Anti-Semitic gang assault sets off alarm bells
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AUSTRALIA'S Jewish population must be wondering if last Saturday's anti-Semitic attack in Sydney is the first thunderclap of a storm forming just over the horizon.
Given the tide of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, it is alarming when any Australian, whatever their background, believes it is acceptable to attack people simply because they are Jewish.
It is difficult to believe the perpetrators follow world news so closely that they suddenly decided to take a stance against, say, Israeli policies that may be distasteful to them by bashing up a Jewish family that just happened to be there.
Far easier to believe is that they have come under the influence of a neo-Nazi group preaching indiscriminate hatred against Jews based on the recycled lies that have been circulating in parts of the world for hundreds of years, and that the gang was searching for Jews to attack.
The authorities must identify and monitor these groups, if they are not doing so already, and bring them to court for inciting racial hatred.
If we do not take a stand against anti-Semitism, that storm may turn into a cyclone.
Anne Skinner, Kalgoorlie, WA
IT may be time to reconsider the view that the rising tide of anti-Semitism commenced after the Six-Day War (Letters, 31/10). It seems more likely that anti-Jewish feelings grew after the 1917 Balfour Declaration as people came to see the injustice to the Palestinians of these proposals.
The sense of injustice still burns fiercely among Palestinians and it seems that there will be no peace until there is restoration of rights and there is one Palestinian state to accommodate Muslims, Christians, Jews and anyone else wishing to live peaceably in the Middle East.
Freda Smith, Cleveland, Qld
WITHOUT even knowing the backgrounds of the thugs who attacked the Jewish family last week, people are saying that it was about anti-Israel sentiments. But anti-Semitism has been around a tad longer than has the modern state of Israel.
By saying the anti-Semitic attack was motivated by anti-Israel sentiments, it implies that Palestinian sympathisers and the Left were somehow behind it. This could stir up anti-Palestinian sentiments. How is that going to help us tackle racism?
Henry Herzog, St Kilda, Vic
SITTING before me while writing an article on the Holocaust, I see a picture of two men clad in Nazi uniforms standing in front of a Jewish shop in Germany in 1932 holding a poster saying "boycott the Jews".
I am offended that 81 years later the same sign is held up, not by men in Nazi uniforms, but by people calling on citizens to do the same thing.
In the name of my relatives who died among six million Jews, I express revulsion that the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign supports this activity with the knowledge that several Arab countries and Palestinians are pledged to exterminate the Jews even if they do permit an exchange of land in peace negotiations.
Itiel Bereson, St Kilda, Vic
FOR almost 2000 years, anti-Semitism was religious, then it became racial. But since the Holocaust, anti-Semitism has become unfashionable and has been replaced by delegitimisation of Israel. But make no mistake, attacks on Israel by supporters of the BDS are a mask for hatred of Jews.
George Fishman, Vaucluse, NSW
THE simple point that supporters of BDS fail to acknowledge is if Hamas and Hezbollah laid down their arms tomorrow there would be peace. If the Israelis laid down their arms there would be genocide.
That Israel remains a vibrant, free- speaking democracy in the midst of all this hatred is a miracle.
Ian Mastin, Woodgate Beach, Qld
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