Leaders condemn Melbourne synagogue attack but disagree on cause of rising violence

The arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue on Friday marked a depressing new low in the way the conflict in the Middle East has been reverberating through the Australian community.

Political leaders from both major parties gathered at the Adass Israel Synagogue to condemn the attack. The local Jewish community expressed its completely understandable anxiety and grief.

The prime minister denounced the "deliberate, unlawful attack [which] goes against everything we are as Australians and everything we have worked so hard to build as a nation", saying it had "risked lives and is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community".

"I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism", Anthony Albanese said.

"It has absolutely no place in Australia. This violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage."

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said that "to see the firebombing of a synagogue, a place of worship, is something that is not welcome and has no place in our country whatsoever".

"And today we should double down on our support of the Jewish community, who will be feeling this very acutely."

But Dutton had another message too.

Dutton criticises government's change of position

Asked by reporters at a 'doorstop' at Kiama, south of Sydney on Friday whether he believed "that Australia's changing position at the UN will invite more terrorism as suggested by the Israeli Prime Minister's office", the opposition leader responded that the vote had "left our country less safe".

"It's unacceptable — totally unacceptable in our country — and the prime minister needs to stand up for our values and he needs to do that not just here at home, but also in the United Nations and elsewhere around the world", he said

Such rhetoric is representative of the non sequiturs that now drive a lot of the political debate about anti-Semitism in Australia.

It is one thing, for example, to take issue with the federal government's position on a resolution to the UN. It is another to argue it is the cause of rising anti-Semitic attacks in Australia.

But for months now, Dutton and the opposition have been using the complex politics of the Middle East — and the Australian government's attempts to find a middle and moderate path — as part of a broader political attack that paints the prime minister as weak.

It is certainly not beyond the Israeli Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, to be able to draw the distinctions and some nuances on this issue.

Maimon said on Friday that he was "disappointed" at Australia's position on an UN vote this week (more on that in a moment) but observed the "outrageous attack" on the synagogue was "not a unique phenomenon" in Australia and that the strength of the Australia-Israel relationship could not be measured "based on one or two votes" in the UN.

"I don't hold the government, the Albanese government, responsible for the rise (in anti-Semitism)," he said.

"But I do urge the Albanese government to take all necessary actions and steps in order to uproot this ugly phenomena and to make sure that Jewish people, whether they live in Canberra or in Melbourne and Sydney or elsewhere, will feel safe and secure."

Notably, the ambassador also stopped short of endorsing comments to The Australian newspaper by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The UN vote, the Israeli PM's office spokesperson had been quoted as saying, meant Australia may no longer be a "key ally" of the Jewish state and that the vote would undoubtedly "invite more terrorism" and "more anti-Semitic riots" on Western campuses and city centres, "including in Australia".

You do have to wonder whether an Israeli prime minister would have launched so aggressive an attack on a Bob Hawke or John Howard. And you do equally have to wonder whether any of our former prime ministers would have appeared to just wear such an attack as seems to have been the case this week.

But what exactly was this vote?

Along with 157 other countries, including major allies other than the US, Australia voted this week on Wednesday to demand the end of Israel's "unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible".

Australia's ambassador to the UN, James Larsen, said Australia would support the resolution, titled the "Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine", for the first time since 2001 to reflect a desire for international "momentum" towards achieving a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

"A two-state solution remains the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, the only hope to see a secure and prosperous future for both peoples," he told the general assembly meeting.

Australia has not supported such votes in the past couple of decades, arguing that it would do so when it felt there was a particular point to doing so.

But our country's underlying support for a two-state solution has never wavered.

Indeed, as recently as October last year — in the wake of the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel — six former prime ministers confirmed this.

John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison released a statement saying "we endorse, as we did in office, the Australian government's enduring support for a two-state solution as the basis for long-term lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples".

"At this time, more than ever, we must in the words of the 34th Psalm "seek peace and pursue it". And here at home that is done by defending our Australian values, condemning hate speech and intolerance and respecting the people of Australia in all our diversity."

Asked this week whether the opposition still supported a two-state solution, Dutton sidestepped the question, insisting the focus should stay on defeating Hamas.

"The best we can do for peace in the Middle East is defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and make sure their proxy in Iran does not strike with nuclear weapons, or through the Houthis, or others they are finding, because innocent women and children are losing their lives," he said.

Does bipartisan position endure?

So, while the opposition was attacking the government for actively reviving a bipartisan position Australia has held for most of the post-World War II period, Dutton's own comments raise questions about whether he actually still endorses that position.

It's hard to tell amid the fraught times being experienced by our Jewish community.

But it is also worth noting the very different treatment by our politicians of Muslim communities subject to very similar attacks over the past 10 years by our politicians.

A 2021 study of 75 mosques across Australia by Charles Sturt University found that, over half (58.2 per cent) of participating mosques, or worshippers at them, had experienced targeted violence between 2014 and 2019.

The types of violence suffered by mosque attendees and the mosque buildings included arson, physical assault, graffiti, vandalism, verbal abuse and online abuse and hate mail, including death threats.

The political outrage seemed much more muted, to say the least.

We may be in the early stages of an election campaign, but we deserve better from our political leaders on such a deeply troubling issue.

Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.