I notice a great deal of political and media hesitation and hand handwringing about how to curb antisemitism.
Actually it’s not difficult at all and in fact quite easy. The left likes to think it’s tricky and complicated (it’s not) and might offend.
Well, good. It’s about time.
And if Albo wants to redeem himself, be a first and lead the world (remember the social media ban and the global accolades of less than a week ago) all that needs to be done is to proscribe those passages of the Koran that call for the killing of the Jews and the Kaffir (the rest of us) as hate speech.
Those phrases are there and there’s no denying it. That’s the inspiration.
Where else do you think the Jihadis get their murderous messages?
Because phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” are also understood to mean the elimination of Israel and its inhabitants and to do harm to Jews generally and again, the kaffir (you) these too should be proscribed as hate speech.
Any static banners, signage or demagoguery at the mosque, on the street, in the park, online or designed to incite violence, anger, rage and murder with any messaging that the man in the street or in the basic pub test would understand and interpret as being antisemitism, that too would also fall into the net and be outlawed.
The template to work from are the laws around Nazism. Laws at both the federal and state/territory levels criminalise the public display of Nazi symbols and the performance of the Nazi salute.
So we just take those laws, enhance and improve and overlay them on to antisemitism. Be interesting to see how Tony Burke in parliament speaks against them.
As Pope John Paul the second said, “freedom is not to say and do what you like but to do what you ought”.
Free speech is not free. It comes at a cost. That cost is the twin virtues of discipline and self control.
The majority of us should have no problem at all with banning quite obvious antisemitic hate speech wherever it occurs including in the Koran, the Mosque or the university faculty lounge.
But it must be imposed with savage mandatory penalties and no wiggle room for the judiciary, including jail and massive fines or both.
With some people there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature.
As we saw in 14/12, some people just don’t have any better angels.
Up until yesterday, antisemitism was a vague concept that “didn’t affect me” now it’s seen as an attack on Australia, on all of us and our way of life.
The time to strike is now, while the iron is red hot and the public at long last understands the problem.