ArticleThe firebomb attack on a childcare centre was the eighth anti-Semitic attack in Sydney in just three months. So, is enough being done to stop the crimes and are our political leaders making things better or worse? Today, social justice advocate Tim Costello on the unrest in our cities linked to the October 7 terrorist attack and the bloodshed in Gaza.
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Transcript
Sam Hawley: A firebomb attack on a childcare centre was the eighth anti-Semitic attack in Sydney in just three months. So, is enough being done to stop the crimes? And are our political leaders making things worse rather than better? Today, social justice commentator Tim Costello on the unrest in our cities since the October 7 terrorist attack and the war in Gaza. I’m Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Music Tim, when you saw the vision of a childcare centre burning in Sydney’s east and this anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled over the wall, what did you think?
Tim Costello: I felt devastated. I could not believe this is happening in, you know, my country.
ABC News Reader: Flames of hatred flickering at a haven for the young. The centre in Sydney’s eastern suburbs was set alight in the early hours of the morning, complete with anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed in black paint on the wall.
Sam Hawley: It’s the latest, of course, in a string of attacks.
ABC News Reader: Police are investigating a suspicious fire that significantly damaged a synagogue in Melbourne’s south-east.
ABC News Reader: Multiple synagogues have been targeted with hate speech in the past two weeks and yesterday in Dover Heights, cars were set on fire.
ABC News Reader: It’s Sydney’s second anti-Semitic incident in a week following an attack on a synagogue on Saturday.
Sam Hawley: Anti-Semitism is on the rise, isn’t it? That’s clear.
Tim Costello: No doubt about that. Look, I lived in St Kilda and it was a big Jewish community for much of my life. And there was always security guards way before the October 7th Gaza War, always security guards on synagogues and schools. So I’ve always been aware that anti-Semitism is a constant threat. It is now boiled over and intensified terribly.
Sam Hawley: Chris Minns, the New South Wales Premier, points out that the attacks are becoming more sophisticated, more dangerous.
Chris Minns, NSW Premier: The kind of activity where they would attack a fellow Australian whom they don’t know because of their race or religion, it is completely disgusting. And these bastards will be round up by New South Wales Police.
Sam Hawley: And of course we’ve heard from the Australian Federal Police. They’ve revealed they’re investigating whether foreign actors have played some sort of role in any of this, whether they’re paying local criminals to carry out these attacks. And we don’t have a lot of detail, of course, around that. But, Tim, policing, of course, is one way to try and combat this anti-Semitism. But it goes well beyond that, doesn’t it? Because it goes to social cohesion. You believe that that has well and truly broken down. What does that mean?
Tim Costello: All of us live in peace by an invisible glue that is called civility, courtesy, respect, tolerance. You know, it really is a miracle that so many of us actually can co-exist with so little in law enforcement out there. We actually self-regulate. Social cohesion breaking down is when that self-regulation has so frayed the fabric that we’re getting outbursts and outbreaks and we’re not sure where to turn and what to do other than far greater law enforcement.
Anthony Albanese, Australian Prime Minister: What we need to do is to bring the country together, not look for difference, not look for division, not look for political advantage.
Peter Dutton, Opposition Leader: We don’t have tolerance for hatred in our country. Not against the Jews, not against Catholics, not against Asians, not against Protestants, not against atheists, not against tall people, short people, nobody.
Adam Bandt, Leader of the Greens: These attacks must stop and the Greens condemn them.
Peter Dutton, Opposition Leader: This is a national crisis. We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community and the Prime Minister has been dragged kicking and screaming to hold a meeting of our nation’s leaders.
Anthony Albanese, Australian Prime Minister: Peter Dutton, for someone who is responsible for some national security issues as Minister for Home Affairs, should know better.
Sam Hawley: Let’s look at the politics because without cohesion at a political level, you think it’s pretty hard to achieve it within the community. You argue for the first time in living memory, Australia’s Jewish and Muslim communities, when we come to the election in just a few months’ time, will largely vote as blocs.
Tim Costello: I feel that the politics of division is also rupturing social cohesion. I certainly believe that we should have seen Greens, Coalition and Labor taking a multi-partisan stance to say we’re not going to play politics with this issue. I absolutely believe that often the Greens, in my view, have turned a bit of a blind eye to Hamas and I really don’t want to see Hamas ruling in Gaza. I do believe it’s a two-state solution. I believe that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority should be given a chance to actually rule and for there to be peace. When the Coalition really only speak of Israel and the terrible barbaric offences of the 7th of October, without mentioning really the Palestinian aspirations and their rights and the occupations, we get a polarisation. We get Labor really swinging at both Greens and at the Coalition and looking weak and condemning anti-Semitism and then there’s more outbreaks. So I do believe anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are at work in our communities but I think the politicisation of it without nuance has also caused some rupture in our social cohesion.
