EDITORIAL: Dark reality of protests against Israeli President

Let’s break down why hateful, poisonous anti-Jewish activists are once again intent on disrupting our cities.

It’s ostensibly because Israeli President Isaac Herzog is in this country.

Why is he here? It’s because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese invited him as a gesture of support and solidarity with the Jewish community following December’s Bondi terror attack in which 15 people were gunned down at a Hanukkah event.

The events at Bondi left the families of victims and the wider Jewish community deeply traumatised.

Some are no doubt questioning their future in this country.

They had warned of the dangers they faced for more than two years after October 7, 2023 — when Hamas carried out the largest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

The hate was allowed to fester and grow here. Remember the shame of October 9, 2023, when “pro-Palestinian” activists were allowed to gather on the steps of the Sydney Opera House to celebrate that slaughter.

The rising tide of anti-Jewish intolerance expanded from words to actions: harassment, graffiti, hateful street marches, fire-bombings.

It was a climate which became almost normalised — and which culminated in the tragedy of Bondi.

It is little wonder that many Jews felt let down by the Government and the Prime Minister.

So could there be any better way for this country to try to reassure our Jewish citizens they are welcome than to invite a visit from the President of the State which offers them the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Let’s be clear. The chants of “from the river to the sea”, “globalise the intifada” and the protestations that their stance is about “anti-Zionism” or the policies in Gaza of the Israeli Government are camouflage for something deeper. A hatred of Jews.

The useful idiots who shout about a two-State solution are misguided and hopelessly naive.

The murderers Hamas do not want a two-State solution. Their goal is the destruction of the Jewish State.

It’s a place that, following the Holocaust, the world decided was needed because throughout history Jews were not safe anywhere else. They were persecuted. And murdered.

The shame of Bondi was a clear example of why Israel should exist.

So let’s call it out. The protesters who gathered again on Monday were not really opposing the situation in Gaza and Mr Herzog.

They were protesting against the legitimacy of the Jewish State’s right to exist. Against the safety and survival of Jews.

Mr Herzog reminded us of that on Monday. “These demonstrations in most cases, what you hear and see, come to undermine and delegitimise our right, my nation’s right, to its mere existence,” he said.

“We did not seek that war. On October 7 our nation was attacked terribly and people were butchered, murdered, raped and burnt and abducted.”

And then at Bondi Beach — that most Australian of places — they were gunned down on December 14 just for being who they are. That’s why Mr Herzog is here.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.