There is a question hanging over the Australian Jewish community: when something happens that shocks us, frightens us or confirms what we have been warning about, what answer are we actually being given?
Not another statement. Not another condemnation. Not another assurance that antisemitism has no place in Australia. We have heard all of that. The question is whether Australia is responding with the seriousness this moment requires.
The past few days have been difficult. An Australian woman linked to ISIS is being allowed to return, with the government explaining the legal limits of what it can enforce. The Bankstown Hospital nurses case has taken another turn, with the video that caused such alarm ruled inadmissible before trial.
ASIO has spoken about Australian-linked offshore figures allegedly helping Iran direct attacks on Jewish sites. At the same time, Australia has been reported as effectively sixth among countries surveyed for negative views of Israel, with nearly eight in ten Australian adults surveyed holding an unfavourable view.
Each matter is different. But for Jewish Australians, they sit inside the same reality. We are not only watching the incidents. We are watching the explanations that follow. We are told what cannot be done, what is complicated, what must wait and what has to take its course. Sometimes those explanations are legally correct. Sometimes they may be necessary. But the community is left asking whether the system can do more than explain its own limitations.
People who hate Jews are watching too. They see how long processes take, how quickly attention moves on, and how often antisemitism becomes a debate about evidence, jurisdiction, or context before it becomes a serious conversation about Jewish safety. Even when threats are public or shocking, accountability is not guaranteed. Even when Jewish sites are allegedly targeted, too many people treat it as another news item rather than a national warning.
This is not an argument against due process. The presumption of innocence matters. Evidence rules matter. Courts cannot become vehicles for public anger. These principles protect all Australians, including Jewish Australians. But due process cannot become a substitute for leadership.
When the legal answer is “this is difficult”, where is the political answer? When a court process cannot reassure the community, where is the institutional answer? When police, prosecutors or agencies are constrained, where is the leadership answer?
Criticism of Israel is not automatically antisemitism. People are entitled to their views about Israel, its government, and the war. But when Australia is reported as having one of the highest levels of negative views of Israel in the world, it would be dishonest to pretend Jewish Australians are untouched by it. A conversation that begins with Israel can quickly become a judgement on Jews. A Jewish Australian with no role in Israel’s government or military decisions can still be treated as though they carry collective responsibility.
Leadership is not simply saying antisemitism is wrong after something happens. Leadership is recognising the pattern before the next incident. It is saying that hatred of Jews does not become acceptable because it is expressed through the language of antizionism, and that Jewish safety cannot depend only on whether a criminal threshold has been met.
The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion may provide part of the answer, but it cannot be the answer by itself. If it is to matter, it must move Australia from awareness to consequence, not become another process that confirms what the Jewish community already knows and lets implementation drift.
Jewish Australians are not looking for perfection. No government can promise every threat will be stopped. No court can promise every case will end the way the community hopes. No police force can guarantee every incident will lead to charges. The question is whether there are answers at all.
Are there answers to the normalisation of antisemitism in public life? Are there answers when anti-Israel hostility becomes so widespread that Jews feel it in schools, campuses, workplaces, and community spaces? Are there answers when extremist ideologies touch Australia and the public is told the response is mostly monitoring and management?
The Jewish community is not asking for special treatment. It is asking whether Australia is prepared to treat antisemitism with the seriousness it demands for every other form of racism. It is asking whether institutions understand modern antisemitism when it appears as collective blame, social exclusion, antizionist obsession, and the singling out of Jews for standards applied to no one else.
Too often, when antisemitism appears, we are offered process instead of protection, sympathy instead of resolve, and explanations instead of answers. So the question remains: what answer are Jewish Australians being given? And if the answer is that the system is doing all it can, then Australia needs to ask whether all it can do is anywhere near enough.
Michael Gencher is CEO of Standwithus Australia. He is the Liberal candidate for Pittwater.