ABL partner Jeremy Leibler’s testimony before the Royal Commission yesterday generated widespread media coverage across Australia.
The Australian Financial Review reports that Jeremy, who is also national president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, told the Commission that Jewish Australians face antisemitism under a veneer of anti-Zionism, and that he is unsure if the harm it has caused to social cohesion is reversible. AFR state political correspondent Paul Karp writes that: “Leibler on Wednesday told the royal commission, called in response to the Bondi terror attack, that obsessive demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel has given social licence to attack Jewish people.” Karp also covers an exchange between Jeremy and the head of the Royal Commissioner: “Asked by Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell if it was difficult to draw the line between legitimate and excessive criticisms of Israel, Leibler replied that many Jewish people are also highly critical of the Israeli government. But Leibler argued it wasn’t difficult to draw that line, noting Australians had rejected the US war in Iraq without calling for death to American military forces, or boycotting their businesses, or criticising the US’s right to exist.”
The Australian reports on Jeremy’s testimony that since 7 October 2023, ABL has acted pro bono for dozens of Jewish Australians, who saw their livelihoods threatened for refusing to disavow Zionism. Reporter James Downling writes: “Mr Leibler said the rise in antisemitism proved to successful Jewish Australians that their seat at the table was conditional on them rejecting a core part of their Jewish identity. ‘Their success, their contribution to this country, bought them a seat at the table, not with special treatment, but as an equal,” he said. “And they discovered after the 7th of October, very quickly, that that seat was conditional on them rejecting a core part of their Jewish identity: that being their Zionism, their belief in the right of Jewish people to have their own homeland.’”
To read the full article in the AFR, click here (or view the accessible PDF).
To read the full article in the AUS, click here (or view the accessible PDF).
To read Jeremy’s written submission to the Royal Commission, click here.
