THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The 115-120,000 Jews in Australia out of a total population of 17,850,000 constitute the largest Jewish community in the East Asia Pacific Region. The great majority of Australian Jews live in Melbourne (45,000) and Sydney (38,000) but there are also significant communities in Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Adelaide. Australia is a favorite destination of Jewish emigrants from the former Soviet Union and from South Africa.

The leading communal organization is the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). The community is served by two Jewish weeklies and several other periodicals. High enrollment in Jewish day schools and a comparatively low rate of intermarriage are characteristic features of Australian Jewry.

POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

Australia’s plethora of extreme right organizations vary greatly in their membership, activities and target audiences. The veteran, traditional far right has in the last few years been supplemented by small extremist groups, which operate mainly through the Internet.

In 1999, the deep divisions within the parliamentary ranks of One Nation in Queensland seemed to discredit the view that a single unified anti-immigration party would sweep to power in Australia.

A trend which became apparent in 1999 was the splintering of the far right. The Internet has played a part in this by permitting smaller organizations to maintain an existence and giving potential recruits a point of contact. Another tendency, which emerged in the late 1990s, was the reappearance of personalities formerly associated with groups such as the Immigration Control Association, the Progressive Liberal Party, National Alliance or other defunct far right-wing groups, as activists of contemporary manifestations of older conservative or neo-fascist advocacy groups.

The Australian far-right fringe is in a constant state of flux. Individuals who promote, for example, a return to policies which actively disadvantage indigenous Australians, have shown a mobility between overtly anti-Semitic groups such as the Australian League of Rights, populist movements such as One Nation and pseudo-militia groups such as the AUSI Freedom Scouts. Extremist anti-immigration elements oscillate between Australian National Action, the Confederate Action Party, the Australia First Movement and the groups mentioned above. Those with anti-Semitism as their primary concern may be drawn to the various “Identity” churches and conspiracy propagandists. Supporters of US-based neo-Nazi groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the Church of the Creator and White Aryan Resistance, often transfer their allegiance in accordance with media interest. The core group of activists from Australians Against Further Immigration align themselves with either One Nation or Australia First.

A large overlaps exists between fringe far right-wing organizations and New Age, or other alternative lifestyle, groups, which are concerned with extra-terrestrial phenomena, non-conventional medical alternatives and opting out of the organized economy. This enables extreme right groups to disseminate their message beyond their own confines.

The Adelaide Institute, a loose conglomeration of individuals around self-styled “Holocaust revisionist” Fredrick Toben, disseminates the most vicious and malicious anti-Jewish propaganda of any Australian group. Its Internet homepage is linked to major Holocaust denial sites internationally and it continues to distribute printed material in an attempt to influence media opinion while offending Jewish recipients who are mailed unsolicited copies.

The Australian League of Rights, described by the federal government's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission as “undoubtedly the most influential and effective, as well as the best organized and most substantially financed, racist organization in Australia,” continued to hold meetings, conduct action campaigns and seek publicity for its anti-Semitic analysis of domestic and international affairs. In addition to traditional methods of propagating its views, the League has increased its use of modern communications technology.

Small organizations which claim to be Christian but which emphasize white racial superiority, serve a small following.In Australia they conduct services and sermons, while using the Internet to reach much larger audiences both nationally and internationally. Through the Internet, “Identity” groups and other anti-Semitic propagandists have provided anti-Jewish groups with a large volume of defamatory literature and the facility to reproduce traditional anti-Semitic ideas in contemporary form.

The Citizens' Electoral Councils (CECs), headquartered in Melbourne, engage in mass mailings of literature reflecting the views of their guru, the US-based conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche. While today the CECs are less specific in their targeting, in the past the ECAJ, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and other Jewish and anti-racist groups were often named in their propaganda attacks.

The Australian Civil Liberties' Union (ACLU) continued to advocate Holocaust denial. Virtually every public announcement from this organization was directed at protecting the rights of Holocaust deniers or other racists. John Bennett, who is the Union's motivating force, sits on the editorial advisory committee of the Journal of Historical Review, published by the Institute for Historical Review in California.

The militia sub-culture has suffered due to the new, more restrictive gun ownership legislation introduced in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur mass murder; the change in government from the hated "Fabians" to a conservative coalition; and the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, which offered their following a seemingly more viable means of "rescuing" Australia.

