I love this country. I always have. But after the events of the past 48 hours, I’m no longer sure I can say – with confidence – that I always will.

Yesterday, the Sydney Harbour Bridge – the single most recognisable symbol of our nation – was hijacked by a mob chanting genocidal slogans (from the river to the sea and globalise the intifada) and glorifying leaders of legislatively proscribed terrorist organisations.

And perhaps the most grotesque part? Many marched with full hearts, convinced they were acting in the name of humanity.

For the first time in my life, I understand how ordinary Germans in the 1930s were slowly activated – not through malice, but by a moral inversion that made them believe they were on the side of good.

When confronted with the undeniable rise of antisemitism in Australia, our Prime Minister rightly proclaims that ‘hatred has no place here’ and then promptly announces more funding for Jewish security.

More fences. More guards. More cameras. All to ensure that Australian Jews are kept safely out of sight – barricaded from a public that can no longer be trusted.

And then, in the very next breath, that same Prime Minister joins the international chorus condemning Israel, fanning the flames of the very hatred he claims to oppose.

At some point, Prime Minister, you will have to answer a simple question: Whose interests are you serving when your failure endangers the lives of Jewish citizens?

Hannah Arendt famously spoke of the ‘banality of evil’. I’ve never liked that phrase. It’s too academic, too obscure for the average Australian to fully grasp.

What we’re seeing today isn’t banal – it’s brazen. We’re witnessing the mainstreaming of hatred.

It is now entirely acceptable to hate Jews so long as you do it under the banner of ‘anti-Zionism’.

And yet even that mask is beginning to slip. The chants are louder. The language is cruder. The targets are clearer. And the hatred is less and less ashamed to show its face.

Talk to any number of well-intentioned young people at these rallies and you’ll hear the same recycled lines: ‘Anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism.’ ‘It’s not antisemitic to criticise Israel.’ ‘Look – there are Jews marching with us too.’

Cold comfort.

Tell that to the Mount Scopus students harassed at Melbourne Museum.

Tell it to the families of the Adass synagogue – burned to the ground.

Tell it to the everyday Jewish Australians who feel a surge of fear walking down Swanston Street simply for being recognisably Jewish.

Let me be clear: everyday Australians are now giving permission to genuine antisemites to brazenly display their message and they do it in the name of justice.

Traversing the online sewer that is the modern comment section, I’m still stunned by the brazenness of what passes for acceptable speech.

Under a news article describing the emaciated Evyatar David, an Israeli hostage forced to dig his own grave in a Hamas tunnel, one person wrote, ‘Fake news … but thank you to the photographer. You could’ve got a better angle.’

In another post: ‘Read the room! The world is done with you. Stop trying to hide behind your Jewish propaganda.’

There are no appeals to ‘anti-Zionism’. No academic critique of Israeli policy. Just raw, open hatred posted in plain sight by countless individuals.

This is the new normal. When this kind of dehumanising cruelty isn’t just tolerated, but socially reinforced by silence or support, we are no longer dealing with fringe ideas. We are dealing with a mainstream rot.

And unless this country – its media, its leaders, its institutions – finds the courage to call this what it is, we will learn, too late, what every society that ignored its antisemitism has learned before us:

It never stops at the Jews.