Progressive Jewish group The Jewish Council of Australia has blamed “extremist” right-wing Zionist lobbyists such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry for ‘weaponising antisemitism’ and therefore giving rise to antisemitism in Australia.
JCA’s Max Kaiser and Sarah Swartz told the Senate that far-right Zionist groups, Christian Zionists and Neo-Nazis were spreading hate and Islamophobia.
Their evidence was put to the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee (Right wing extremist movements in Australia) in a hearing in Victoria.
The JCA’s position on the atrocities perpetrated by Israel in Gaza is for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. They say Israel is committing genocide of Palestinians and have called on the Australian Government to cut ties with and impose sanctions on Israel.
Its representatives said they had been subject to antisemitism themselves and that part of the reason for the rise in antisemitism is the conflation by extremist groups of anti-Israel criticism with antisemitism
Kaiser said there needed to be an ACNC (Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission) investigation into Zionist organisations here who were lobbying for financing illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Besides the ECAJ, which Kaiser identified as one extreme group, one of the most extreme pro-war lobbies in Australia is the Australian Jewish Association (AJA). Both these groups are publicly subsidised via their ‘charity’ status. Both support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
The ECAJ was ‘openly collaborating’ with neo-Nazi and Zionist hate groups on the Far Right, he said. He also identified Australians for Israel as encouraging vigilantism as well as another extremist expounding views via Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News Australia. The publication Australian Jewish News was also identified as promoting racism.
ECAJ said the claims were “utterly without foundation”.
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This post was originally published on Michael West.