In most cities, small groups of neo-Nazis, sometimes including violent skinheads, have come to attention during the past year. Skinheads not necessarily aligned to any formal group have allegedly been involved in racist violence against Asian students and harassment of members of left-wing groups. Attempts to exploit these groups or direct their violence toward Jews and other minorities are common.

Although the many small groups which comprise the Australian far left often issue declarations criticizing racism in all its forms, when demonizing Israel, they speak of an “international Zionist conspiracy” and equate Jews with Nazis, as seen, for example, in Green Left Weekly and The Vanguard. Thus, some of their rhetoric is barely distinguishable from the anti-Semitism of the extreme right.

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITY

There were 253 reports of anti-Semitic violence, vandalism, intimidation and harassment in 1999, compared with 350 incidents in 1998. Still, this figure is 11 percent higher than the average over the previous nine years. The combined number of incidents involving physical assault, property damage and direct confrontational harassment was the highest ever reported -- 80 percent more than in the previous period -- and followed two years of decline.

The combined total of threatening telephone calls and hate mail was the lowest in seven years. While hate mail was received at the average rate, the number of threatening telephone calls reached the lowest level since recording began. There were approximately six reports per month of individual Jews or Jewish institutions receiving hate mail, or of non-Jews receiving mail which incited hatred toward Jewish Australians. Some letter writers sent multiple mailings to various individuals and organizations. One person, targeting Jewish home addresses in S, regularly claimed Jews were “the vermin of humanity” and urged “death to Jews.” Another, writing from Adelaide, accused Jewish religious teaching of responsibility for all contemporary social ills.

The Jewish communities received reports of graffiti on Jewish institutions, in areas frequented by their members, and of specifically anti-Semitic graffiti in other locations. The most disturbing incidents of graffiti were those which targeted members of the Jewish community in their private homes, despite a steep decrease of 50 percent from the previous year.

Electronic mail is now firmly established as a major method used by individuals and organizations to harass and threaten Jewish Australians. There has been hesitation in enforcing existing laws against those who have sent traceable e-mail messages. Distribution of hate mail electronically or conventionally accounted for over 70 percent of all incidents and represented the second highest rate ever.

Several organizations promote anti-Semitism as a core activity or as an integral part of a paranoid world view. Others actively propagate negative anti-Jewish stereotypes and myths designed to promote fear and hatred of Jews and Judaism. Since anti-Semitism is not indigenous to Australia, overseas sources are heavily used. Moreover, anti-Semitic groups ranging from Islamist to far right wing may all draw on the same material, such as that of white supremacists or “Identity” groups.

In 1999, for example, Islamic Offerings from Australia and Scott Balson’s Australian National News of the Day (see below) both drew on the Holocaust denial of Ahmed Rami's Radio Islam. The New Age Annwn (see below), the Adelaide Institute and Scott Balson all quoted US white supremacist William Pierce (see USA and previous reports). Both the Islamist al-Moharer al-Australi and Annwn quoted the bizarre Turkish conspiracy theorist Harun Yahya. David Irving is promoted by the Adelaide Institute and Scott Balson.

The source of the largest volume of anti-Semitic material circulated from an Australian address was the daily Internet newspaper Australian National News of the Day. This daily collection of articles, links and “letters” is published by Scott Balson, who, during most of 1999, was also the webmaster for Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

Annwn an Australian Internet newsletter with associated hard-copy publications, generally authored by webmaster Joseph Chiappalone, contained a number of examples of blatant anti-Semitism, cloaked in New Age rhetoric. The material was extremely aggressive in tone, depicting Jews as “the anti-Christ” and blaming “Zionists” for the death of Jesus.

In Australia today the most insidious form of anti-Semitism maintains that no Nazi genocide of Jews occurred. Virtually all Australian anti-Semitic organizations either profess Holocaust denial or argue that Holocaust deniers have a right to be given serious academic consideration. In the majority of cases Holocaust denial appears as a central theme in the platforms of anti-Semitic organizations. The international Jewish conspiracy myth, blaming Australian Jews for controversial federal and state policies on social and financial issues and misrepresentation of the Talmud are also common themes in extremist propaganda.

Australia’s mainstream media generally acts responsibly in its reporting of “Jewish” matters. While its coverage of issues relating to Jewish claims resulting from the Nazi Holocaust has generally been sympathetic, it is less so in relation to Israel and the Middle East, when occasionally analogies are made between Israel and Nazi Germany. There were a few instances of journalists or contributors expressing direct or indirect antagonism to Jews and/or Judaism, such as a front-page article in a quality broadsheet where “chutzpah” is described as the “essence of Jewishness,” in the context of the “Jewish descent” of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, or the columnist in a large circulation tabloid describing Holocaust deniers as individuals “who have presented evidence that the extent of the Holocaust has been exaggerated.”

