Silence Has a Cost - and Right Now Australian Jews are Paying the Price

For 50 years we have been largely silent about Islamic antisemitism. 

Even today I received the latest paper from the Centre for Independent Studies (OVERCOMING ENMITY AND RESTORING TOLERANCE: Antisemitism’s challenge to our civic compact by Damien Freeman) and in 15 pages of discussion about antisemitism, there was only one reference to Islamic antisemitism, and that referred to it as “a different form of antisemitism associated with Islamicism in parts of the Muslim community that have been exposed to radicalisation”. There was no discussion about the religious nature of Islamic antisemitism, rather an attempt to distance Islam proper from antisemitism, when in fact the opposite is true. 

At Never Again is Now we are breaking this silence because we are committed to making antisemitism unthinkable. For example over the last week we have taken 60 Christian leaders through a full day intensive on Islam. And the seminars I am running around the country will give everyone an introduction to Islamic antisemitism. 

The question we have to ask is, why have we been so silent for so long?

Here are some of the reasons:

• We believed that religion is not an important motivating factor in our political and public behaviour.
• We believed that religion is a fundamentally private affair, limited to private matters largely limited to attendance at church/shule/mosque/temple.
• We believed in the fundamental equality of all religions, and hence the need for the freedom of everyone in Australia to practice their religion free of state intervention or sanction. 
• We believed that Sharia is about private religious life, not understanding the all-of-life, completely comprehensive nature of the Sharia
• We believed that preserving our multicultural cohesion was the key to Jewish safety in Australia.
• We believed that any critique of Islam could trigger racism and harm Muslim Australians, many of whom were our friends and co-workers, and were good peaceful citizens of Australia. 
• We believed that followers of Islam who were committed to Jihad and violence were not ‘real Muslims’.
• We believed that over time, followers of Islam living in Australia would voluntarily reject those parts of Islam that were incompatible with Australian values.

These ideas, whilst containing nuggets of truth, have proved to be catastrophically wrong, not just here, but around the western world. 

We have been silent out of ignorance, out of naive optimism about human nature, out of fear, and sometimes out of comfortable apathy.

And the people paying the price for our silence in Australia are Australian Jews. 

15 Australians paid with their lives for our silence. But the truth is for many years Australian Jews have paid for this by having to send their children to school behind armed guards, by having to worship behind armed guards at their shules, and by never feeling entirely safe and free in their own country. 

In the same way that we have spoken out emphatically against Christian antisemitism, and far right racist antisemitism, we must speak out against Islamic antisemitism.

How do we do this? 

First, we have to study and understand Islam on its own terms, not through western, secular eyes. We have to take its teachings with utmost seriousness.

Second, we need to always distinguish between the ideas of Islam and the followers of Islam. We must always love the latter, even while we subject the former to rigorous critique.

Third, we must do this en masse. History shows us that when a few people criticise Islam, it is dangerous for them. But when a million people do so, there is safety in those numbers.

Fourth, we must listen and learn from, and stand with, those who have lived under Islamic regimes in the Middle East, especially our Persian and Coptic neighbors. Let their stories give us the insight and the courage to speak up. 

Finally, we must ensure that the upcoming Royal Commission fearlessly examines Sharia as a source of radicalisation and antisemitism in Australia. 

Will you help us to break the silence and speak up, so that Australian Jews are safe and free in our wonderful country?

Mark Leach