Anti-Semitism flourishes in mainstream progressive politics and some Islamic cultures. By Greg Sheridan in The Australian.
The Albanese government will almost certainly fail in its effort to defeat anti-Semitism because it still doesn’t understand the problem. …
Hate speech tends to be defined politically, ideologically.
In Australia, it’s been all but illegal to assert that a man cannot be a woman, but if you scream that all Zionists are racists, you’ll likely get a government research grant and be invited to prestigious conferences. …
Lefties and Muslims:
Anti-Semitism has a strong mainstream presence in progressive, or centre-left, culture, and in Islamic culture.
I’m not here talking about extremes, but the mainstream. This is not violent anti-Semitism, nor illegal, even under the Albanese government’s proposed new laws. But it’s real.
In Australia, both progressives and Muslims vote overwhelmingly for the Labor Party, either directly or via preferences. That’s why Labor baulked so much at a royal commission.
This is not to demonise either progressives or Muslims. Most are not anti-Semites, but anti-Semitism has a strong and continuing presence in those cultures, just as it once did in mainstream Christianity. …
Other religions have changed, but Islam is too strong:
Religious and political movements are often required to change social practices. Mormons had to give up polygamy. Christians generally had to reject their own historical anti-Semitism.
An example of mainstream antisemitism:
There hasn’t been a single serious ABC program devoted to anti-Semitism, and just to anti-Semitism.
This column has been calling out this crisis for years. That the topic never appealed to an ABC programmer shows the inherent, no doubt unconscious, progressive bias in editorial decision-making that drives the ABC on this issue.
The most succinct explanation for this progressive failure comes from Anglican theologian and polymath Michael Bird, who, in a reflection on Bondi, wrote: “The progressive left has abandoned the principle of equality before the law in favour of a moral hierarchy of identities.”
He fears that: “Even if new anti-hate speech laws are passed they will never be applied against Muslims or anti-Semitic progressives because government and law enforcement will never challenge the hierarchy of identities.” …
The Bible?
There are violent passages in the Old Testament, which Christians and Jews both regard as divinely inspired scripture.
They are indeed very troubling. But they’re interpreted as applying entirely, and only, to their specific historical circumstance. No one regards an Old Testament passage against Amalekites as having any contemporary application.
The Koran:
Islam has not renounced its anti-Semitism.