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What I've Learnt - Alex Ryvchin · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Alex Rivken is co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the author of two internationally acclaimed books of history and politics, including The Seven Deadly Sins.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: His advocacy and writing has seen him recognized as Australian of the Year for 2024 by the Australian newspaper, as one of 25 Global Jewish Visionaries by the Jerusalem Post, and ranked 38th in the Daily Telegraph's Power 100 for 24.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's the recipient of the 2025 Bonabrith Human Rights Award.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: As the tip of the iceberg and a wave of unprecedented anti-Semitism sweeps our globe, Alex has become a voice of reason holding up a mirror to reflect the 600% rise in anti-Semitic incidents globally.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And as the world spins in a terrifying spiral of vitriol fear and rising Jew hatred, Alex discusses faith, hope, the myths that drive the hate, and preparing the next generation of Jews and non-Jews to thrive and survive together.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Alex, welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thrilled to have you join us.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Deborah.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be with you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, um, I know you've been managing a lot of media lately because you seem to be the go-to man for all commentary.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've been on channel seven, channel nine, every possible media outlet, because quite frankly, every day there's another anti-Semitic incident, and there's a lot to unpack here.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: But to be honest, it does feel a little biblical and so like the Bible.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are we really again in the beginning?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or is this just a historical continuum that we're witnessing?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you know, with the Jewish story, that there's no end.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's one long continuum punctuated by periods of prosperity and enlightenment and success and periods of you know horror and dislocation and despair and loss.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, October 7 began a new period.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some called it the end of the Jewish Golden Age.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever it was, I think we'll be able to evaluate with the passage of time.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But clearly, we're living through one of the most difficult periods in the history of the Jewish people.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's no question about that.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And on the one hand, I think we're incredibly well positioned to emerge through it, given that there's a state of Israel, a Jewish state which is capable of defending Jewish rights and peoplehood and in gathering Jews from around the world if the need should arise, and also a strong Jewish diaspora that is capable of advocating for itself and defending itself and protecting its rights in the countries in which the Jews live.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's a shockingly difficult period in so many ways for those who advocate and lead the community, but also for ordinary Jewish Australians.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I speak to them every day, um, up and down the country from all perspectives and walks of life, and everyone's doing it tough.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a great unity among Jewish Australians right now, and I think that's what's going to see us through this.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because we're sort of seeing what started off as protests, transferring these rallies to storming of restaurants and the harassment of people in the streets to the dubing of public buildings.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about the harbor bridge protest too, because that's very current.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you the escalation seems to be pretty quick?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Although one would argue that if you look at pre-war Germany, it wasn't, it was six weeks or eight weeks where you saw an escalation.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see, in your opinion, do you think the escalation of what began as, you know, peaceful inverted commas protests have now become sort of infiltrated every aspect of community, education, institutions, our our you know, everywhere?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I I don't think they're ever peaceful.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when you look at their beginning, uh you look for people who organize these rallies, these are groups that came to public attention from October 7.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But from my perspective and my colleagues, we've been aware of these groups for a long time.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't peace activists, these are people who despise Israel, who are steeped in conspiracy theories about the Zionists controlling government and politics and everything else.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when October 7 happened, they celebrated.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were ecstatic.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: This was the day they'd been waiting for for years and years and years.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and obviously, you know, there were the now infamous scenes at the steps of the opera house, uh, car convoys driving through Jewish neighborhoods.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of open celebration.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then with the large street rallies that began even before Israel began its response to October 7.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, their tenor has kind of changed over time, I think, as you rightly point out.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, they spoke about a ceasefire, but they were talking about a ceasefire before Israel had even responded.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they were basically saying, we've taken our shot, and now they want to stop Israel from retaliating, from taking out Hamas, from trying to reclaim its hostages.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they thought they had the advantage and they wanted to keep it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: But from there, there's been a pretty predictable progression.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you look at their language, you know, now they chant about death, death to the IDF.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: They chant about all Zionists are terrorists.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're dealing with people who are extreme by nature, they can cloak that extremism for a brief period of time and try to portray themselves as being peace activists or for human rights.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the longer things go on for, and we're approaching two years of this now, that mask comes off, and you see them for who they are.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing they never talk about, the one thing that is never chanted is the word peace.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas you compare it with the Jewish community, as wounded and as horrified and as furious as we were after October 7, we gathered with our vigils and we spoke about peace, about the desire to live in peace, because that's what the Jewish people want.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: We want it here in this country and we want it in Israel.