics of Israel or otherwise), and that this Professor was actually very much of the Left.
The Israeli left lives in an independent sovereign state where Jews are the majority.
It’s hard for them to imagine the ingrained, venomous hatred that persists in the West, where Jews are a tiny minority; that’s why many of them are so stunned when they come face to face with it personally.
I am sure that if an Arab professor of classics from one of the great Arab socialist democratic peace-loving republics or monarchies had wanted to give a lecture, The University of Sydney would have rolled out the red carpet for him because he is not a Jew.
Get this into all the papers – but no doubt – just like that nasty antisemite Lynch from University of Sydney, this man too will find another job with like-minded antisemitic ignoramuses. Clearly people need to understand the REAL MEANING of free-speech.
The nasty Jew hater will probably find a Job at Fairfax (or even the ABC, provided he is not a political conservative).
Wrong Rita; this bloke is from the Right, not the Left as you are swayed to believe the ABC and Fairfax are. But of course you are so blinded by Right-wing hatred of anything left, you’ve forgotten about the pre-war Right-wing propaganda which said that Jews control all the banks and financial institutions in the world.
Actually, it was and still is the leftist imagination that nurtured/s the theme of the supposed global Jewish control of banking.
In the rightist imagination, by contrast, the predominant Jewish stereotype was the subversive, atheistic Jewish communist revolutionary.
The disease, however, is not monopolised by any sector of society.
When James speaks about Josh it says more about James than about Josh