Ian Tymms

Aus historian Henry Reynolds: ‘The minister seems to be unaware of what he is proposing — the appointment of a government official to act as a political censor inside the universities to control what can be said or promoted. Will teachers have to present texts of their lectures on demand? Will the Ombudsman look for suspect books in libraries? Does the minister have any concern about institutional autonomy? And all the minister has come up with is that some students “don’t feel safe” on our campuses. Safe from what? And how many students? And, more to the point, how many of our 37 public universities is the minister referring to? Has he any idea himself?.. .. antisemitism.. provides a refuge from the condemnation of the world and an effective barrier against self- reflection.. .. The recent release of a selection of DFAT papers under Freedom of Information relating to advice provided to the government about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank told us a lot about the tactics used to mollify criticism of Israel. As a result, the public has no idea how critical our professional diplomats are of Israel and the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza. The documents present what journalist Michael West called “a litany of war crimes”. What we can conclude from this sample of DFAT advice is that expert opinion is very similar to the views expressed by student activists on the university campuses. What can we make of this? Is DFAT a hive of antisemitism and covert supporters of terrorism?.. .. Members of the present government can’t even utter the word genocide and believe that antisemitism is the most serious problem we have to deal with. Meanwhile, the world looks on amazed by the high-end hypocrisy about which our leaders seem to be scarcely aware.’ Our leaders have their heads in the sand. Antisemitism and our Universities johnmenadue.com/antisemitism…