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the people we're up against, they want to burn things down, and they've demonstrated that over and over again.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, at the Opera House steps, with our public institutions, the education system.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: They despise what this country stands for.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're very explicit about that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they view Israel and Australia as part of the same colonial disease, and they want to rip it all to pieces.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we love this country.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are proud Australians.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are deliriously proud and patriotic Australians.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great country.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And those of us who came from like my family did from the Soviet Union or from the embers of Nazi-occupied Europe or from apartheid South Africa or from parts of the Middle East have the wisdom and sense to know how great this place is.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not perfect, but we try to preserve it and enhance it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But these people, you know, with their envy and their jealousy and their ignorance, just want to destroy everything.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to me because when you talk, I'm listening and I'm thinking one of the problems is do you think it's interesting that they're not marching about any other war zone of which there are many?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: This has become, not only are they drawing on tropes, as you've referenced, um, Jewish tropes, but also this has become inverted.com as a humanitarian mission.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we talk about how uh you're saying, well, they weren't, they're not really pushing peace, they're pushing an agenda of sorts.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But with the devastating news out of Gaza, which we're all devastated by, everybody that I speak to, and I'm sure you're the same, one of the problems is there's this link that keeps being placed across like an arch, so that every Jewish person on the planet is somehow responsible for every conflict in the Middle East, or, you know, particularly what's going on.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do you reconcile that?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you talk to people who want to understand what is going on?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And while we understand there's a mission that Israel wants to protect itself, there are those that are very concerned about what's happening in Gaza.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Although I do note the New York Times just printed an apology for that uh that photo that was used incorrectly, but that's a sidebar and we'll touch on the media war, which is a whole thing in itself.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, you know, if these people were human rights activists, then they would look at the state of the world and they would deal with the most grave and urgent matters first.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't do that, and they've never done that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: They have a fixation with Israel.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, Mahmoud Dawish, the great poet of the Palestinian movement, has spoken about the fact that the only reason anyone knows or cares about the Palestinians is because their adversary is the Jews.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And by focusing on this conflict, they can draw conclusions about this Jewish enigma.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you remove Jews from it, then suddenly there's no interest.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's evident.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think what we've seen in the last two years confirms that because you know you've had everything happening with the Iranian regime, you've had Lebanon ripped to pieces, you've had the Druze lately being massacred by the new Syrian regime.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've had all these things happening.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: No one cares.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: No one cares.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And forget even what's happening wider afield in in Asia, in Africa.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: In Myanmar, and yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's of no relevance to these people because they are at their core, they're not pro-Palestinian, they're anti-Israel.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and we can unpack why and whether it's motivated by anti-Semitism or kind of warped anti-imperial, anti-colonial mindset, or an intersection of those two concepts, but they don't care about Palestinian rights.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: They manipulate and use the Palestinian issue for their own ends and their own advantage.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And comments made by Bob Kahn the last couple of days are just the exemplar of that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, in terms of what's happening in Gaza, and you mentioned the retraction by the New York Times.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: No one can say with great certainty and clarity what's happening there.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: These two extreme positions have emerged.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: One is that everything's fine in Gaza, and the other is that it's a Holocaust or it's akin to Stalin's starvation of seven million Ukrainian peasants in the 1930s.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those are nonsensical.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the truth is clearly somewhere in between.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, people are suffering.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's no question about that.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, in a war zone of a nearly two years of treacherous urban warfare of this sort, with so much destruction, with no civil administration, reliant on aid, and Hamas still holding sway, people are gonna suffer.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely no question about that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to be alive and awake to that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think our values dictate it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, in terms of how we speak about it, the starting point and the end point is the truth.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have our values as Jews, we have a perspective, we can interpret what's happening ourselves.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know the nature of the Israeli people and what they're up against.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We also know the nature of Hamas, and I think we need to speak to the complexity of the situation.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some things in this are clear-cut.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: October 7 was clear cut in what happened on that day, the scale of the brutality.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in terms of the war that's followed since, there've obviously been mistakes, but it's still a just war.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no way to peace other than through the defeat of Hamas and the rescue of our hostages, and that's what has to be achieved.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a slight digression, but it's relevant.