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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christanaming it.

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Speaker 1: It's Thursday November twenty seven, twenty twenty five. The Albanezy

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Speaker 1: Labor government failed to act on repeated warnings about the

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Speaker 1: need for a twenty four to seven triple zero watchdock.

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Speaker 1: The government's own Communication Department said it was necessary to

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Speaker 1: protect the Australian public from system outages, but neither Communications

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Speaker 1: Minister Anika Wells nor her predecessor Michelle Roland acted on

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Speaker 1: the advice. The government legislated a triple zero Custodian last

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Speaker 1: month after three Optus customers died because they were unable

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Speaker 1: to contact emergency services during a network outage. But The

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Speaker 1: Australian is exclusively revealing today the new Custodian doesn't have

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Speaker 1: twenty four to seven capabilities. That story's live right now

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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot Com dot a U. In two years,

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Speaker 1: Australia has been grappling with a rise in anti Semitism

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Speaker 1: brought about by the October seven terrorist attacks on Israel

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Speaker 1: by Hummas militants, and The Australian has been right there, reporting,

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Speaker 1: analyzing and reflecting on what it means for the Middle

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Speaker 1: East and for US All Today Commentary editor Nicholas Jensen

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Speaker 1: on the seismic shift in Australian society and the landmark

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Speaker 1: journalism that captured it. October nine, twenty twenty three. The

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Speaker 1: sales of the Sydney Opera House are lit in blue

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Speaker 1: and white, the colors of the Israeli flag. But within

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Speaker 1: hours that iconic building and the night sky around it

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Speaker 1: would glow red, the color of flames and flares. What

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Speaker 1: began as an act of solidarity with Israel and Jews

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Speaker 1: still reeling from the deadly October seven terrorist attack by Hamas,

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Speaker 1: devolved into an ugly and unsanctioned pro Palestine demonstration. Flares

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Speaker 1: were thrown, anti Semitic slurs, chanted and an Israeli flag

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Speaker 1: set on fire during that illegal pro Palestinian rally last

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Speaker 1: night at the Opera House.

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Speaker 2: They were fired up for.

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Speaker 1: Frenzied what was meant to be a peaceful pro Palestine

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Speaker 1: demonstration anything but. Over the past two years, up to

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Speaker 1: and including the historic peace deal struck just weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: The Australian has been reporting on the conflict in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East, analyzing geopolitical developments and sharing the human stories

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Speaker 1: at the center of the storm. And this week The

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Speaker 1: Australian has published a collection of our landmark journalism in

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Speaker 1: a book. It's called a Different Country, and it was

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Speaker 1: launched on Wednesday at a very special gathering at the

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Speaker 1: Sydney Opera House.

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Speaker 3: So I suppose the event we've had at that very

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Speaker 3: symbolic place is a kind of reclaiming that space to

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Speaker 3: some extent. The imagery of that day, late afternoon and

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Speaker 3: into the evening was very powerful, wasn't it.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas Jensen is The Australian's commentary editor. He spoke with

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Speaker 1: The Australian's editorial director and the regular host of The Front,

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Speaker 1: Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 4: The new Southwolds government decided to light up the sales

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Speaker 4: of the Opera House in the national coals of Israel

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Speaker 4: blue and white. Lighting up the sales is something that

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Speaker 4: seems to happen a lot these days.

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Speaker 2: Is one cause is getting the sales lit up.

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Speaker 4: But this decision to cast blue and white onto the

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Speaker 4: Opera House was really a flame that drew a whole

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Speaker 4: lot of moths who were not very pleasant. Protesters who

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Speaker 4: came to the Opera House used this as a moment

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Speaker 4: to demonstrate their feelings about Israel, accusing Israel of all

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Speaker 4: sorts of crimes, including genocide. But this is before Israel

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Speaker 4: had actually responded to the attack of October seven, Right, that's.

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Speaker 5: Right, and I mean actually in a weird way.

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Speaker 3: This is why I think this book is so important

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Speaker 3: because it sets out the chronology so well, because it

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Speaker 3: has gone on now for so long.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean that evening. I remember clearly.

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Speaker 3: That I think it was New South Wales police were

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Speaker 3: saying best not for Jews basically go into their own city,

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Speaker 3: which is a kind of was appalling at the time.

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Speaker 3: It's just as appalling in retrospect.

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Speaker 4: So the Australians published this book, which is a collection

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Speaker 4: of our journalism over the past two years, some really

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Speaker 4: beautiful and powerful pieces, many of which were commissioned by

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Speaker 4: You tell me about the first of the pieces that

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Speaker 4: we're going to discuss today, by Henry Ergas, published not

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Speaker 4: long after October seven, twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So Henry, who is Jewish by the way, he

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Speaker 3: wrote about a week after October seven. So what had

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Speaker 3: happened at the fore quart of the Opera House had

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Speaker 3: already taken place. What had happened in parts of western

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Speaker 3: Sydney in terms of celebrating October seven had already taken place,

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Speaker 3: and he wrote this incredibly powerful piece about how what

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Speaker 3: had happened was a civilizational moment and how back home

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Speaker 3: the celebrations of something so awful, the slaughter of Jews.