A negligible amount of anti-Jewish commentary appeared in the electronic media. Nevertheless, Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben received a platform on both ABC and SBS Radio, where he claimed that “the gas chamber in Auschwitz did not exist” and the Holocaust was not a “historical fact.”

Jews are not a major concern of Australia’s Arabic-speaking community, but sometimes discussion of the Middle East departs from vigorous political debate and enters the realm of religious and racial stereotyping. Nida'ul Islam, for example, which is available on the Internet and as a glossy magazine, prints extreme views of members of the Islamic community in Australia and of a range of overseas commentators. It describes Jews as “extremely arrogant” toward Allah, and claims they have “become tyrants” who aim to corrupt and disparage Islam.

Among, in particular, communities from Central and Eastern Europe, there has been an active debate on the matter of restitution of Jewish property and prosecution of Nazi war criminals, which has often included references to the need to investigate Jewish behavior as much as that of Nazis and their collaborators. The World Serbian Voice printed a number of extremely anti-Semitic articles, in English, submitted by Jack King of Adelaide, which were calculated to incite Serbs against Jews, on the grounds that “Zionist international bankers” had plotted a “New World Order,” which included war against the Serbs.

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

The 1995 legislation giving recourse to victims of racism is administered by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). If conciliation is not achieved, hearings take place and penalties may be imposed. Two cases referred to public hearing, against the Adelaide Institute website and against the anti-Jewish propagandist Olga Scully, have already demonstrated the complexities of the process of resolving complaints: over 45 months having passed since the complaints were lodged. As of mid-2000, the findings in both cases were still pending.

Some regional legislatures have passed laws which act to complement the federal legislation. In 1999, Tasmania joined New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Western Australia and Queensland in adopting an anti-discrimination act, which outlaws discrimination on grounds of race, religious belief or affiliation, or religious activity, as well as the incitement of hatred on these grounds. South Australia has draft legislation currently pending, while various proposals re-emerge at intervals in the Northern Territory and Victoria. Although there have been no successful criminal prosecutions under any of these laws, local councils, public authorities and corporations have taken action to ensure that the laws have not been breached, and there has been successful conciliation of complaints lodged under NSW and ACT law.

A variety of sporting bodies introduced anti-racism codes of conduct in 1999, the focus being mainly on “offensive language.”

Concern about racism in the wake of statements by One Nation leader prompted a counter-reaction from public figures, including party leaders and Prime Minister John Howard, who stated on a number of occasions that he opposed all manifestations of anti-Semitism. Most state and territory legislatures have passed motions over the past two years condemning racism, calling for reconciliation and affirming the values of tolerance and diversity. An outstanding moral voice against racism came from Governor-General Sir William Deane, who made a series of speeches on this theme in 1999.

Churches, such as the Uniting Church of Australia, were also important proponents of diversity and tolerance, often in concert with the Jewish community. The Catholic Church was promoting inter-religious and multi-faith understanding as a particular focus in the lead up to the year 2000. There were also welcome signs of rapprochement between the Anglican Church and the Jewish commu.

Church and service organizations assert moral leadership against racism and anti-Semitism by refusing to allow racist and anti-Jewish groups to hire their premises and by having their representatives refuse to share platforms with known extremists. It appears that this policy is proving successful and extremist anti-Jewish groups are experiencing increasing difficulty in finding premises and in convincing mainstream Australians to participate in their activities.

One of the most encouraging responses to anti-Semitism and racism, recently, has been a broad spectrum of educational initiatives, coming from government, community organizations, the business sector and individuals. These included the anti-racism campaign of the federal government and public awareness programs of the HREOC. Community organizations promoted visits to schools by articulate representatives of ethnic communities, visits to institutions such as the Sydney Jewish Museum and the production of teaching materials on tolerance and the negative impact of racism.

Individuals opposed to racism, operating alone or in very small groups, such as Dr. David Maddison of Melbourne and Alan Gold and his colleagues at the Writers Against Racism on the Net project, have found that the Internet allows them to make a significant contribution to efforts to counter the propaganda of hatemongers. Besides participation in newsgroups, they have developed websites which provide materials for combating racism and anti-Semitism.