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you've watched the Billy Joel biography, I don't know if you've seen it, it's a documentary, and it's really it's wonderful.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But he actually goes back to his Holocaust history and to the impact on his father, and therefore down the line, and it blew up their family.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, the whole thing, you know, we know the first generational trauma, second generation trauma, etc.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's very revealing and it's quite fascinating for people who are watching a musical, a music bio to get an insight into the resonance, which is something we've all been surrounded by.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, this is interesting.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think when I look at that, I'm I'm watching it and I'm thinking, how similar is this experience right now to pre-war Germany?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people are anxious and afraid.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what are your what's your perspective?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's that extreme, or do you think this is a much more um, shall we say, uh, manageable trajectory, if it's manageable at all?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I I think people always look to the Holocaust and and you know, the pre-war period, the progression of Nazism and the eventual adoption and execution of the final solution, they look at that and they always try to draw comparisons to modern times, even with totally unrelated issues.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's inevitable that we're going to do that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a reason to do that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because aside from preserving the history of the Holocaust, we have to draw lessons from it about humanity, about what can happen, about how genocide is carried out, that it's not immediately imposed and inflicted.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a process of dehumanization and propaganda and cleaving away the Jews from the wider population.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: That occurs, and that is that's what makes the plunder, the ghettoization, the destruction of Jews possible.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be awake to that process.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's never gonna be identical.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as Mark Twain said, history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in a in you can hear the rhyme with the 1930s.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the same, it's not gonna be the same, but there are clear similarities.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing the way in which fringe views about the Jews being bloodthirsty and all-controlling and deceitful and all of these things and inherently arrogant, um, how they moved so quickly from being the place of uh you know a few people online to now being kind of mainstream conversation, how Jews are being pushed out of industries, how Jews are being forced to kind of shelter with their own, um, all of these things that is happening without a shadow of a doubt.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Many things are different.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as we said right at the outset, one of the key things that's different is that we have a Jewish state that will always defend the rights of the Jewish people and instead of in gather the Jews if need be.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of you know what's happening in our own society, uh, it's pretty chilling.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that strikes me the most all the way through in terms of those similarities is the nature of those people who are attacking us.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: That clear sadism.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like they love to see the Jewish people humiliated, they yearn for that, they want to see us stripped of everything, they want to see us brought low.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And anti-Semites have always had that in their DNA.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to kill the Jews or remove them from society, they want to see the Jewish people suffer.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at anything like the doxing situation to the people who incited the attack on the National Gallery of Victoria a few days ago.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to touch on that.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that just for those that don't know, and hopefully most of our listeners do, but yeah, the the philanthropists, the Gandals outside, what were targeted outside the NGV, they're one of the many philanthropists that support the NGV.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you actually said, no matter how they try to spin it, targeting two Jewish Australians in their 90s who have contributed enormously to this country and have devoted their lives to uplifting others, is gutter activism rooted in racial prejudice and jealousy.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was really powerful.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And really, I think we're all pretty confronted because we're all very much in the diaspora.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our non-Jewish uh friends, colleagues, and people are very concerned too.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: They they they want to understand and know what to do.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was quite a powerful and uh disturbing uh experience here.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, certainly.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think again, when we scan the last 22 months, there have been certain moments that really shook, I think, wider Australia.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the Bankstown nurses thing, seeing healthcare workers again speak with such openness and glee about murdering people again, Miznon, when you have people sitting in an alleyway of Melbourne dining and then being set upon.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And just to think about, I mean, the Jewish community was so used to terror attacks and attacks of various sorts.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're sitting there on a Friday night dining in the Melbourne CBD, and a mob of activists just swarms upon you and starts hurling chairs and abuse, you would think that your life is in danger.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: You would think that you're brought in a terrorist attack.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And these are ordinary Melbourne that there were struck and afflicted by this, and it's shocking.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But these are the things that I think again wake up wider Australia, the fact that we're not dealing with something that harms Jews alone.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're dealing with something that is is rooted in irrationalism and hatred, and it has to be confronted because it's gonna completely destroy our society sooner or later.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, they talk about Jewish people being the canary in the coal mine.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: What do you what do you think about that in terms of often it's just for our listeners?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in other words, it's often they come for the Jewish people first, and then it it sort of branches out into all aspects.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, America's a whole other story, and there's a complexity there that, you know, it is multifactorial.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see that as do you see democracy as we know it under threat?