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Speaker 3: You know, he spoke about how it had echoes of

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Speaker 3: the Holocaust. He spoke about how during the Nazi period

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Speaker 3: useful idiots were used as well to denigrate and persecute Jews.

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Speaker 3: But really it was an impassioned piece about how Israel

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Speaker 3: will survive and will survive its detractors and its haters

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Speaker 3: around the world. And I think, you know, we've published many,

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Speaker 3: many great things, some of which probably didn't make this book.

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Speaker 3: But I think what's really marked out many of these

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Speaker 3: pieces is they are very personal and they show great

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Speaker 3: kind of moral clarity, courage, and it's something very close

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Speaker 3: to them.

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Speaker 4: A lot of our writers who work with us at

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Speaker 4: The Australian, either on staff or as contractors, go about

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Speaker 4: their journalism or their commentary or their analysis in their

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Speaker 4: particular subject matter as experts, but don't really divulge necessarily

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Speaker 4: much about themselves. This was a moment when several people

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Speaker 4: kind of revealed to an audience who it might not

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Speaker 4: have occurred to before that they were Jewish or that

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Speaker 4: they were Israeli. Yeah, that's an interesting choice for journalists,

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Speaker 4: given that we're all trained not to make ourselves the story.

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Speaker 4: Commentary blurs the lines a little bit. You must have

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Speaker 4: had some interesting conversations with writers about how much they

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Speaker 4: wanted to reveal about themselves.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean even some of our Jewish colleagues on staff.

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Speaker 3: It was very interesting talking to them about how life

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Speaker 3: had changed for them radically after October seven and what

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Speaker 3: it was they were prepared to say. Some people didn't

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Speaker 3: want to write out of fear of retribution. In fact,

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Speaker 3: and this was a first for me as commentary editor,

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Speaker 3: but we were having to publish pieces that had assumed

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Speaker 3: names to protect people who were writing outside of journalism.

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Speaker 3: We had a couple of people write for us that

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Speaker 3: were Jewish that worked in hospitals, in the medical profession

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Speaker 3: and so on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I remember having a conversation with one of our Jewish

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Speaker 4: members of staff and saying to them that I was

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Speaker 4: concerned about them revealing that they were Jewish and revealing

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Speaker 4: that they'd spent a lot of time in Israel because

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Speaker 4: it felt very hot at that particular moment. Of course,

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Speaker 4: it's felt very hot for Jewish people ever since October seven,

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, and it was about really a whole

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Speaker 4: new generation of Jewish Australians feeling the sting of anti

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Speaker 4: Semitism that they might not have encountered before.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's right.

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Speaker 3: There were certainly a lot of people that were writing

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Speaker 3: for us who were Jewish. I never had thought, perhaps

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Speaker 3: up until then, to identify themselves so openly as Jewish.

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Speaker 4: Deborah Conway is a good example of that, isn't isn't she?

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Speaker 4: What happened to Deborah?

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Speaker 5: So?

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Speaker 3: Deborah Conway is a singer songwriter, and she had expressed

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Speaker 3: support openly for Israel post October seven, and many of

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Speaker 3: the arts organizations, festivals and so on that she would

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Speaker 3: normally perform at. She was basically canceled from too controversial.

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Speaker 3: But I think, going to your point before clear, I

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Speaker 3: think she's actually a very good example of someone who

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't presume to know about Deborah Conway's Jewishness, but

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Speaker 3: actually the events of October seven, and particularly the response

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Speaker 3: and the anti Semitism we saw since has been a

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Speaker 3: process of finding or recovering parts of someone's identity or

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Speaker 3: who they are, which is a pretty powerful thing.

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Speaker 4: Is that one of your jobs as the editor of

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Speaker 4: the Opinion Pages and editor Weekend Section Inquirer alongside Jenny Campbell,

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Speaker 4: is helping people turn journalism into opinion or analysis or commentary,

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Speaker 4: which is very different. It means getting much more involved,

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Speaker 4: having a point. It's like the difference between writing a

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Speaker 4: university essay where you need to have a point and

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Speaker 4: a school essay where you can just compare in a

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Speaker 4: couple of ideas and demonstrate that you've read the book.

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Speaker 4: One of the interesting things about the post October seven

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Speaker 4: world is that it feels like, partly fueled by social media,

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Speaker 4: everyone has to have an opinion on this ancient conflict

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Speaker 4: in the Middle East. When I think a valid opinion

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Speaker 4: to have is this is awful. I feel terrible for everybody.

