Letter

In response to Peter Slezak’s speech to the University of Technology Sydney rally on 26 March

The failure of Peter Slezak's words

Peter Slezak writes, “In fact, there has never been any antisemitism at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime.”

Peter knows very well that there is, and was, antisemitism in Australia, but he chooses, not merely to discount it, but to reject it entirely.

If he was speaking at a different rally and had said, “In fact, there has never been any Islamophobia at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime”, people in the Muslim community would be shocked at the ignorance of such a statement.

Perhaps that’s the point. Peter wants to shock people in the Jewish community. But to what end? To display his own ignorance of antisemitism?

— Harold Zwier from Melbourne