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you have anti-Semitism taking hold in a society, it speaks to something deeper that's happening.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Antisemitism is kind of the tip of the spear.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the symptom of a malaise, of something going horribly wrong.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because you look at how anti-Semitism works, it's about obviously othering a group of people.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's steeped in conspiracy theories about the unseen hand and the shadowy puppeteers.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And once society starts believing that stuff, something has fundamentally gone wrong.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when rationalism is lost, when people believe these sorts of things, naturally their reaction is to go after those who have been vilified, which is the Jews.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not going to stop there because something, as I said, is inherently wrong with society.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's been led astray.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a number of factors have gotten us here.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at anti-Semitism throughout time, it can lie dormant in a society, it can be in a state of kind of latency.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there are periodic surveys done of Australian society and around the world of how many people, what proportion, hold anti-Semitic attitudes.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the numbers are always staggeringly high.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: But those people were passive in their anti-Semitism, they weren't called to action.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But suddenly from October 7, they were kind of brought out of the woodwork.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were manipulated by online influences with huge audiences, and people shift from being latent passive anti-Semites to suddenly being active.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's truly terrifying.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we can see that in our universities and our institutions, um, and how that's been quite surreptitious.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of like a volcano, it's just come out of what seemed a very as I think the way you describe it is actually really relevant because it it sort of simmers, is what you're saying.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that historically is what happens, like a volcano, and then it sort of erupts.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If if everything is well in a society, if there's economic prosperity, if there's no downturn, if there's no pandemic, there's no reason for society to eat itself, to turn on itself.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute you have that upheaval, and I think the COVID pandemic really caused a lot of- Yeah, I totally agree.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was one of those things that made people fearful, really question authority, but not in healthy ways.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: We should question authority, but in downright kooky ways.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, even that whole anti-vax movement, which was always there, but was a tiny minority of people, suddenly it balloons.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: The number of people who believe that government was secretly trying to take out powers and try to suppress and oppress society.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Again, a mine a few, and then it becomes a mainstream thing.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then with October 7th happens, it kind of gets unleashed further.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all that vented, all that, you know, built-up paranoia suddenly released on the Jewish people.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting too.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now they want to march across Sydney Harbor Bridge, emulating some of history's global humanitarian marches, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, Gaza is a disaster, and we're all devastated, as you and I have discussed.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: How do we reconcile what's happening with our humanitarian soul, which is a cornerstone of Jewish faith?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we the narrative has been hijacked such that it's very hard to flip the perspective in a positive way, in the sense of, in a sense, they've aligned themselves with the great marches, you know, the great protest marches.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, it could be quite diabolical if that goes ahead, which it looks like Chris Mins has put a stop to that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: But to be advised, because I gather they're challenging that from what I understand today, but you can maybe enlighten us more.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they've certainly tried to align themselves, and that's not a new phenomenon.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the way that they've sold anti-Israel activism for decades now on university campuses around the world, is that this is the new iteration of the civil rights movement, of the anti-apartheid movement and all that.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But again, when you look beneath the veneer and you look at what these people actually speak about, it's not about inclusion and tolerance and justice and human rights and equality, which all those other movements were about.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's about death and destruction.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the vast majority of Australians aren't buying it.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the people who are trying to peddle this march have packaged it as being a march for humanity.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, who came out in Support of the march, said it would be a wonderful thing for peace.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think, given everything that's transpired, most Australians realize that they have nothing to do with peace.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: They never talk about peace.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: That word is not in their vocabulary vocabularies at all.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as much as they try to manipulate the public into believing that they're something that they're not, they've revealed themselves for 22 months now.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And people aren't buying it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why there's no mainstream support for this march.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: They view it as a nuisance, as the importation of foreign grievances to Australia.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: The marches that have happened in Australia on the Harbour Bridge have been for reconciliation with Indigenous Australians, which is obviously a national imperative.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, again, there's been a constant attempt to align the anti-Israel movement with the Indigenous movement here, which is again highly manipulative and a distortion of reality.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: But people aren't buying it.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken hold in the left and the political left or sections of it, but wider Australia has no appetite for it whatsoever, I believe.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, people like Nova Paris, who is one of the many heroes standing up and trying to clarify the very close alignment that the indigenous community and the Jews have had historically, and she's trying to address some of the nuances that you're referring to.