Race! War! Deep! Divisions! Dramatic! Surges! (The Daily Terror)

‘City’s new race wars’
Gemma Jones
The Daily Terror
August 21, 2006

AN outbreak of racial violence is deeply dividing Sydney, with authorities alarmed by a dramatic surge in attacks.

The worst have been directed at Jewish Australians in the wake of the Middle East war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the slogan “Kill Jews” spray-painted around Sydney.

The Daily Telegraph has learned attacks at Sydney University have forced Jewish students to hide religious skullcaps under baseball caps after several were spat on and assaulted.

There is evidence tensions have increased since last December’s Cronulla race riots.

Reports to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board have jumped and interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed.

“It is quite significant that we are getting more reports,” Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian said.

Police have confirmed they are patrolling synagogues and mosques in Sydney’s hot spots to contain the tension caused by the Middle East war.

Officers are closely watching a Parramatta synagogue after two attacks, including one in which cement was thrown through windows near a house where the rabbi’s wife was giving birth.

The fire brigade has issued an alert to send twice as many fire trucks as usual to fires at synagogues and Jewish schools.

Greg Weinstein, from the Australian Union of Jewish Students, said the attacks on Sydney University students were particularly worrying.

[AUJS “provide[s] a wide variety of political, social and educational activities based on our four pillars – Judaism, activism, pluralism and Zionism: the last pillar defined as being “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people”. Weinstein is the AUJS President.]

He said he believed left-wing groups on campus were responsible.

“Jewish students who previously would have walked around campus comfortably are having to wear baseball caps because they don’t feel safe.

“That should never be acceptable – not just for Jewish students, but for students of any faith.”

Mr Kerkyasharian said there had been an alarming trend with people of Arabic background who were Muslims being branded terrorists.

“There is this idea now that anyone who is of Arabic background is associated with terrorists,” he said.

Sydney Muslim leaders say they are also coming under attack.

Community leader Keysar Trad said he had been bombarded with race-hate emails.

Mr Trad acknowledged the attacks against Jews and synagogues, saying it was worrying that people had been unable to separate the religion from Israel’s actions.

The nationalist party Australia First has had 22,000 hits on its website since the Cronulla riots – a tenfold increase.

1) A tenfold increase means that, prior to the Cronulla riots (December 11, 2005), the Australia First Party (AFP) site was receiving 2,200 hits… I think? I mean, the Cronulla riots took place over nine months ago now, so that means — I think — that the AFP site has been receiving approximately a little over 2,400 hits, on average, per month, since then.

Which is not very popular, actually.

And if Jones is suggesting that, on this basis alone — and she provides absolutely no other evidence whatsoever to support her contention that “interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed” — then her case falls outrageously flat. It should also be noted that if the AFP site has experienced an extremely modest spike in hits following the Cronulla riot, then describing the party as simply “nationalist” means that either a) Jones provides absolutely no evidence whatsoever that “interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed” or b) this description is misleading, and the AFP is, at best, a racist, White supremacist groupuscle.

Which is not very popular either, actually.

2) Greg Weinstein, in accusing left wing groups of responsibility for racist attacks upon Jewish students at Sydney University, is possibly responding to previous accounts of minor clashes between left- and right-wing students on a number of campuses, clashes generated by the war in the Middle East. Still, it’s a serious accusation, and a pity that Weinstein provides no further details, as I can find no other source for anything related to these alleged cases other than this.

3) See also ‘Jewish students abused’ (The Daily Terror, August 21, 2006).