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Speaker 4: It's incredibly complicated. I hope people stop dying.

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Speaker 2: Why do you.

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Speaker 4: Think here in Australia, so far away from that conflict,

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Speaker 4: it was almost impossible for that neutral kind of stance

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Speaker 4: to be expressed.

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Speaker 3: I think about some of the pieces Paul Kelly has written,

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Speaker 3: and I think it was very clear, perhaps even a

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Speaker 3: couple of weeks out from what happened in Israel, that

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Speaker 3: this issue was going to have such enormous institutional reach

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Speaker 3: that it would be impossible for people.

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Speaker 5: To ignore it.

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Speaker 3: Now, that's not to say by and large the public

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Speaker 3: in Australia knew intimately what was going on in Gaza,

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Speaker 3: perhaps even cared.

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Speaker 5: But because.

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Speaker 3: The protests, demonstrations, the naked acts of anti Semitism at

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Speaker 3: universities say, it meant that people that were in charge

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Speaker 3: of institutions needed to respond. Things were happening fast, and

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Speaker 3: because of that, I think it just became an issue

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Speaker 3: that kind of could not be ignored and it became

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Speaker 3: I think a kind of institutional rupture.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I think it's the third in a series of issues

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Speaker 4: that I think because of social media, there was an

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Speaker 4: artificial urgency to have an opinion, and then there was

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Speaker 4: an orthodoxy, particularly in the academic and university sector to

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Speaker 4: have the right kind of opinion. Black lives matter first,

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Speaker 4: then trans rights or the juxtaposition of trans rights and

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Speaker 4: women's rights, and then the Israel Garza conflict.

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Speaker 2: I wonder what the kind of social media content.

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Speaker 4: Creators who have just stepped into this, I think quite

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Speaker 4: cynically as a content area are going to do next.

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Speaker 2: It's going to have to be something else.

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Speaker 3: I think the social media point is interesting, and I

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Speaker 3: know there's many great pieces in here that pick up

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Speaker 3: on this, which is that for many people who are

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Speaker 3: of university age, we would think that being anti Zionists

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Speaker 3: or being anti Semitics, say, is just part of the

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Speaker 3: kind of progressive package, and it might also belong next

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Speaker 3: to radical climate action and so.

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Speaker 2: On, decolonizing the curriculum exactly.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we know all the we know all these

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Speaker 3: kind of themes that are core to that package. But equally,

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Speaker 3: I think that's tricky territory because anti Semitism is something

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Speaker 3: that's very specific and has a long history. So I

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Speaker 3: think it's difficult because on the one hand, it's very unique,

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Speaker 3: and I think when we saw a lot of it

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Speaker 3: play out on our streets and at university campuses or

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Speaker 3: even in workplaces, that somehow it's still picking up on

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Speaker 3: old strands of a very ancient idea. So even if

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Speaker 3: it is part of some weird, woke package or whatever,

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Speaker 3: it actually is still unique, different and dangerous.

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Speaker 1: Coming up more of Claire Harvey's conversation with commentary editor

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Speaker 1: Nick Jensen.

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Speaker 4: I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about this,

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Speaker 4: and I think one of the things that this has

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Speaker 4: revealed for me is that there's a latent antisemitism under

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Speaker 4: the surface from the progressive end of politics, or people

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Speaker 4: who think that they're progressives right over to the far

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Speaker 4: right and people who think that they're they want to

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Speaker 4: be fashions. Were you shocked by the fact that anti

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Speaker 4: Semitism was running underneath us.

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Speaker 5: As Yeah, I was shocked.

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Speaker 3: I'm not Jewish, so perhaps I wouldn't be alive to

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Speaker 3: it in the same way as a Jewish person would,

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Speaker 3: of course. But you know, Australia has a proud history

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Speaker 3: of proud Jewish history, and Jeffrey Blaine's Magnificent Essay, which

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Speaker 3: is in this book sets it out very well. Jews

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Speaker 3: have been here since the founding of Australia, since seven

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Speaker 3: eighty eight. They've made enormous contributions in political life, in

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Speaker 3: philanthropy and business, in medicine universities. So much so to

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Speaker 3: see this kind of recrudescence of something that I felt

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Speaker 3: never really belonged here was a shock.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I mean I have lots of Jewish friends, sort of

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Speaker 4: by accident. I've always had friends who were Jewish who

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Speaker 4: are in and out of my life. From school, and

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Speaker 4: I vividly remember being a schoolgirl sitting on the bus

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Speaker 4: in Canberra with my friend who had Israeli heritage, and

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Speaker 4: two boys in the seat behind us. One of them

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Speaker 4: said to the other, can I borrow a dollar? This

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Speaker 4: is the eighties, win a dollar would actually boy quite.

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Speaker 2: A lot of lollies.