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose the real question is the community, the Jewish community has been blindsided, clearly, by what has occurred.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But have we also, or has the community, lost the media war?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's an element of, if you like, there's a sort of a hijacking, as I said, of the narrative.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very hard, other than examples of where the New York Times says, oh, sorry, we printed, you know, the wrong photo.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's sort of minor, but very major in terms of its impact.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's something that can be addressed?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, how can that be managed?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't believe we've lost the media war.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the media war is is running and will keep running, and there are going to be small victories and defeats and narratives which emerge, which are counterfactual and harmful.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no defeat to be had.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: We keep fighting and we move on, and the story develops extremely quickly.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So at the beginning, if you look at October 7, the narrative that emerged was one of overwhelming support for Israel or a sympathy for what had happened at least.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some sections of the media were immediately trying to flip that and talk about October 7 as being not the beginning, but a consequence of Israeli aggression and crimes and abuses.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: There were attempts to liken the 250 hostages dragged from festivals and burn in kibbutzim to compare them with convicted terrorists and criminals in Israeli jails.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there was an attempt to establish those narratives.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: We knew that very quickly whatever sympathy there was for Israeli and Jewish people would dissipate and a whole new narrative would emerge, which would be about Israeli overreaction, aggression, collective punishment, disproportionality, genocide, entirely predictable.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: But also a kind of parallel narrative emerged which was unmissable and the media in Australia couldn't ignore, which was soaring anti-Semitism.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the opera house, the convoys, the abuse of Jews on the street, scenes at some of our beaches where people would, you know, try to identify Jews, things that happen at schools and work.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're in synagogues.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, before even that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was a lot happening before that, and then that happened.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, from December to February.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there have been so many narratives, and right now the narrative is about starvation, and it's partly based on distortion and myth, partly based on an exaggeration of true hardship in Gaza, very strategic intent to kind of hyperbolize it and make it to something that it's not.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there'll be a new narrative that will emerge, and this story will keep rumbling on for a long, long time.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's with us, it's our reality.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think people are waiting for an end, a definitive conclusion to this.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we have to grapple with the fact that there will be no end.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the war will end, God willing, soon, and the hostages will come home and the human suffering will come to a conclusion.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of the story of anti-Semitism in Australia, the place of the Jews in this country, the place of Israel in the world, that is a story that will continue for a long, long time.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why there's no victory or defeat in the media war.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just rumbles on.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very interesting and quite sort of um it's a serious reality check because I suppose you're right, people are going, when is this going to end and what's the next chapter?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying, so the way you're talking is as if um you and people who specialize in this area like yourself, you're not entirely surprised, and you can see the narrative evolving, but you're saying that it keeps spinning as it has for centuries.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of aligned and there is the continuum, which is where we started, you know, that it's sort of a continuum of a historical journey.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And for probably a good 50 years, to be honest, there was an element of like a sort of a golden age where it probably wasn't as in certain sectors, because in Europe and other places it still was prevalent.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: But do you think that has passed?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And also, do you think Australians particularly are safe?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, I think the way you've just encapsulated that it is very good and very accurate.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of don't quite know what's going to happen next, but we know that there is a next, that it's going to keep going on and on and on.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: That we do know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's been manifested over the last nearly two years.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in terms of our Australians safe, clearly no.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when you've had, you know, you spoke about the firebombings, this new element of organized crime, for whatever reason, it's still not quite clear who motivated them to do this, who was pulling the strings.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when, in addition to conventional anti-Semitic forces and the far right is rising as well, they don't care about the conflict.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: They care about, again, destroying society, pitting groups against each other, and they sense a wonderful historic opportunity to do that.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they've bolstered their activities and their organizing and their provocations.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've got scenes in America, you know, obviously over the last few months, fatal shootings.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, all of that, all of those same currents, all those same trends, the same movements, the same ideology is with us here.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't quite know what's gonna happen next.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: No one knew that the firebombings were gonna happen.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we knew that with the trajectory we were on since October 7th, things were gonna get worse, and they did, spectacularly worse.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we right now in this path on this curve?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that there's more to hit us.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's no question about that.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and it kind of runs parallel with what happens in the Middle East, but is also independent of it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's got a life of its own.