Opinion
In the 1930s, university students were at the vanguard of the Nazi Reich. The National Socialist German Student League soon became notorious as one of the most antisemitic groups in the Reich. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, “Paramilitary student groups often interrupted lectures, provoked skirmishes, and physically intimidated Jewish students”.
It’s happening again, right here in Australia.
Pro-Palestine activists are turning up at University of Melbourne classrooms and photographing students after asking for a show of hands to indicate who agrees with their views on the Israel-Gaza war.
The shocking incidents and others similar have become such a problem within the university’s arts faculty that dean Lesley Stirling emailed staff this week about increasing complaints from students.
The University of Sydney, too, has long been notorious as a hotbed of anti-Jewish rabble. Its student newspaper lauds Jew-killing Arab terrorists on its cover. Jewish students have been forced to hide any outward signs such as kippahs or Stars of David. Even before October 7, the ABC was reporting “disturbing levels of antisemitism” on Australian campuses.
But the intimidation at Melbourne Uni is ratcheting up to Third Reich levels.
Professor Stirling – who urges teachers to “think carefully” about how and when they express their views on the war – then goes on to outline concerning occasions in which activists have come into classrooms and taken pictures.
The Herald Sun understands this has been done by people with pro-Palestine views.
“Students in arts have been particularly concerned about activists visiting classrooms, asking for a show of hands to indicate agreement with their statements, and then taking photographs of the group,” she wrote.
Just as in Nazi Germany, the aim is clearly to drive Jewish students off campus. It’s succeeding.
One Jewish student said they had stopped going to lectures in person and switched to online learning because of a photographing incident.
“They are coming to speak up before every lecture, inviting students to join their protest,” they said.
“(They then) take pictures of those who are interested and those who are not.”
The Herald-Sun
Things are even worse in Muslim-dominated London, where, just as in Sydney, Jews are liable to be arrested, simply for being Jewish in public.
An antisemitism campaigner who was threatened with arrest at a Gaza protest today said Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley had ‘failed abjectly’ to stand up for Jews and urged him to quit.
Scotland Yard’s Commissioner has come under fire after a video emerged of a police officer telling Campaign Against Antisemitism leader Gideon Falter that him being ‘openly Jewish’ was a provocation to pro-Palestinian demonstrators […]
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was left ‘appalled’ after watching the footage, according to a Government source. Mr Falter had just been to synagogue and was wearing a skullcap and had a bag bearing the Star of David.
Well, that’s just asking for it. Nothing is more guaranteed to send “pro-Palestinian protestors” into a murderous rage than the sight of a Jew being alive. It’s as provocative as being black when the Klan are burning their crosses.
‘I wasn’t wearing a badge, I didn’t have a sign, I wasn’t waving a flag or shouting a slogan. I was just walking around with my kippah on after synagogue and had a small bag which you have a prayer shawl in which has a small Star of David on.
‘It was a Saturday in London and people were crossing every which-way. Because I was Jewish I couldn’t.’
The Daily Mail
The exchange gives the lie to the Police and London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s assurances that London is a safe place for Jews. As Falter says, police insist that “these marches are completely safe for Jews, there is no problem whatsoever”.
Yet, police on the ground are openly stating that Jews cannot go near them without a police escort.
London is as about as safe for Jews as Berlin was in 1938.
And Melbourne and Sydney aren’t much better.