School bus outrage shows dark force we must defeat

THERE is an ageless Arabian proverb which says: “Once the camel gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.” The truly revolting racist attack on a busload of Jewish schoolchildren in Randwick on Wednesday afternoon demonstrates that the anti-Semitic camel is well and truly ensconced in the Australian tent.

That the attack came as Prime Minister Tony Abbott decided to retain 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, after protests from ethnic groups within the Australian community, and in doing so embraced the abhorrence of political correctness and hobbled fearless public discussion of the cancerous elements behind the Randwick assault, is sad but ­serendipitous.

The drunken young assailants who were unfathomably permitted to board the special school bus were primed with all the epithets that can be found posted by supporters of the toxic hate-filled former Fairfax Media columnist Mike Carlton.

“Death To The Jews, Free Palestine, Heil Hitler”, they shouted amid threats to cut the throats of the children present and “slit them wide open”.

The Jewish schoolchildren were understandably traumatised. The language used by the gang of louts was not dissimilar to that found on placards at recent Sydney demonstrations organised by the Palestine Action Group at which Greens senator Lee Rhiannon vomited vile anti-Semitic propaganda, claiming that Israel had targeted innocent civilians in its attempt to halt the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel.

The damage that poisonous people like Carlton and Rhiannon have wrought with their virulent falsehoods, not to mention the unbalanced pro-Hamas coverage pumped out by the ABC and SBS, can be counted in the anti-Semitic attacks. Since white settlement, religion has at times been a divisive factor in Australian culture.

Older Australians will remember when Catholics and Protestants suffered mutual discrimination. Some private clubs still preserve de facto barriers to Jewish membership, but overt anti-Semitism was never core to society.

General Sir John Monash, whose name is familiar to most educated Australians, at least, is regarded as among the best, if not the best of the Allied generals of WWI. He was knighted on the battlefield by King George V. He was born in Melbourne barely two years after his parents migrated from Prussia, now part of Poland.

Sir Isaac Isaacs, a Chief Justice of Australia, was our first Australian-born Governor-General. His first formal schooling was at the Yackandandah state school.

There have been countless other Jews who have contributed to the positive development of our nation, out of all proportion to their numbers in society, but the American novelist Mark Twain, writing in Harper’s magazine in 1887, mused on the disproportionate role Jews have played in the advancement of humanity.

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one per cent of the human race,” he pondered.

“It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

“His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.

“He has made a marvellous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him.”

Groups such as the Greens, happy to parade before the black flags of jihad, the yellow flags of the Hezbollah, and alongside the supporters of other terrorist groups such as Hamas, serve to foster the mentality which feeds the anti-Semitism of bands of thugs such as that which outed itself this week.

It is no secret that hate is preached in many of the mosques that now cater to the growing Muslim ­population.

Not all Muslims agree with the extremist mullahs but it is clear from the fact that more than 150 Australians have gone abroad to fight with Islamist terrorist groups that they have had extraordinary success in recruiting suicidal foot soldiers from the young Muslim community.

Nor is it denied that the Palestine Authority sponsors the foulest anti-Semitic material as it indoctrinates young Palestinian children into the Islamist death cult.

Whilst it would be totally unreasonable to suggest that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, particularly given the range of views that are freely expressed within Israel itself, and encouraged and protected by the liberal democratic government, much of what is expressed in Australia has its roots in the blood libels that have been made against Jews for ­millennia.

The Randwick outrage is not an outlier, it is just another example of a growing malignancy.

Earlier this year, a visiting rabbi was bashed by a group of up to six youths shouting anti-Israel slogans in Perth, a Jewish man was beaten in Melbourne and there have been other incidents.

The government’s “safe” position on 18C would indicate that it is more concerned about the multicultural vote than protecting the wider society from the excesses of the ­fanatics. We know the real terrorists. They identify themselves on Facebook and boast of their immunity.

Far better to strike first at the enemy within than try to find them as we mourn after the inevitable attack that has been promised.