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: The protests, the anti-Israel activities, all of that, they don't look at what's happening in Israel on that day or in Gaza and react to it.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care, they form their opinion that Zionism has no place in Australia's society, that Zionists are fundamentally evil, that Jewish influence is too great, that we need to be pushed out of visible society, and that's what they're working towards.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the number of people that are motivated by that and actively seeking to achieve that has again gone from being a handful of activists to now being a dangerous minority, minority to be sure, but still a dangerous number of people.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, it's a movement, and I think that's where it's transformed, is it's become a movement.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think just just on that note, do you think part of the problem is there's no consequence or very little consequence?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the Australian government, and even though I'm not encouraging you to be critical of them, it's up to you.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but clearly, you know, it's it's just fascinating to me that you know the local governments are just there seems very little.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: If this was any other community being targeted in this way, there would be consequence.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems the consequences are not only minimal and in some instances don't have any, but it takes like you know months for any of this to even be addressed.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And by that time, it sort of snowballs into the next instance.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, look, consequence is a word that I've been using a hell of a lot for 22 months, because when you're dealing with fanatical people who, again, as we said at the outset, want to burn things to the ground, they will go exactly as far as they're allowed to go.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: They don't run out of steam, they're not satisfied with one act of extremism or expression of their ideology, they will always go further and further and further until they're stopped.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what stops them is consequences.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Consequences such as social disgrace or financial loss or criminal sanction.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at a whole range of activities, again, Opera House steps, Bubkiss, nothing happened from that at all.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the number of academics who have said horrific things, and then they take cover under this distorted notion of academic freedom as though it's a catch-all defense against any egregious, unlawful behavior.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Artists, you know, and then we'll shout academic um artistic freedom as though that that again protects them from any scrutiny or consequence whatsoever.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And with the MizNon people, the people that incite it online, and it happens in plain view.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is the chilling thing about it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's no longer some shadowy underground network.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: These people telegraph their blows each time.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: They go on social media, they organize, they pick their targets, whether it's Mount Scopus School, or whether it's a gallery, or whether it's a restaurant, they say this is the target, go for it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the people who incite it and organize it have faced zero consequence at all.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to move to a point where people realize that the actions they take, the words they speak, the violent words that they speak in order to incite violent actions will be met with consequence.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: But sadly, there's been very little of that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're hearing today that there's now been an arrest in the very first firebombing, the Dust synagogue fire, but it's taken a long time.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the criminal justice system turns slowly.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, you know, all these things, as you say, they snowboard, they're not stopped immediately.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and also just from a consequence perspective, I think the other thing you talk about the extremists driving the agenda, but actually what I find quite disturbing is the sweeping up of the ordinary, the everyday sort of inverted, commas, I use that term woke because it's such a sort of throw around word.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just saying, often, what would you say to those that are sort of getting swept up in this sort of wave of, I suppose, anti-Semitic targeting and behavior?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because while you've got sort of the top echelons of extremists driving it, and we know some of whom those are, what would you say to those who are feeling incredibly distressed and passionate about human rights and therefore seeing these horrible images and therefore using that to justify targeting random restaurants, galleries, and you know, various even music festivals?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to them?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: How would how do you reframe?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's one of the problems is to try and give it a give people an understanding.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say education is a big issue, trying to get and sit and talk to people?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: What would you recommend?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: First thing I recommend is is for them to take a breath because it's so easy to be, as you say, swept up in something.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the seductive components of the anti-Israel movement and the narrative is that it makes everything crystal clear and simple.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Zionists are the evil ones, they are Nazis effectively, they are committing every crime known to man from organ harvesting to starving children to snipering women, you know, everything that is depicted as evil, everything that is evil is them.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the other side are pure victims, and that's it.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And with a narrative so simple, people who insert themselves into this conflict are gripped by it, want to take a position, or they're seeking to be a part of something, to be a part of a movement.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they're engrossed by this, but they need to take a breath, regain control of their senses, and think about what's happening.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to be seduced by simple narrative, but the world isn't simple.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: The conflict is not simple.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the prime minister, you know, you asked me before about the government and whether I criticize them.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of things I have criticized them on and plenty to criticize them on.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that's impressed me about the Prime Minister in the last few weeks has been the way he's very clearly laid out the complexity.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's spoken about the fact that these activists are not peace activists at all.