Page 21 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

on October 7. No political narrative or cause justifies premeditated murder, rape, mutilation and abduction. No appeal to the complexities of a geopolitical dispute excuses the massacre that took place on October 7. It was an act of terrorism on a massive scale and a crime against humanity, in the same barbaric vein as ISIS and conducted with a similar vehemence towards Jews as Nazism. Nazi atrocities should have been denounced by the world then. Hamas’ atrocities must be denounced now.
To allow excuses for such a massacre would be to send a terrible message to the world over and to ignore the lessons learned from the Holocaust. It would sanction antisemitic sentiment and embolden extremists and their sympathisers elsewhere. It would be a betrayal of the Jewish people.
Here in Australia we have already seen a sharp increase in antisemitic discourse and incidents since the events of October 7. Following the largest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, public antisemitic outbursts occurred on the streets of Sydney, with chants such as ‘Gas the Jews’2—voices we thought belonged to the days of Nazi Germany.
Prior to October 7, many of us would have considered such a scenario unthinkable. Yet these outbursts do not come out of nowhere. They remind us that antisemitism has been on the rise, in Australia and globally, emanating from both the right and the left of the political divide, for some time. Of course, there is no suggestion here that Australian society is anything like Nazi Germany. However, we are reminded that antisemitism has a way of reemerging even in peace-loving societies like our own, in new and insidious guises. The strength of our usually harmonious multicultural community should never be taken for granted. Vigilance against antisemitism must be an ongoing commitment.
2
The exact wording of the chant is disputed. Some say it was the menacing
phrase,‘Where’s the Jews?’.
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