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Speaker 4: And the other one said no, and he said, oh,

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Speaker 4: you're such a Jew. And my friend turned around and

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Speaker 4: gave him an absolute tongue lashing. And that was my

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Speaker 4: first experience of vicarious anti Semitism. I felt it through

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Speaker 4: her deep emotional reaction, and I was so shocked that

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Speaker 4: it was a thing to call someone Jewish for being stingy.

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Speaker 2: So I've always been aware that it existed.

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Speaker 4: I think what has saddened me, and this is a

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Speaker 4: bit the same about the trans and women's rights issue. Really,

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Speaker 4: I think there's a latent misogyny in our society and

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Speaker 4: lack of understanding about what feminism is all about and

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Speaker 4: what women's spaces are for. And I think it's the

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Speaker 4: same thing Judaism in anti Semitism. It runs underneath and

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Speaker 4: it doesn't take much to pierce the surface and for

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Speaker 4: it to come out.

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Speaker 3: It would be interesting to see what if we transplanted

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Speaker 3: events back ten twenty years, what they would be like.

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Speaker 3: I think one thing that would be different is that

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Speaker 3: we would have institutions that exercise authority in a way

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Speaker 3: that they don't do anymore. I think that's been a

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Speaker 3: massive part of all of this, which is parts of

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Speaker 3: an institution will rebel, they'll take up an activist cause

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Speaker 3: they'll feel strongly about it. Now toy extent, there's nothing

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Speaker 3: wrong with that, But each institution, say, universities governed by

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Speaker 3: their own codified principles, and it's up to the boss

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Speaker 3: to exercise those and that just has not happened.

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Speaker 4: They were terrified of their own student body, weren't they. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: the encampments is a great example of that.

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Speaker 5: The Encompent's a great example.

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Speaker 3: And I mean we published a piece by Mark Scott,

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Speaker 3: who's a vice chancellor of Sydney University.

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Speaker 5: Now I don't want to verbal him, but I remember.

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Speaker 3: That piece very clearly, which was essentially presenting a very

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Speaker 3: high bar for free speech that's to say these encampments

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Speaker 3: should go ahead. These students exercising their free speech. Now,

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Speaker 3: obviously that was complicated a bit when students would going

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Speaker 3: into lecture halls and say, you need to listen to me,

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Speaker 3: you need to listen to my views on what's happening

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Speaker 3: in Gaza. I mean, that's a clear infringement of a

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Speaker 3: student's right to be taught without interruption and so on.

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Speaker 3: But what I found really interesting about the argument he

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Speaker 3: said out there was that by his own standard, he

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Speaker 3: is essentially saying it would have been fine if, say,

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Speaker 3: a far right group encamped out the front of Sydney

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Speaker 3: University and said awful things about indigenous students or awful

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Speaker 3: things about LGBTQI students. Do we really think that the

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Speaker 3: university would have accepted that.

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Speaker 5: No, No, of course not.

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Speaker 4: And the opportunity for pro Israel or pro Jewish students

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Speaker 4: to stage a matching demonstration was limited by the fact that,

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Speaker 4: as Jewish people, I think have long felt in Western society,

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Speaker 4: they wanted to not make themselves a target. They wanted

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Speaker 4: to recede. A few very courageous people did take that action.

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Speaker 4: I felt for them it was scary.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, No, there were some very brave people that put

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Speaker 3: themselves Adam and Limb, didn't they.

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Speaker 4: So one of the things about this book is that

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Speaker 4: in journalism and newspapers, we sit on a vast inventory

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Speaker 4: content that we've published over sixty years of this Masthead alone,

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Speaker 4: and we don't often do anything with that inventory do

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Speaker 4: We don't dredge it up.

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Speaker 5: This incredible archive.

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Speaker 4: We do, but it's down in the basement and of

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Speaker 4: sunch of dusty binders, and we can go and have

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Speaker 4: a look at it. And it's a little bit more

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Speaker 4: available now thanks to the digitization of journalism. But it's

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Speaker 4: beautiful to have this kind of analogue version of it, isn't.

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Speaker 5: It It is? It's been beautifully produced by our colleagues.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm here plugging it, but I have to say,

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Speaker 3: apart from the commissioning stages and knowing some of these

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Speaker 3: pieces relatively well, it's been wonderfully produced by our colleagues.

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Speaker 3: What I like about it, Claire, I don't know what

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Speaker 3: you think, but it sets out of chronology. A lot

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Speaker 3: of things have happened, so this sets it out. So

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Speaker 3: it's a testament of record, but it's also a testament

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Speaker 3: of well Australia.

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Speaker 5: I suppose.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas Jensen is The Australian's commentary editor. He was speaking

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Speaker 1: with Claire Harvey Diferent Country features commentary by Henry Ergas,

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Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, Greg Craven and others. And it's available now.

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Speaker 1: Plus you can read Australia's best commentary right now at

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Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au