There was a time when I could watch films and documentaries and read books and first-hand accounts of what happened to European Jewry under the Nazis. But there was always a proviso in this, namely the notion that I was dealing with history, with the past. Believing the Holocaust belonged to the 1940s, a terrible aberration that could never happen again, made it possible to learn about what had taken place. It was inconceivable that such a thing could occur again, the lessons of the past had been learnt.

How wrong I was. 7 October 2023 and 14 December 2025 shattered any illusion that antisemitism on that scale had been consigned to the past. It has re-emerged as potent as ever, with the same aim, to erase Jews both figuratively and literally from the earth. So, I ask myself, how did this come about? How did ‘never again’ become ‘it’s happening again’?

How did antisemitism undergo a metamorphosis, from being viewed as a serious character flaw in those espousing it, to its reinvention as a virtue? In the minds of so many today, particularly the young, antisemitism is an essential component of the social justice worldview. Modern progressivism embraces certain tenets that cannot be challenged, with antisemitism perhaps the most potent. It drives disruption in major cities every weekend and causes Jews young and old to live in fear, while coarsening society as a whole. It’s become permissible hate.

Antisemitism has been rehabilitated by groups who have placed it as a cornerstone of their thinking. They’ve made Jew-hatred respectable again by appropriating antisemitic tropes and presenting them as legitimate criticisms of Jews. It’s cool to be antisemitic, it takes no courage to bully such a small group of people, just don a keffiyeh and you’re part of a movement.

The world’s oldest hatred never went away, but since 1945 it has never been celebrated in the mainstream, as it is today. This can only signal a change of attitude, a reversal of the shame that once accompanied such an attitude and kept it confined to hard-core pockets of bigotry. Antisemitism has well and truly come out of the closet and presented itself as compassion for the underdog, rather than its previous incarnation as the oldest form of racism.

Indispensable to this process has been the renaming of Jew-hatred as anti-Zionism. ‘I’m not an antisemite, I’m an anti-Zionist,’ is the refrain. So, anti-Zionism is bundled into anti-colonial critiques, and by association Jews become colonial oppressors. Zionism is a gift to antisemites, providing as it does cover to sprout any smear; hatred in a good cause, so to speak. It’s the parliamentary privilege of hate speech; it can’t be challenged or repudiated and there are few repercussions, moral or legal to anti-Zionist extremism. In fact, it’s getting worse by the week. It’s a matter of faith that Zionism is oppressive. Everyone hates a bully, and Zionists are bullies, so the thinking goes. It’s a tortuous path, but it leads to the rehabilitation of Jew-hatred as a moral imperative embraced and celebrated by so-called progressives. It’s the latest string in the anti-Jew bow and a moral contortion that would not be applied to any other group.

It’s a tactic that has been effective, to the extent that the continuous, five-thousand-year Jewish connection to Israel is denied. For anti-Zionists, Jews didn’t set foot in Israel until 1948. They are interlopers, who deserve condemnation for oppressing the legitimate owners of the land; ignorance of history is a great ally in rehabilitating evil and creating false narratives, particularly among the young who have been fed propaganda instead. Slogans are all that matter to the anti-Zionists, but they provide a powerful rallying point for attacking Israel’s right to exist and its status as the legitimate historical home of the Jews.

Slogans give credence to the smears that have facilitated modern antisemitism; a kind of shorthand, encapsulating all the libels past and present. Anti-Zionism is the modern, respectable face of antisemitism; it’s the get-out-of-jail card that shields from any criticism or scrutiny of anti-Jewish hate.

Ground Zero for the resurgence and acceptance of antisemitism has been the university campus. Academics, administrators and students alike have provided the pseudo-intellectual basis for persecuting Jews. This has occurred worldwide and to our great shame at Australian universities, where the cowardice of those in charge has signalled a profound failure to demonstrate moral leadership. Instead of providing a place for rational debate, universities have descended into intolerant battlefields, where Jews must literally run the gauntlet to attend classes or enter exam rooms and libraries, in essence to participate in campus life. Again, the depiction of Israel as a colonial behemoth is used to justify the abuse.

However, free speech does not cover incitement to violence, a distinction universities have failed to make in their tortuous appeasement of campus hate-mongers. Narratives worthy of the 1930s have been tolerated. By providing legitimacy, through lack of leadership, universities have been complicit in the savagery that has been seen on campuses around the world. There is no context in which threats to kill Jews is justified, despite what some chancellors of Ivy League institutions may argue.

Cultural Marxism made its own contribution to the rehabilitation of antisemitism, as it marched through the institutions of the West. We have only to look at British Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and the indifference of politicians throughout the Anglosphere towards the current plight of the Jews, to appreciate how ingrained it has become. It’s in the DNA of the modern left. The refusal of politicians to confront and condemn antisemitism has given it respectability. Tolerance of the extremism demonstrated on the Opera House steps on 9 October, 2023 led directly to the massacre at Bondi. Threats of violence have consequences: ‘Where are the Jews?’ is a pretty clear indication of intent. ‘All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.’ Tolerance of terrorism is ultimately licence to commit terrorism.

The Intifada came to Australia precisely because antisemitism was not condemned by those in positions of leadership, in all walks of life. Politicians who can spot a micro-aggression from a mile away are silent in the face of real violence directed at Jews. It’s not conscience that makes cowards of us all but political expediency. The refusal of politicians and others to condemn this re-incarnation of 1930s Germany has provided fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish and create foot soldiers to spread the message. Their silence has allowed antisemitism to become mainstream, by allowing latter-day Brownshirts to take over universities and other institutions with impunity. Decades of window-dressing and commitments to inclusion just don’t cut it when people’s lives are in danger.

Another source of the resurgence in antisemitism has been the role of the mainstream media in reporting the conduct of the war in Gaza. It’s simple: Israel bad, Hamas good. Any smear against Israel is reported with relish and without any scrutiny as to the source. Basic journalistic principles don’t apply to reporting on Israel; any slur is taken at face value, which provides a steady stream of feigned outrage among the elites.

Once-great news organisations have been reduced to propaganda outlets for terrorists, but the reputational damage has been considerable, with millions moving to platforms like X. Even antisemites need occasional accurate news sources; propaganda will only go so far. In taking on the anti-Jewish assignment the mainstream media has merely accepted a poisoned chalice from which it may not recover.