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's spoken about the fact that Hamas is an evil that has to be removed for the good of the Palestinian people first and foremost.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's spoken about the fact that in the West Bank, the government there, the Palestinian Authority, which is now seen as so benign in contrast to Hamas, but this is a fundamentally anti-democratic and corrupt institution that needs to be reformed as well.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, the Israelis are not without guilt.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, October 7, the fact that it was allowed to happen, is the most monumental security failing in the history of the country, and there have to be consequences for that.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of the MKs, the members of the Israeli parliament, their rhetoric and the policies which they're advancing are shameful.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not simple.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to find a narrative that the Jews are always right, you won't find it here.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to find the narrative that the Jews are the epitome of evil and the Palestinians are pure victims, you won't find it here.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: So people who actually care about progress, about improving the world, alleviating human suffering, they need to just take a breath, step back, and reevaluate what they're actually doing.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if they think that daubing buildings in Australia, villainizing Jewish Australians, demonizing Zionists as terrorists is going to somehow help anybody or advance anything beyond hatred and division, they're kidding themselves.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's very poignant and very um, I think helpful because I think a lot of people listening want to understand how they can actually help and maybe educate others, and that that is helpful.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just finally, what do you see as the next steps in a nutshell that can be taken by the Jewish community and by the non-Jewish community?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: There are many people who are very, I mean, I I know there's lots of people that are concerned about what's going on, who are not in the many Muslim friends, lots of people.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say moving forward as a final sort of little nutshell overview?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do you see as the most effective solutions are a hard word because obviously there is no real solution, but trajectory, how do you see us moving forward?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I think we need to sometimes realize the limitations of our own powers.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And while we all have extremely strong feelings about what's happening right now in Gaza and Israel, the future of the conflict and how to resolve it, we need to understand that we have no great capacity to influence that process.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: What we can control is our immediate orbit, our immediate worlds, our immediate communities, and what happens in this country.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so the thing that I would counsel Jewish Australians and wider Australians is to work towards the preservation of order and harmony in this country.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, another kind of cliche term that's thrown around is social cohesion.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what it really means is that you have different components of society which are cohesive with each other.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we've always had that.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've always had different classes economically, socially, religiously, which have worked somehow.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a cohesion between them, but that's been lost.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in its place, you've got vulgarity, just an inhumanity that's now becoming normalized, where people think it's okay to see Jewish school kids aged nine and ten years old at a museum spot their Jewish insignia on their uniforms and hurl slurs at them.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, have we lost our minds where we think that that's okay?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing the number of people online who are defending that as some form of political activism, that that's perhaps more startling than the behavior of the kids themselves.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we need to kind of regain control of our senses and faculties and also have the perspective to understand what we can and can't achieve.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: We can't solve the Middle East conflict, but we can either preserve the health of this society or contribute to its downfall.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for Jewish Australians, I think first and foremost, we need to fortify ourselves.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to educate our children and grandchildren, instill identities in them as Jews and as Australians that will withstand these pressures because they are experiencing pressures that they never thought were possible.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where to be a Jew and a Zionist is an act of defiance.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them won't make it, some of them will come under such hostility and heat on campuses and in workplaces that they'll say, to hell with it, it's not worth it, and they'll turn away, which would be a tragedy.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to ensure by instilling those strong Jewish identities that our young people come through this as strong, proud, confident Jews and Australians.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, how are you holding up, Alex, yourself?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because you really have been, to say the least, in the spotlight, on a very, very um hot and difficult and challenging issue on many fronts.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you walk into a room and you don't really know what you're gonna get.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for asking.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's maybe the hardest question to answer in the 22 months, you know.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not something that I pause and reflect on that much, but I'm doing well.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing well because I believe in what I'm doing.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have the support of the people who love me and a wonderful community, and so many incredible human beings that stop me in the street and tell me their stories and and again bolster me with their support and their kind words.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have the support of so many Australians that I admire, um, including eminent Australians that reach out and say, keep going, we believe in you, we support you.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, um I believe wholeheartedly in my people and in my community, and I will do this till my dying day.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'll keep going for as long as I have to.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an incredible source of privilege and pride that I get to do this.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Alex, we're all very grateful for your wonderful spirit and your articulation and your clarity because it at this time we need leaders like you.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you've been very um insightful, and I thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great pleasure.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed the chat.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Love Depp.