Once again, the ABC becomes a mouthpiece for Zionist ideology

Once again, the ABC acts as a mouthpiece for Zionist ideology. On the 7th of May on a special 7:30 report, presumably as an adjunct to the commencement of the Royal Commission deliberations, the recounting of the experience of an Australian Jew, Peter Halas, a Holocaust survivor. The story, narrated by Adam Harvey, is masterclass in Zionist propaganda.

Of course, we can acknowledge the grief and trauma of those who experience the Holocaust. For most Australians, this goes without saying. When I taught history, not content with simply teaching the facts, I had my students construct a version of a Holocaust Museum in the classroom (incidentally the first in Queensland) built on my experiences at Yad Vashem. It was graphic and confronting and during the period in which we studied the era, students could only enter the classroom having navigated through a tunnel of ‘walls’ that showed grim statistics, confronting images and heart-breaking stories. I was serious about getting the message through to the students in the most visceral way possible within a classroom.

What should have happened after the Holocaust is that German should have restored Jews to their rightful place in society, their property and houses returned and compensation paid to victims so that they could rebuild their lives. Instead, money was paid to a new state that occupied territory that had been populated by few Jews for millennia.

What is irksome in the extreme is the way that Harvey, 7:30 producers and the ABC build a Zionist rationale for occupation based on tragedies. It is the most cynical of propaganda tools, taking our natural empathy and directed it to serve a political purpose.

We are led into the story with a rosy perspective on the experience of new arrivals to Australia in 1957 that Peter Halas describes as ‘heaven’. Like all earthly heavens, built for the few on the misery of the multitudes, Australia still maintained the White Australia policy, not extinguished until decades later. Halas was, presumably, ‘sufficiently white’ to be admitted. Harvey simply chooses to ignore this context.

Touting video of the casual lifestyle of Bondi, Harvey completely ignores the central point of this story.

Peter survived the Holocaust. His mother was murdered by Hungarian Nazis. His father was sent to a concentration camp. That experience created a deep, understandable need for safety and for a homeland where Jews would never again be at the mercy of a hostile state. That is the Zionist promise: never again, and Israel as the guarantor of that promise.

That promise for Jews came not through the restoration of their place as citizens of Europe, but through the nakba (catastrophe) for Palestinians in 1948, and through ongoing military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza blockade, and settler colonialism. From a Palestinian perspective, the creation of a Jewish ‘safe haven’ was also the destruction of their own society.

Peter’s response to the slogan “Globalise the Intifada” is that it calls for the obliteration of Israel and of all Jews. He hears only existential threat. He does not acknowledge that for many Palestinians, the chant is a cry against a military occupation that has lasted over 50 years, involving land seizure, checkpoints, home demolitions, and daily humiliation. He does not acknowledge the real trauma of those who would rather die as martyrs by strapping bombs to themselves than live in a Gazan concentration camp.

Ironically, Peter, a Jew who experienced the zenith of European antisemitism, now considers returning to Hungary – the country where his mother was murdered – because he feels unsafe in Australia. Why not Israel? This entirely undercuts the Zionists claim of Israel as refuge. It is not. Demonstrably so.

A Zionist ideologue might say: The fact that Peter feels unsafe in Australia and is considering leaving proves the Zionist point – Jews are never safe in the diaspora. He should go to Israel, not Hungary.

But Peter doesn’t say that. He doesn’t mention moving to Israel. He mentions Hungary. That is striking. It suggests that even for a Holocaust survivor, the calculus of safety is not simply “Jewish state = safe, diaspora = unsafe.” Personal history, family, language, and quality of life matter. And it also suggests that the current rise in antisemitism in Australia and globally, much of it linked to anger at Israel’s actions in Gaza, has made Jewish life precarious in ways that Israel itself cannot fix – because the hostility is a response to Israel’s on-going genocide in Gaza.

That is a deeply uncomfortable truth for Zionism: Israel’s actions can make diaspora Jews less safe. Israel’s actions in Gaza are directly causal to the tragedies and antisemitism that have occurred in Australia. Any Grade 8 Maths student can correlate the genocide in Gaza and anti-Semitic attacks in Australia. It is cause and effect.

The real meaning of “Globalise the intifada” is to take the struggle of the Gazan people, who have no power, to the world. We did it with South Africa. It is possible, through opposition to Zionist propaganda and attempts to control policy, to change the outcomes. It is an entirely legitimate call for global action, not unprecedented or strangely immoral.

The 7:30 piece never intended to add context to Peter’s tragic story. It only intended to address Zionist talking points in a cynical and deceitful way. Once again, the ABC has served the Zionist project well.