Rob Klein

The hatred came first. The target came later. That is Henry Ergas’s bleak reading of Australia after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. The antisemitism that followed, he argues, was not simply a reaction to the war in Gaza. It was the release of forces that had been gathering for years. Ergas has spent a lifetime studying why institutions succeed, why they fail and what happens when public policy loses contact with evidence.

Waverley Council has removed a book strongly critical of Israel from its library shelves for review after a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre condemned its prominent display as deeply insensitive. Chaya said in a Facebook post that she found How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza on Waverley Library’s “New Release / Hot Item” shelf.

More than half of Australian voters say the Bondi Beach terrorist attack has left them less confident that people of all faiths and backgrounds can live safely in the country, according to a national survey commissioned by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. The finding forms part of a broader picture of weakening social cohesion, greater awareness of local antisemitism and declining confidence in the response of local councils.