AARON PATRICK: Does Albo really stand with the Jews after Bondi massacre?
As Australians tried to understand the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history — a burst of violence that made Bondi Beach look like Baghdad — Anthony Albanese turned on his folksy mode.
After a pro-forma expression of support for Jewish Australians at a press conference in Sydney Tuesday, he described a hospital visit to Ahmed Al Ahmed, the Syrian shopkeeper who obtained global fame for wresting away a shotgun from Sajid Akram, one of the two extremists who carried out Sunday’s massacre.
The prime minister explained he met the 42-year-old’s parents, other relatives and staff at the hospital, St George, where he briefed journalists. The worthy visit, which was good politics, did not have to publicised. It distracted from what looks like the most pressing moral challenge of Mr Albanese’s long political career.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.A stain on Australia, the likely ISIS-inspired mass murder of Jews challenges a national identity built on peace, tolerance and respect.
“My message to Jewish Australians is that we stand with you as a nation,” Mr Albanese said. “We embrace you at what is a terrible time.”
Jews don’t believe it. The community feels betrayed by the government, which it believes fostered anti-Jewish violence by pandering to the Palestinians during the war in Gaza — a war Israel did not start.
They hostility was demonstrated on Monday evening when Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke visited the Bondi Pavilion — under the cover of dark — and was jeered by mourners.
Mr Albanese’s response is to propose tougher gun-ownership laws. The move looks like a distraction from the harder-to-solve challenge of facing up to anti-Jewish hatred among elements of Australia’s large Muslim community, which mostly lives in Labor seats.
Before the Akrams sprung their murderous ambush of a Chanukkah celebration, Sydney nurses Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh casually discussed killing Jewish patients with a stranger. One tally puts the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the year ended September 30 at 1654, or about five a day.
Clearly an entrenched hostility towards Jews exists within Australia, which is why even those who dodged bullets on Sunday afternoon were shocked but not surprised by the attack.
Taking guns away from a community of overwhelmingly law-abiding sporting shooters will not eradicate anti-Semitism. Rather, it will be a demonstration of Mr Albanese’s political cowardness.
