Dutton isn’t just exploiting antisemitism

Following a history of racism, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is now carrying on Israel’s ethnonationalist rhetoric and fuelling antisemitism in our country, writes Richard King.

THE DISCOVERY in Dural, NSW, of a caravan full of industrial explosives, together with what appears to be a handwritten list of “Jewish entities” to be targeted in an attack, has elevated the issue of antisemitism in Australia to the status of an emergency.

What was, until a few days ago, a disgusting and depressing outbreak of arson and vandalism against Jewish property, businesses and places of worship is now a terrorism investigation. That the discovery coincided with the news that a Jewish school in Marouba, NSW, has been targeted in a graffiti attack makes it all the more disquieting.

The incidents are presumably unrelated, but their proximity may cause genuine panic.

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There is no question that these acts, or planned acts, are despicable, or that anti-Jewish racism has a uniquely disturbing resonance. Though no worse morally than other forms of racism, antisemitism will forever be associated with the most repugnant ideologies of the 20th Century, and its memetic and conspiratorial character means that it is always “ready to go” in an era defined by disinformation.

As Christopher Hitchens once remarked, no one accuses Pakistanis of trying to take over the global economy, of running international Bolshevism, or indeed of doing both at the same time. But Jews are cast as both uniquely vile and uniquely powerful: they are wretched, but they’re also crafty.

Nevertheless, it remains the case that the terms in which some political leaders have rallied to the Jewish community’s defence are both political in the narrow sense and deeply, dangerously counterproductive. In particular, the routine and wilful confusion of antisemitism and criticism of Israel has served not only to slander opponents of Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza but also, implicitly, to make those actions identical to the Jewish people.

This is an insult to the many Jews who continue to oppose the “war” and a gift to those who regard Jews in general as bloodthirsty and malevolent: in other words, to antisemites. That is the dirty little secret of the Right’s “defence” of the Jewish community: it stokes – and may even be intended to stoke – the very racism it claims to deplore.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been accused, with justice, of “politicising” antisemitism, but his description of the pro-Palestinian marches as “anti-Jewish” demonstrations, his characterisation of International Criminal Court actions against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “antisemitic” and his implication that the Albanese Government’s (feeble) criticisms of Israel are driving the antisemitic attacks are a lot more serious than that phrase might suggest.

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In tying opposition to Israel to anti-Jewish prejudice, Dutton is linking a legitimate political position to a racist ideology and the actions of a rogue state to an ethnicity. In this way, the hammer of “African gangs” and Lebanese-Muslim refugees – the racist dog-whistler par excellence, who advocates for blanket bans on Palestinians seeking refuge in Australia – is driving racism while affecting to condemn it.

At the same time, Dutton is reproducing the line of the current Israeli administration, which has also accused the Albanese Government of fomenting antisemitism and whose murderous version of Zionism is presented as a defence of Jewishness. That the Israeli administration continues to criticise the anti-war movement for employing the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is in this connection grimly ironic, given how many of its supporters dream of a future Israel with precisely those parameters.

But that is the logic of the Israeli position, now faithfully reproduced by Dutton: accuse others of racism while being a racist yourself.

There have been suggestions in the last few days that some of the antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne may have been orchestrated by foreign actors. Certainly, that’s possible. But Peter Dutton’s importation of Israel’s ethnonationalist rhetoric is a greater threat to national security – and indeed to the Jewish community – than anything being hatched from without.

If anyone is fuelling antisemitism, it’s him.

Richard King is a writer based in Fremantle. His latest book is Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity? (Monash University Publishing, 2023). His new book, Brave New Wild: Can Technology Save the Planet?, will be published in May.