Too afraid to speak up: Aussie unis in grip of anti-Semitism crisis

Australia’s universities are in the grip of an anti-Semitism crisis driven by Marxism and a radical minority of anti-Israel students and professors who have cowed the rest of their campuses into silence, a forum on campus life has heard.

“This is egged on by a minority of anti-Semitic activists and scholars but they tend to make the running, they tend to inform the context in which much of this debate plays out,” author and University of Melbourne professor Timothy Lynch told a recent panel at The Sydney Institute.

“I’ve got a rule of thirds on this. There are a third of my campus and I would suspect most other campuses in the West that are susceptible to this anti-Semitic ‘Israel is the source of all evil ‘caricature, another third that don’t care and never think about Israel or Hezbollah or international politics.”

“And then you have another third who are perhaps quieter, who are very sceptical of that first third.”

“When you break cover on some of these issues … I found that in my lived experience that I have allies.”

“Thank God you’ve gone on record (they say) and that makes me optimistic.”

Lynch’s comments come amid rising concerns about anti-Jewish sentiment on campus since the October 7 attacks that has led to a rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents.

Earlier this month a Labor led Senate inquiry found that universities’ responses to anti Semitism were “woefully inadequate” and a “sad indictment” on the sector.

“It is clear to the committee that university responses to incidents of anti-Semitism, and the fears of Jewish students and staff, have been woefully inadequate,” their report said.

However the committee rejected a royal commission-style investigation into the problem.

Fellow participant Freya Leach, founder of Never Again is Now, said that anti-Semitism was being driven by Marxist ideas that saw everything as simple power relations between oppressor and oppressed.

“The left’s world view of cultural Marxism says that liberation for the oppressed will only come when we have thrown off the shackles of capitalism and Western liberal democracy.”

“For a time the Jewish people were seen as the victims . as the oppressed ” but this changed after the Six Day War when Israel defeated its Arab enemies and “marked the moment the left turned against Israel because they stopped being victims.”

Leach also said that there were dangers in Australia from rising anti-Semitism driven from the far left, the far right, and radical Islam, and that more education was needed.

“Australia’s connection to the Holocaust is fading with literally every single year that goes past … in 10 years there will be virtually no Holocaust survivors left in Australia to pass on that memory.”

Originally published as Aussie unis in grip of anti-Semitism crisis