JULIAN LEESER: Federal Labor can’t have it both ways when it comes to anti-Semitism

The central story of the Jewish people is the story of the exodus from Egypt. A story about how a group of slaves won their freedom under the deliverance of God and became the Jewish people.

At Passover this story is retold in Jewish homes by Jewish families around the world. At one point in the service a particular passage reminds us that it was not just the pharaoh who would decide to try to destroy the Jewish people but there would be someone in every generation who would try to do this.

Deep within the DNA of every Jewish person is this story of a people who have been persecuted throughout history because they were a minority with their own traditions and rituals. One which refused to conform. And somehow the Jewish people came through blood libels, inquisitions, expulsions, persecutions, pogroms and the Holocaust and survived. The survival of the Jewish people when the peoples of the ancient world died out is a miracle.

Carried and sustained by our traditions and the centrality of the Torah with its message that whoever we are all created in the image and likeness of God.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminded us, Judaism was the first to teach that “that the world is driven by a moral purpose, that reality is not a ceaseless war of the elements, to be worshipped as gods, nor history a battle in which might is right and power is to be appeased”.

As witnesses to history, we see the world in black and white terms, and we feel the warning of our grandparents and their generation.

Throughout my time in Parliament, I have been active in debates about religious freedom. I have been a happy warrior for the religious freedom of all. But whereas Christians think of religious freedom as the freedom to speak and share the teaching of Jesus, for Jews religious freedom means the freedom just to be.

Australia has always been a nation where Jewish people have flourished.

Indeed, it has been the story for all Australians who have heard the call to come here, to work hard, to play by the rules and to give back.

Jewish people have been part of the Australian story since more than a dozen Jewish convicts landed here on the First Fleet. Australia is our country.

Australia’s history tells us that there is no limit to what Jewish people can do or achieve in this country. So we must fight for and defend an Australia that is free.

What makes this such a wonderful country is that — almost uniquely on Earth — there has been never been any official discrimination against Jews.

We can be free to make the contribution to this country that we are called to make. In Rabbi Sacks’ words: “to be true to our faith and a blessing to others regardless of their faith”.

But there are some people who do not want us to be free, to live to practise our faith and to make a contribution to this wonderful country.

The Australian consensus has been that discrimination on the basis of race and religion is wrong.

When communities suffer, we stand with them as I and all Australian leaders did with the Muslim community after the Christchurch massacre. I was at the local mosque the very next day.

But now we see people who should know better leading us down a dangerous path.

There are far too many in positions of authority from the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Attorney General down who have sat on their hands and failed to take decisive action to stamp out anti-Semitism in the past year.

The PM occasionally says the right thing but his words ring hollow.

The Labor Party has been infiltrated by Corbynites and his senior ministers won’t stand up to them. The contrast with NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns could not be starker. He is dealing with the same forces but he stands up to them and does what is right.

The Corbynites of the intellectual left believe that Jewish people are privileged, that October 7 and the anti-Semitism that has been unleashed in many parts of the world was owed to them.

This view is now reflected in the foreign policy of this country.

Labor can’t be serious about dealing with anti-Semitism when its foreign policy reflects these values.

Labor can’t be serious about dealing with anti-Semitism when it fails to support a judicial inquiry into anti-Semitism on campus.

Labor can’t be serious about anti-Semitism while it fails to root out the endemic anti-Semitism at the Human Rights Commission.

Labor can’t be serious about dealing with anti-Semitism when its preferences get Greens elected to Parliament such as Mehreen Faruqi who appears next to posters putting a star of David in the bin to keep the world clean and whose staffer described the Melbourne synagogue fire as a false flag.

Labor can’t be serious about anti-Semitism while it preferences Greens candidates with similar views around the country.

To experience the pussyfooting and delay in calling out the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue as a terrorist attack and the weakness and the lack of clarity about what has been happening for the last 14 months has been galling.

We need to stamp out anti-Semitism as we would stamp out violence and harassment of any other group in this country.

The protection of the law should be the right of every citizen, not just for some.

Julian Leeser is the Federal Member for Berowra