There are three kinds of antisemitism – each needs to be dealt with differently

Each day that passes since the unimaginable terror of the events in Bondi seems to bring with it fresh announcements from various levels of government. The understandable rage felt within the Jewish community that they have been let down by police, the intelligence agencies and even the prime minister himself, combined with the inevitable reality that opposition parties would smell political advantage.

Albanese, who had floundered at first, clearly sensed that the political winds had begun to shift against him. Thoughts, prayers and wishy-washy statements about Australian values would no longer cut it (if they ever had). So, after a pause, we now have a raft of new federal measures designed to crack down on antisemitism, incorporating everything from gun reform to new vilification and hate speech offences.

These can be added to those already tabled in the NSW parliament by the swifter-acting Premier Chris Minns, not to be outdone by a five-point plan announced on Monday by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. In the mix too is the 20-page report by Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal, which contains 13 recommendations and 49 key actions.

There is a fear that governments are scrambling to propose solutions without properly evaluating the problem. If this is the case, there is a real risk of knee-jerk overreach, particularly when it comes to curtailing important civil liberties, including freedom of speech and assembly.

As the situation stands, there appears to be no singular, monolithic antisemitism festering in Australia but rather multiple different mutations of this ancient virus.

The two most outwardly and unashamedly antisemitic groups are the Islamist extremists and the far-right neo-Nazis. They are similar in that they exist on the fringes of society and are actively engaged in recruiting for their cause. Both largely target disaffected young men and both use online spaces to spread their hateful ideologies as well as connect with, and import ideas from, like-minded groups overseas. We should, however, avoid lumping them together when crafting our response.

Of the two, the Islamist extremists have demonstrated a greater capacity for deadly violence this century, particularly against Jews. The Bondi terror attack was but the latest antisemitic atrocity carried out by fanatical Islamists, remarkable only in that it so shockingly tore apart our illusion of a peaceful and safe Australia. Of course, it was the Islamist terror group Hamas’ massacre of 1200 mostly civilians in Israel that triggered the current spike in antisemitic rhetoric and violence, popularising it in quarters far removed from radical Islamist ideology.

However uncomfortable it may be to admit, Islamist antisemitism draws on Islamic scripture, though those texts need not be interpreted that way. Islamist extremist movements reach for Koranic passages and episodes from early Islamic history, particularly the complex, sometimes conflictual relationships between the early Muslim community and Jewish tribes in 7th‑century Medina, and present them as timeless proof of an eternal struggle. Verses that address particular disputes in a particular time and place are recast as instructions for all Muslims everywhere against all Jews everywhere. This is how global jihadist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda have sought to provide a theological alibi for violence against Jews.

Yet there is also a large body of Islamic teaching that points in a different direction. The Koran refers to Jews and Christians as ahl al-kitab – “people of the book” – who are close to Muslims and may not need to convert to Islam to ascend to heaven. Mohammad himself married a Jewish woman, and the Koran speaks at length of Bani Isra’el, the children of Israel (known similarly as Bnei Yisra’el in Hebrew), retelling many stories from the Torah including those of the prophets Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon.

Deradicalisation programs overseas have shown that Islam itself can be an effective tool to steer radicals away from extremism when a credible religious counter-argument is presented. Alongside policing and intelligence work, there is value in supporting approaches that strengthen contextual religious literacy, including teaching about the Jewish roots and references within Islamic scripture and history, and in expanding meaningful contact between Muslim and Jewish Australians.

Politically speaking, cracking down on neo-Nazis would be a much simpler affair, particularly for Labor-led federal and state governments, which rely on large Muslim constituencies in a number of crucial seats.

Neo-Nazi antisemitism has its roots in the blood libels of medieval Europe, witness to centuries of state and church-sanctioned pogroms against Jews justified by Christian scripture, papal edicts, hateful conspiracies and old-fashioned economic opportunism. It is from this Eurocentric ideology that many familiar antisemitic tropes have sprung, including white supremacist ideas about Jews sullying European racial and cultural purity.

The Islamist threat may be predominant, but the dangers posed by neo-Nazi ideology should not be underestimated. We can’t forget what happened when the antecedents of the current neo-Nazi movement held power in Europe. Neo-Nazi groups have brazenly asserted their presence in recent years in a series of violent protests including on the steps of both the Victorian and NSW parliaments. There is talk of a neo-Nazi political party running at the next election. Allowing neo-Nazi ideology to spread poses not only a danger to Australia’s Jewish community but also to our migrant communities and other groups including Indigenous and queer Australians.

A third grouping also exists that is far more ideologically nebulous and tricky to delineate. These are individuals whose extreme anti-Israel views have crossed the line into anti-Jewish sentiment, and for whom any distinction between diaspora Jews living in countries such as Australia and the actions of the Israeli government has long since disappeared.

The vast majority of pro-Palestine protesters do not fall into this camp. Most are rightly horrified at the deplorable situation in Gaza, including the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent women and children. There is nothing antisemitic about opposing Israel’s conduct of the war or Israeli government policy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s clumsy attempts to blame Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state for the Bondi terror attack undermined the position of Australia’s Jews, who have long decried efforts by an antisemitic fringe within the protest movement to label all Jews as “Zios” who are somehow complicit in Israel’s war, or even its very existence.

This slippery iteration of antisemitism, located on the outer edge of the progressive left, borrows from both Islamist and neo-Nazi tropes and adds them to a smorgasbord of far-left grievance: A preoccupation with settler-colonialism, wonky parallels with Indigenous suffering, shallow moral frameworks of oppressor and oppressed. The result is a fluid and combustible ideology that has proven devilishly hard to police.

Australians would be forgiven for being totally bamboozled by the sheer volume of policy and legislation being thrown at antisemitism all at once from various levels of government.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. What we need is keyhole surgery, not the kitchen sink. Governments must go after the specific groups that threaten the safety of Jews or have worked to bring antisemitism into the mainstream. We should not be afraid to identify them openly.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an academic, author and a regular columnist.

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