The arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue on Friday marked a depressing new point in the way the conflict in the Middle East is impacting the Australian community.

Political leaders of the two main parties met at Adass Israel Synagogue to condemn the attack. The local Jewish community expressed understandable anxiety and grief.

The Prime Minister denounced “the deliberate and unlawful attack (which) goes against everything we are as Australians and everything we have worked so hard to build as a nation”, saying that she had “risked lives and clearly aimed to sow fear in the community”. “.

“I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism,” Anthony Albanese said.

“This has absolutely no place in Australia. This violence, intimidation and destruction of a place of worship is an outrage.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said “seeing a firebombing of a synagogue, a place of worship, is not welcome and has absolutely no place in our country.”

“And today we should redouble our support for the Jewish community, who will feel this very acutely.”

But Dutton also had another message.

Dutton criticizes government’s change of position

Asked by journalists at a door stop in Kiama, south of Sydney, on Friday whether he thought “Australia’s change in position at the UN would encourage more terrorism as the Prime Minister’s office suggests.” Israeli minister,” the opposition leader responded that the vote had “made our country less secure.”

“This is unacceptable – totally unacceptable in our country – and the Prime Minister must defend our values ​​and he must do so not only here at home, but also at the United Nations and elsewhere around the world,” he said.

Such rhetoric is representative of the absurdities that now animate much of the political debate over anti-Semitism in Australia.

It’s one thing, for example, to challenge the federal government’s position on a UN resolution. It’s another to claim that this is the cause of the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Australia.

But for months now, Dutton and the opposition have used complex Middle East politics – and the Australian government’s attempts to find a middle, moderate path – as part of a broader political attack that presents Prime minister as weak.

It is certainly not beyond the reach of the Israeli Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, to be able to make distinctions and some nuances on this issue.

Maimon said on Friday he was “disappointed” by Australia’s stance on a UN vote this week (we’ll get to that in a moment), but observed that the “outrageous attack” on the synagogue did not t was “not a unique phenomenon” in Australia and that the strength of relations between Australia and Israel could not be measured “on the basis of one or two votes” at the UN.

“I do not hold the government, the Albanian government, responsible for the rise (of the protest)–Semitism),” he said.

“But I urge the Albanian government to take all necessary actions and measures to eradicate this horrific phenomenon and to ensure that Jews, whether they live in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney or elsewhere, will feel safe.”

Notably, the ambassador also did not endorse comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office published in The Australian newspaper.

The vote at the UN, the spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office reportedly said, meant that Australia may no longer be a “key ally” of the Jewish state and that the vote would “undoubtedly prompt further of terrorism” and “more anti-Semitic riots” Western campuses and city centers, “including in Australia”.

One has to wonder if an Israeli Prime Minister would have launched such an aggressive attack on a Bob Hawke or a John Howard. And one also has to wonder whether any of our former prime ministers would have simply appeared to make such an attack, as appears to have been the case this week.

But what exactly was this vote?

Along with 157 other countries, including major allies other than the United States, Australia voted this week on Wednesday to demand an end to Israel’s “illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as quickly as possible.”

Australia’s Ambassador to the UN, James Larsen, said Australia would support the resolution, titled “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine”, for the first time since 2001, to reflect the desire for an international “momentum” towards achieving a two-state solution. for Israel and Palestine.

“A two-state solution remains the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, the only hope of seeing a secure and prosperous future for both peoples,” he told the general assembly.

Australia has not supported such votes over the past two decades, arguing that it would do so when it felt there was a particular interest in doing so.

But our country’s underlying support for a two-state solution has never wavered.

In fact, as recently as October last year – following Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel on October 7 – six former prime ministers confirmed this.

John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard and Scott Morrison issued a statement saying that “we endorse, as we did when in office, the Australian Government’s enduring support for a two-way solution States as the basis for a long-term solution.” peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

“At this time, more than ever, we must, in the words of the 34th Psalm, ‘seek and pursue peace.’ And here at home, that is done by standing up for our Australian values, condemning hate speech and intolerance and respecting the Australian people in all our diversity.

When asked this week whether the opposition still supports a two-state solution, Dutton sidestepped the question, insisting the focus should remain on defeating Hamas.

“The best we can do for peace in the Middle East is to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and ensure that their proxies in Iran do not strike with nuclear weapons, or through the Houthis, or “others they find, because innocent women and children are losing their lives,” he said.

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Does the bipartisan position continue?

So while the opposition attacked the government for actively reviving a bipartisan position that Australia held for most of the post-World War II period, its own comments raise the question of whether it still supports this position.

It’s difficult to say in the midst of the difficult times our Jewish community is going through.

But it is also worth noting the very different treatment of Muslim communities subject to very similar attacks over the past decade by our politicians.

A 2021 study of 75 mosques across Australia by Charles Sturt University found that more than half (58.2%) of participating mosques, or their worshippers, had experienced targeted violence between 2014 and 2019.

The types of violence experienced by mosque worshipers and mosque buildings included arson, physical assault, graffiti, vandalism, verbal and online violence, and hate mail, including threats of dead.

The political indignation seemed, to say the least, much more muted.

We may be in the early stages of an election campaign, but we deserve better from our political leaders on such a deeply troubling issue.

Laura Tingle is 7:30’s chief political correspondent.