Just returning to the Coalition’s attack against the Greens from earlier in question time.

A lot of the criticism against the Greens has been because of the party’s criticism against Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank. It has argued against genocide and pushed for Australia to stand up for international law and human rights. The Greens are not alone – the ICC has an arrest warrant out for Israel’s leader. Multiple human rights agencies have called what has happened in Gaza a genocide. Israel was found to be using starvation as a tool of war – against human right laws (and humanity) by Human Rights Watch. The actions of a nation state are not beyond criticism.

But as we have seen during the testimony from former senior ABC managers in the Antoinette Lattouf case in the federal court, and has we have seen multiple times since Israel entered Gaza in its latest (and deadliest) military campaign, criticism of Israel, has, in a lot of cases, become conflated with anti-Semitism.

As the Jewish Council of Australia has made clear on multiple occasions, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise the state of Israel’s actions and conflating the two does not make Jewish people safer.

But the Coalition, aided in a lot of cases by a media scared of having to defend itself from anti-Semitic allegations and a government desperately trying to keep its head down on the issue, often conflates criticism of a nation state’s military actions and plans, which are in conflict with international law, with being anti-Semitic and run with it.

Anti-Semitism is real and terrifying. Everyone deserves to be safe and feel safe. It is a horror that so many people don’t feel safe in Australia – and that should be addressed across the board, not just when it is politically expedient.