Sam Hawley: And that, you argue, is causing the Prime Minister to walk this sort of tightrope?
Tim Costello: Look, I think it’s always hard being a bit of a meat in the sandwich. I think he has been trying and the politics of it are that Labor electorates and electorates they have to win have large Arab populations who, when you are watching, as we have been, the events in Gaza on our news every night, feel an existential threat. I think the Coalition have absolutely doubled down and now have pocketed effectively every Australian Jewish vote in this next election and that means the Prime Minister is sort of a meat in the sandwich, sort of flailing at both. Look, I think it’s taken him too long probably to call a national cabinet together as the Jewish community have been calling for. He’s now just done it. I think the sort of obtuse debates about should the police have called terror or is it just a hate crime or is it just an ordinary crime confuses most of us when synagogues have been burnt. We’re just going, actually, we need to say this must stop and use whatever tools of law enforcement at our beckoning but not then allow the idea that any criticism of Israel’s policies is somehow anti-Semitism. We keep getting pushed into these polarised positions that lack nuance. We need to cross the line. We need to actually not be just politically motivated ourselves but be citizens of goodwill condemning anti-Semitism, being free to speak about how we believe in a two-state solution and peace and push for that and avoid the politicisation that I think has happened here in Australia and I think in the world. I do think is contributing to the breakdown of social cohesion.
Sam Hawley: All right. So, Tim, if politicians can’t bring about this social cohesion that I think we all want, I mean, there would be very, very few people that would want to see a synagogue attacked like this in this country. What can we do? You have one example because, just tell me about this, over the new year, as a religious man, of course, you mixed things up a bit. So, you went to a, tell me about it, you went to a Catholic church.
Tim Costello: Yeah, and it’s a very small thing but I was very personally aware that I’m in my own bubble. We all know we’re in our own bubbles and we feel vindicated when people in our bubble affirm our views and I thought, okay, I’m going to go to a Catholic church instead of my …
Sam Hawley: And you’re Protestant?
Tim Costello: I’m a Baptist minister. Yes. I wandered in and I was really pleasantly surprised to pack church with Filipinos and Africans and Indians and wonderful music, a wonderful sense of social cohesion, an African Nigerian-born priest who in the prayers prayed for Palestinian and Israeli Jews and prayed and said, neither ethnicity or religion or colour determines who we are. And I found it a moment of inspiration. Australia has plenty of social cohesion, goodwill. We actually have to keep crossing the line and that was just one small act I did.
Sam Hawley: Hmm, yeah, okay, but, you know, is it really possible, I mean a practising Jew can attend a mosque, a Muslim can go into a synagogue, but it doesn’t address that underlying issue at a time of great conflict. People are deeply angry, aren’t they, at what they see in Gaza, even with this ceasefire now in place. The death toll is absolutely horrendous, as of course was the attack in Israel. This is so deeply polarising. It’s so hard to fix this.
Tim Costello: It really is, but at the grassroots level, when political leaders are flailing and failing, we see Arab Muslims and Israeli Jews working together in providing medical assistance in Gaza and in the West Bank right through the war since the 7th of October. Project Rosanna, which I’m a patron for, made up of Zionists and Muslim Palestinians working together. So that’s the crossing of a line far more morally significant than my little one of going to a Catholic church. At a grassroots level, when leaders, political leaders, are failing, we are still seeing these examples that give me hope.
Sam Hawley: And of course not every Jewish Australian supports what’s happening in Gaza. That might be lost on some people.
Tim Costello: Totally. An Australian Jewish Zionist friend who texted me when Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested somehow criticising his policies was anti-Semitism. He said, I’m a Zionist and I can’t criticise his policies because I do disagree with many of them. Now, that’s nuance for other Australians, particularly Arab Muslim Australians, to understand that Jewish Australian Zionists aren’t simply black and white.
Sam Hawley: Well, Tim, what’s your message then, particularly I think to our political leaders? You argue they need to assert justice for both sides.
Tim Costello: Exactly. Look, they’ve got to turn the temperature down, which is very hard with a federal election coming and HR-ing. How this conflict translates into votes or loss of votes. Actually, far more important than that political exercise is to say social cohesion is a multi-partisan responsibility. Turn the temperature down. Speak together. Do even press conferences together. Turning the temperature down. That’s what I’d call on our political leaders to do.
Sam Hawley: Tim Costello is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity and the Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead, Kara Jensen-Mackinnon and Anna John. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. To get in touch with the team, please email us on abcnewsdaily@abc.net.au. I’m Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
This interview was broadcast on ABC News Daily. Listen to the full interview here.