Isaac Isaacs' legacy

August 25, 2025

Gregory Andrews outlines Sir Isaac Isaac’s opposition to “political Zionism”, a stance that has divided the Jewish community over many years. Writing shortly after World War II, Isaacs foresaw the ongoing conflict: “any attempt to establish Jewish dominance [in Palestine] would inevitably lead to bloodshed.”

Isaacs was a staunch defender to Britain. “[A Jewish state would] threaten not merely the prestige but the integrity of the Empire,” he wrote, also noting that the region experienced a “marvellous transformation” under the British mandate. Historians would likely disagree at just how marvellous the British were after defeating the Ottomans, seizing the region, then abandoning it to decades of conflict.

Andrews claim that Isaacs would “invoke the enduring ideals he believed in: democracy, justice, equality and peaceful coexistence” is questionable. Isaacs, as Andrews acknowledges, was a racist; he also opposed Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi rule being allowed into Australia, saying we shouldn’t “procure the immigration of these unfortunates into Australia".

Andrews could also have pointed out that Isaacs warned against either side (Palestinian Arab and Jewish) submitting to dominance by the other. Attempts to eliminate the state of Israel in 1948, 1967, 1983 and 2023, and Netanyahu’s indefensible policy of occupying Gaza, would confirm this.