Opinion – Rising Antisemitism on Australian University Campuses Demands Real Action
A surge in antisemitic attacks and university-based hostility has sparked calls for stronger government intervention
Australia has achieved the ignominious reputation of being the country most reported on for the unleashing of antisemitism.
Last October, I warned that turning a blind eye to inflammatory speech—whether it is an imam referring to Jews as “sons of apes and pigs” or calls for a global intifada—would only embolden antisemites. I also expressed the fear that major communities around the world were concerned that a major casualty event was just around the corner.
The latest shocking example of antisemitism in Australia occurred in February 2025, when two health care workers in a Sydney hospital were suspended for threatening, in a TikTok video, to kill Israeli patients, and saying that they had already done so. The incident, now under police investigation, was condemned by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “driven by hate” and “disgusting.”
January saw a range of attacks, including an incident near a synagogue in Sydney where a child care center was targeted, homes and cars defaced with Jew-hating graffiti, and, most worryingly, the discovery of a caravan packed with explosives along with a list of targets in Sydney.
Following the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December, the government came under extreme pressure to go beyond issuing condescending platitudes condemning antisemitism. They have recently passed legislation allowing for minimum mandatory jail sentences for a limited range of hate crimes and terrorist offenses. In particular, Nazi symbols such as swastikas and Nazi-style salutes have been banned.
Has the government assuaged the fears of the Jewish community, demonstrating that they grasp the severity of the situation and have taken sufficient steps to contain the threats? The answer is a resounding no!
Despite Hamas and Hezbollah being designated as terrorist organizations and the display of their flags being banned, few arrests have been made.
If the government is truly serious about tackling antisemitism, it needs to address a major source: universities and higher education institutions.
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Universities have long served as incubators of the radical left. Back in the 1980s, they were obsessed with demonizing the State of Israel and professing total support for the then grandmasters of global terrorism, the Palestine Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat.
Today, they have infiltrated the viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic Green Party (in Australia, the Australian Greens), the left wing of the Labour Party, and the unions. More ominously, they occupy administrative positions at universities and are largely responsible for greenlighting the hostile environment on major campuses throughout Australia.
They have tolerated demonstrations on campus that brazenly support Hamas and Hezbollah and call for the destruction of Israel on the loose grounds of protecting freedom of speech.
Demonstrators have been permitted to storm and interrupt lectures, erect tents, distribute malicious materials, and make universities an unsafe environment for Jews.
The ranks of professors and tutors are full of radical left-wing ideologues who promote Marxist dogma and an anti-American outlook, which targets Israel as the quintessential colonial oppressor. They have actively promoted and participated in the campaign to support Hamas and Hezbollah and have called for the eradication of Israel with no recourse from university administrators.
The most egregious example of the lack of moral clarity and the total absence of any accountability was the provision of a government grant in excess of 870,000 Australian dollars (550,000 US dollars) to Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah of Macquarie University to research Arab/Muslim Australian social movements since the 1970s.
She has an extensive record of anti-Israel activity of the vilest nature. Her Facebook cover on October 8, 2023, featured Hamas terrorists parachuting into Israel. She supports Hamas and has posted her dream that by 2025 the Zionist entity would cease to exist. She has spoken at numerous demonstrations where she has chanted “intifada.”
She has published academic articles denying that rapes and sexual assaults occurred on October 7, 2023. She was recently a key speaker at an anti-racism conference at the Queensland University of Technology, which turned into a hate fest against Israel, Zionism, and Jews.
Recently, she co-hosted a children’s excursion to the University of Sydney, where the young participants were encouraged to chant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slogans.
Calls to revoke her scholarship grant have been ongoing. It has taken over a year for Education Minister Jason Clare to condemn her activities. Following public outrage, a former Federal Court judge was appointed last week to conduct a review.
Over the last year, those urging the government to act against antisemitism have made a key demand: the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism as a first step.
The government has been silent, while universities have obfuscated, claiming that such a definition infringes on freedom of speech. Moreover, the vilest accusations unleashed on campuses against Zionists—i.e., Jews—and support for intifada are justified on the same premises.
Universities are meant to represent the intellectual elite of society and cultivate our future leaders. They also receive significant government funding.
Criminal and terrorist activities—however dangerous, intimidating, and threatening to the Jewish community—will ultimately be addressed through the efforts of the police and security agencies.
Yet it is the breeding ground of ideas that gives license to the perpetrators that must be stamped out. The spread of pernicious ideologies—not just those related to the Middle East conflict—poses the gravest threat to social cohesion.
Perhaps Australia should take a leaf from the US, where President Donald Trump has called for the expulsion of overseas students who support Hamas and Hezbollah. This is coupled with moves by Congress to call out educational institutions that have been hotbeds of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activity.
Tackling universities sends a powerful message to society that the scourge of antisemitism must be eradicated.
