Last week in Melbourne, I set out to gauge the public mood ahead of the May 3 federal election. But instead of just a few chats about politics, I found myself face-to-face with the kind of casual Jew-hatred that's become all too common in this country.

It started off light. I joked with a bloke walking a tiny dog — clearly not built for his size — and we had a laugh. But when I asked him about the election, he told me he wasn’t excited. “It seems like whoever you choose, nothing happens,” he said. Fair enough.

And when I asked whether he thought Australia was divided, things took a turn. “There's no order in Australia at the moment,” he said, adding that the weekly anti-Israel protests had made an impact on him. He sympathised with their cause and said, “It just seems like the Palestinians, you know, they're just copping it and nothing's getting done.”

I asked what he actually knew about the Palestinian cause. He admitted, “It’s been brought to my life more after October 7,” but quickly grew hesitant, saying he didn’t want to create “drama.” Still, he blurted out a dangerous trope: “There’s a lot more that the media doesn’t put on TV … because they’re run by Jews.”

Victoria Police stopped ‘upholding the right’ and became the lapdogs of the far left in 2020

No wonder why they struggle to recruit https://t.co/TLRUC9Sf88

— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) April 6, 2025

That’s when I stepped in. “So you think the problem is the Jews?” I asked. He backpedalled: “I prefer not to comment on that.” But his mask had already slipped.

When pressed for proof, he had none. He couldn’t name a single Jewish person running the media in Australia. “I don’t have facts,” he admitted. And that’s exactly the problem.

This wasn’t a hate-filled encounter. It was a civil conversation with someone who clearly hadn’t thought it through. I reminded him that Jews are a tiny minority — under 20 million worldwide — and that Israel, like Australia, is a Western democracy. If terrorists abducted his kids, wouldn’t he want his government to do everything to get them back? He nodded: “Yeah.”

I hope this bloke walked away with a bit more understanding. Because it’s these quiet, unexamined views — based on nothing — that are tearing us apart.

PETITION: Protect The Jews in Australia

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Goal: 20,000 signatures

Sign this petition to call on authorities to take immediate and decisive action to protect Jewish places of worship, bring those responsible for these attacks to justice, and send a clear message that antisemitism will not be tolerated in any form.

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